Visitor Talk: Mar Pereira Gómez | Marked Bodies in the Past: The Pazyryk Culture Case

Abstract

In the past century, excavations of the Pazyryk culture kurgans in the Altai Mountains revealed one of the most remarkable discoveries in archaeology: exceptionally well-preserved mummies with complex zoomorphic tattoo motifs. These findings provided a unique window into ritual practices, identity construction, and cultural networks of the Iron Age steppe. Mar Pereira dissertation examines body modification among steppe nomads from an interdisciplinary perspective, combining archaeology, anthropology, and iconographic studies. Through an operational chain analysis of tattooing and comparison with tattoo traditions in North America, this research seeks to understand the technical and symbolic processes that gave meaning to these bodily marks. Her work represents a renewed synthesis of the role of tattooing in the past, exploring its value as a social, ritual, and cosmological marker within the broader framework of Eurasian protohistory.

Speaker Bio

Mar Pereira Gómez studied Art History at the University of Santiago de Compostela, where she later specialized in Archaeology through a Master’s degree. She is currently a predoctoral researcher at the same university, working on her dissertation in archaeology. Her research focuses on protohistoric tattooing practices in the Pazyryk culture of the Eurasian Steppe, with a particular interest in the role of body modification as a medium for identity-making and symbolic communication in Iron Age nomadic societies.