Cornell's Peruvian Weaver - Her Tattoos

The top image shows the Peruvian weaver's tattoos, indicated by the arrows, and the bottom image shows the tattoos on mummies as illustrated by Reis and Stubel.

Tattooing seems to be very common in mummies from the Peruvian coast, although the nature, purpose, and designs of the tattoos are not well documented. The most common patterns appear to be lines and dots, such as the dot we see on our mummy, though there is at least one recorded instance of elaborate frog and scroll design on the hands of one man of the Chiribaya culture (ca. 1000 AD), as mentioned in H. Reid (In Search of the Immortals: Mummies, Death, and the Afterlife. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2001).