World's Oldest Tattoo Written In Soot 68
ewenc writes "A series of tattoos belonging to Otzi the 5300 year-old Tyrolean Iceman are made of soot, reports New Scientist. Mountain climbers discovered Otzi's mummified body in the Austrian-Italian alps in 1991. What's left of his skin was littered with simple cross and line markings. Electron microscopy and spectroscopy now show that Otzi's tats are made of double-bonded carbon indicative of soot, as well as silicate crystals that probably came from rocks surrounding a fire pit."
Tattoos or mody scarring? (Score:2, Interesting)
Maybe they we burned in with hot rock edges?
Re:But what about.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Acupunture points. (Score:1, Interesting)
Clothing would have obscured most of the designs, which are of crosses and bands of lines. Some are located near acupuncture points.
Some of the tattoos are near acupuncture areas. Not only were our ancestors playing bone flutes 35,000 years ago [slashdot.org], but were also doing primitive medicine 5300 years ago. (Note homeopathic)
To me that is just amazing.
Accidently tattooed myself (Score:2, Interesting)
While I admire artistic tattoos, I probably won't get one for myself. The idea of something on my skin that is forever, but is perhaps not looking good or cool forever repels me.
But when I was a kid, I accidentally tattooed myself, atleast with one dot of ink :-)
It was in arts education in school. We did calligraphy with old fashioned dip pens. I had the habit then to gnaw on all my writing utensils like pencils, pens etc. So I did that with my dip pen too. Something fell on the floor, I bent down to get it and ...ouch... I had the tip of the nib in my thigh. It's still a small greenish dot after 30 years.