900-year-old polar princess ...with hair and eyelashes!
HER long eyelashes and flowing locks are perfectly preserved, but this haunting face has seen nine centuries pass by.
A mummified ‘polar princess’ has been found near the Arctic Circle after archaeologists unwrapped her from the fur in which she was buried in permafrost soil. Aged around 35, she was the only woman buried with around 30 men in the 12th century.
Her eyelashes and teeth are in immaculate condition, as is her full head of hair.
The green tinge on her face is from the fragments of a copper kettle apparently intended to aid her in the afterlife.
The fragments had the unintended consequence of preserving her head.
The mummy was dug up in the Zeleny Yar burial site near Salekhard, Russia.
She was a member of a medieval hunting and fishing civilisation, and as the lone female, it is believed she was an elite member of her social group. However, aside from several bronze temple rings found close to her head, there was no other jewellery.
Alexander Gusev, from Russia’s Arctic research centre, said: ‘This radically changes our concept about this graveyard.
‘Previously we thought that there were only adult men and children, but now we have a woman. It’s amazing.’
Russian and South Korean scientists will now analyse the remains to understand more about the lives of early polar settlers.