The corpse owed its preservation to ………

The Russian team that looks after Lenin's mummy has been put in charge of preserving a 3000-year-old tattooed man. Moscow's Centre for Biological Structures took delivery of the natural mummy soon after it was discovered in Siberia this summer next to the body of a horse. Siberia's permafrost had preserved the man named the Horseman- so well that his red hair is still attached to his skull and the tattoo of a large elk can still be made out across his back and chest. He had been buried wearing embroidered trousers, a fur coat and high boots. Without treatment his body would very quickly deteriorate because of exposure to heat and light. His skin would darken, making his tattooing invisible. Experts at the centre hope to prevent this, as they have succeeded in doing with another corpse. In 1932, a 2.400 year-old woman, also tattooed, was found in the same area high in the Altai mountains, and rushed to the Centre. Once the decay of the woman was halted, anthropologists managed to re-create her face by studying her skull. Once the Horseman is similarly preserved, a process that begins by placing his remains in a chemical bath, he will also have his face reconstructed. He is then to be displayed across Russia in a travelling exhibition.