| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Subject | The Lady of Cao |
| Tyyppi | Henkilö |
| Aikakausi | Classical |
| Sijainti | Huaca Cao Viejo · El Brujo, Chicama Valley, Peru |
| Päivämäärä | 450 CE |
| Style / Technique | Moche zoomorphic tattooing in charcoal pigment, felines, snakes, spiders, and moon animals on forearms, hands, and feet |
| Yhteydessä kohteeseen | Ötzi Iceman, Chinchorro-muumiot, The Chancay Laser-tatuoinnit (2025) |
Arkistohuomautus
She was excavated from 2005 to 2006 by Regulo Franco Jordan and his team at the Huaca Cao Viejo temple in the El Brujo complex in the Chicama Valley, and her naturally mummified body is the best-documented tattooed individual of the pre-Columbian Americas. The find challenged the assumption that Moche leadership was exclusively male: she was wrapped in fine cotton bundles and buried with gold ornaments, crowns, and war clubs, the regalia of a ruler. Her tattoos, applied with a carbon-based pigment, run mainly across her arms, hands, and fingers, depicting felines and snakes on the forearms, spiders and crabs on the hands, and the Moon Animal, a key Moche deity, on the upper limbs. The imagery is read as marking both supreme political authority and a spiritual role bridging the human and divine worlds.