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."
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Plenty from Dec. 31st, 1969!
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slashdot was started in Sept 1997 though. Site called "chips and dips" preceded it, that started in July of 1997
rats... (Score:2)
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Re:But what about.... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:But what about.... (Score:4, Funny)
One would assume initially he's being unsettled by the new layout as he elaborates further on it, appearantly referencing to the first sentence.
But after closer analysis (reading it twice), the elaboration is a contradiction if he's speaking in a figurative speech. ("that boiled my blood; I thought it was damn cool looking.") unless, back in 1999, the boiling of blood would be a favourative state of being that is "cool".
To me, it seems the boiling of his blood is thus to be taken literally and the article could be about a DIY-project which could result in blood being boiled due to possible high pressure, dating back to prerecorded history.
I think it's safe to assume that the first poster on slashdot forgot to build his own pressure-suit making his blood boil and so agreeing with a poster who made the notion to take this into account. A pressure-suit of his time would be important to be though of attempting a simular endeavour which is communicated in the collaborative context, while expressing out his appreciation for the new environment which started the historical record for slashdot.
I propose the honouring of "Anonymous Coward" and to make a historical figure out of him. (record shows, in 1999, female presence was neglectable and the often found '18/F' notion was not, as priorly assumed, an indication of age and sex. So the assumpsion "Anonymous Coward" was a male has a 99% probability.)
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Are we still being neglected?
Carol (token female presence)
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Yes we female techies form a negligible presence - but we never like to be neglected.
Carol
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I knew it was something I was doing wrong....
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BTW, whatcha wearin?
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Actually I found that [archive.org]. The earliest comment is from "Jan 09 1998" and reads: "Well, I just tested this modified patch on my NT 4.0sp3 machine. It's still standing."
What do I win?
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and the Iceman probably had frosty piss
Tattoos or mody scarring? (Score:2, Interesting)
Maybe they we burned in with hot rock edges?
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George Orwell spent some time writing about english coal miners, and he said that they all had blue tattoos on their heads and back. This was because every time they bumped into something the wounds would get filled with coal dust. The wounds would heal over and the dust would stay forming a tattoo.
I have a few lines on my fingertips because they got pretty cut up when I was learning to play guitar. This was at the same time I was working at a warehouse where it was impossible to keep my hands clean for m
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or a neander scrawl
Otzi--early nanotech researcher? (Score:2)
I wonder if there were any bucky balls or carbon nanotubes in that soot?
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Undoubtedly. One of the main ways of making nanotubes is to generate a bunch of soot, then separate out the tubes.
So Ã-tzi (Score:1)
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.
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That's not amazing.
'Some of which are near' - put dozens of lines and crosses on the body, OF COURSE some of them are going to be 'near' acturepuncture points/areas (which ever one you mean).
Nothing to see here, move along.
Re:Acupunture points. (Score:5, Insightful)
According to Wikipedia, there's about 360 acupuncture [wikipedia.org] points. According to the article, the guy's skin was "littered with tattoos".
Birthday paradox, anyone?
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Whatever. You are talking about 11 tattoos and over 300 acupuncture points (and, actually, different sources almost double that number of acupuncture points). It would be remarkable if all the tattoos were not near some acupuncture point.
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Some of the tattoos are near acupuncture areas. Not only were our ancestors playing bone flutes 35,000 years ago, but were also doing primitive medicine 5300 years ago. (Note homeopathic)
His body was "littered" with tattoos and some are near acupuncture points?
Colour me surprised!
Oh, and sticking needles into people can have an actual measurable effect. Therefore it's not homeopathic. Even the WHO agrees apparently.
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[citation needed]
You fail AC.
That factoid is cited on the very place you make fun of with your homorous [citation needed]. But nevermind, here's the link for you [wikipedia.org] since you weren't even willing to look at at least the Wikipedia page yourself.
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Oh, and sticking needles into people can have an actual measurable effect. Therefore it's not homeopathic.
Are you implying homeopathic medicine has no effect on people? i.e. same as a placebo?
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Are you implying homeopathic medicine has no effect on people? i.e. same as a placebo?
Yes of course.
Are you suggesting that a solution diluted until there are no measurable levels of any active ingredient has any effect beyond that of plain water?
If so you'd better be writing this up because you'll get Nobel Prizes for chemistry, physics and medicine. Not to mention $1,000,000 from the James Randi Education Foundation.
