The tattoo on the Ice Maiden’s left shoulder — the first tattoo visible to the archaeologists as the ice melted away, the tattoo that would become the most reproduced and discussed image from the discovery — deserves specific and extended attention.

Polosmak described it as “a brilliant blue tattoo of a magnificent griffin-like creature.” The History Channel’s treatment of the discovery calls the creature one “with a griffin’s beak, a deer’s head and majestic antlers tipped with flowers.” These descriptions capture the hybrid, composite nature of the figure: it is assembled from elements of multiple real animals (deer, large bird of prey) and combines them into something that could not exist in nature.

This kind of hybrid figure is central to the Pazyryk animal style and to the broader Scythian artistic tradition.

The hybrids are not random combinations; they appear to follow specific rules.