The tattoo on the Ice Maiden’s left shoulder — the most celebrated and best preserved of her tattoos — depicted what Polosmak described as a “magnificent griffin-like creature.” The figure had the beak of a griffin, the head and antlers of a deer, with the antlers tipped with flowers.

This is a creature that does not exist in nature; it is a composite being assembled from the bodies of multiple real animals, a product of a specific iconographic tradition.

The Pazyryk animal style — the artistic vocabulary in which this tattoo is executed — is one of the most distinctive art traditions of the ancient world.

It is characterized by figures of animals in dynamic, often contorted postures, with bodies that curl and twist in ways that emphasize their energy and power.

Predators devouring prey, deer in mid-leap, fantastic hybrid creatures — these images appear across every medium that the Pazyryk worked in, from gold plaques small enough to be worn as earrings to the enormous felt hangings that decorated the walls of aristocratic tents.