This is the point in the discussion where someone will either mention their great aunt's
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Are you suggesting that a solution diluted until there are no measurable levels of any active ingredient has any effect beyond that of plain water?
Dogs can detect molecules on the order of a couple parts per million, far below our level of detection. They can also smell cancer, and can tell the difference between different kinds of internal cancer just by smelling the skin. They have also been shown to be able to predict seizures, and hypoglycemic attacks.
Most of what dogs can do we dont know how they do it because we cant detect what they can. Just because we cannot detect low levels, doesn't mean they are not there nor have any effect.
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Dogs can detect molecules on the order of a couple parts per million, far below our level of detection. They can also smell cancer, and can tell the difference between different kinds of internal cancer just by smelling the skin.
And your point would be? If I dilute alcohol to the limits very of detection will it still get me drunk? And what of the homoeopathic solutions which have been diluted to the point that they don't contain a single molecule of the original active ingredient?
The burden of proof is on
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And your point would be? If I dilute alcohol to the limits very of detection will it still get me drunk?
And if you disable a virus and put a very tiny amount in a vaccine, will that make you sick> No. But will it help train your immune system against it? Yes.
And what of the homoeopathic solutions which have been diluted to the point that they don't contain a single molecule of the original active ingredient?
If it is so diluted that it no longer contains the original material, then I agree that is likely crap. However a low dilution may work.
Er, what? We know how dogs detect those things. The chemical receptors in their noses aren't that difficult to study.
Look it up. They don't know how dogs can detect seizures before they occur, and they dont fully understand how they can smell on the order of one part per million.
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And if you disable a virus and put a very tiny amount in a vaccine, will that make you sick> No. But will it help train your immune system against it? Yes.
Wow, where to start? First of all the amount isn't tiny. It's larger than what would often be required to infect you with the live virus. Repeatedly diluting this amount would make it less effective not more yet this is how homeopathy is supposed to work. Secondly there's a well understood process involved which doesn't rely on water having a "memory"
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Since when is a couple of parts per million below our level of detection? Anyway, at the "concentrations" at which homeopaths consider potency to be greatest (in other words, the most dilute concentr
He Later Proclaimed (Score:5, Funny)
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Upon further study... (Score:5, Funny)
What's left of his skin was littered with simple cross and line markings.
... upon closer inspection the scientists determined this to be Chinese writing which says "Forever Protector of Old Ladies" [hanzismatter.com]. Work to locate the man's Facebook profile and collection of popped collar shirts is continuing.
Now back to you in the studio, Dave.
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My Mum has "soot" tattoos from her youth days (Score:3, Informative)
This is a practice that is probably still going on to these days.
My mum, who is from the Middle East and in her early 70s has had self-applied tattoos made out of soot since she was a teenager.
They're not like the tattoos one would be used to, but are just simple and crude symbols, one of them a cross. I am sure this is a practice still in many countries, especially 3rd world countries.
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Of course this 5300 year old corpse's tattoos are made from soot. What else would they be made from? I'd say that most of all the tattoos ever done were made in soot. It's not only 3rd world countries that use soot. Many prison tattoos are done this way as well.
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This is a practice that is probably still going on to these days.
I can say for certain it's definitely still going on these days in West Africa, and probably all over Africa. I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in The Gambia from 2006 through 2008, and many Gambians have these sorts of primitive tattoos, in the Wolof language called "nyaas," that are created by taking a razor blade and cutting a design in the skin. After, the charred, sooty remains of ground nuts (what we know as peanuts, which are a staple crop there) are ground into the cuts. The soot stops the bleeding,
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
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Wouldn't it have been funny if they found the iceman, thawed him out and he was striking the goatse pose?
I don't know what made me think of that, except I have an automatic hesitation to click any link in a Slashdot comment from the days before the domain was automatically posted after the link. After clicking enough misdirected links and having to wash my eyes out with Lysol will do that to you.
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
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I understand.
I once accidentally tattooed the faces of all the members of Flock of Seagulls across my back.
It's Oetzi, not Otzi. (Score:2)
The nickname of the mummy is Oetzi, because it was found at the upper end of the Oetztal (Oetz valley). I know that many Americans ignore german umlauts and write an o instead of an ö (native speakers use 'oe', if no umlauts are possible), but in this case it's not even an umlaut. The little town which gives the valley its name is called Oetz with an oe, not an ö.
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I've seen this happen to Goethe a few times.
Tic, Tac, Toe? (Score:2)
No surprise there (Score:1)
Next question (Score:2)