Over the past twenty years or so, tattoos have gone from being something worn by bikers and criminals to just about everyone. Ask anyone about their tattoos and you’ll probably get a story, although sometimes people have work done because it “looked cool.”
Researchers in Italy have been using technology used by art historians to uncover the meaning of the 61 tattoos they discovered on a perfectly-preserved 5,300-year-old iceman.
The iceman, affectionately known as Ötzi, was discovered by German tourists on a mountain on the border between Austria and Italy in 1991. It’s believed he weighed about 110 pounds and stood at about 5’ 3” before his violent death on the mountain.
Twenty years after being discovered, researchers found he had an arrowhead lodged in his left shoulder and a matching tear on his coat. It’s believed that he was killed in a skirmish involving three other people.
Ötzi is Europe’s oldest known natural human mummy and his surprisingly intact body has yielded a treasure trove of knowledge about the lives of humans living in the Copper Age.
Since 1991, scientists have been investigating Ötzi’s skin to find tattoos and discover their meaning. The tattoos are black, made with ink derived from charcoal and herbs.
Some of the tattoos were visible when the body was first discovered, but more have been found using a camera with specialized lenses that can distinguish the ink from his mummified skin.
Recently, tattoo number 61 was found on his ribcage. The discovery “was a big surprise because we didn’t expect to see a new tattoo,” said Albert Zink, the study’s senior researcher and head of the Institute for Mummies and the Iceman at the European Research Academy in Italy.
All of Ötzi’s tattoos consist of black lines that range in length from 0.3 inches to 1.6 inches. Most are arranged in groupings of parallel lines and two of them, on the left Achilles tendon and the right knee, are plus signs.
So the question remains, are the tattoos religious? Tribal? Therapeutic? Or did the iceman just have a little too much mead one night in his 20s and get a few lines tatted on his body?
It’s believed by some researchers that the tattoos were created for therapeutic reasons. Many of the tattoos are on Ötzi’s joints and lower back — places that could have been sources of pain for the 45-year-old man.
“Many people think that it was a kind of treatment because most of the tattoos are very close to areas where he probably suffered from pain,” Zink said.
The lines on his body could have been part of an ancient treatment akin to acupuncture.
Life 5,300 years ago was a lot harder on the body because proper medical care was nonexistent. An injury that we’d get over in a few weeks in today’s world could linger for a lifetime back then.
The tattoo discovered most recently is located on his ribcage. Zink speculates that Ötzi may have suffered from chest pain.
Humans have been getting tattoos for thousands of years and although they’ve done so for numerous reasons one truth holds true for all of them: they’re permanent. So permanent, that 5300 years after Ötzi’s death, we can still see them.
So, if you decide to get a tattoo, choose wisely.
Photo Credit: Washington Post, Wikimedia Commons, Journal of Cultural Heritage.
