The Siberian Ice Maiden was found in 1993 by Russian archeologists in the Altay Mountains. The large wooden burial chamber had flooded with water, and turned to solid ice. She was 2400 years old and came from a mysterious nomadic group of people that sacrificed animals, valued possessions, and were the fiercest of warriors. The Ice Maiden was part of the Pazyryk tribe. They had the extraordinary ability to migrate over very, very vast distances, and they had a very substantial and surprising aspect of material wealth. They were militarists in constant combat, one group with another, and tales of Pazyryk warriors so fierce they would drink from the skulls of their victims are not uncommon. Women, too, charged into battle; women archers would even cut off a breast in order to draw their bow string better. Pazyryk legend says that no maiden may marry until she has killed a man of the enemy.

She was buried alone -- not a mistress or concubine -- but a very powerful figure in her own right. The Ice Maiden was arranged lying as if asleep because the Pazyryk believed they never died, but simply passed on to another world. On her left arm, the right thumb, and then again on her left shoulder were amazing tattoos. She was 5 foot 6, extremely tall for her time -- as tall as many of the powerful men found in the richest Pazyryk graves. It is estimated that The Ice Maiden was killed when she was about 25 years old.

This young woman, buried with such ceremony, with her body covered in tattoos, was no ordinary member of society. She may have held a special position because she was blessed with a talent valued in that society. She could have been a shaman, or had the ability to heal people or predict the weather. It is also likely that the Ice Maiden was a story teller, someone who told stories and memorized the history and myths of her people.

Many archeologists and scientists that disturbed the sacred tomb experienced frequent nightmares – extremely violent ones. In one particular nightmare, an archeologist described a grisly and hideous act of clawing and hooking the eyes out of other people. The dig and transport of the Ice Maiden was plagued with curious problems and setbacks that were interpreted by many on the team as a sort of curse or warning from the grave.

Oddly enough, in 1995 or so, I saw this program on the Discovery Channel when it first aired. It remained in the back of my head until something made me think of it again, and I went on a search for this program that I had a vague memory of. After finding it, I became interested in it very much. While I was unable to get specific images of the tattoos or other burial items, I decided to embrace the idea of the Ice Maiden, rather than focus specifically on the historical objects of her burial chamber. I wanted to create this beautiful image of a woman not quite frozen, not quite dead – something ghostly. The hardest part of this piece was making the skin appear cold, not frozen. When a person’s skin gets very cold it gets blotchy; white skin with red blotches, and I wanted to give it that feel – to make her appear still alive, but still very cold.

All in all, I am very happy with this piece. I focused more on the details of this one image, rather than trying to use multiple images to make the piece. The composition of this particular piece of art was very much geared for only one image and it gives it a great feel of solitude. Shipped rolled.