Archaeologists have resolved the dispute over who owns the most ancient tattoos: it is the Tyrolean "ice man" Otzi, whose mummy tourists discovered in the Alps in 1991. Numerous tattoos (61 pieces), applied to all parts of Otzi's body, most likely had a healing effect. The new study is featured in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports and briefly reported by The Independent.
Otzi died around 3250 BC. For a long time, it was believed that the oldest tattoo belongs to the mummy of the Latin American culture of Chinchorro. This is a "mustache" of dots, depicted on the upper lip of a man 30-40 years old: he, as scientists believed, died about six thousand years ago (4000 BC).
Lars Krutak from the National Museum of Natural History (USA), who first drew public attention to the tattoo of the Chinchorro culture, found a typo in an article based on the results of radiocarbon dating of the mummy. Instead of 3830 years BP (ago), it was recorded 3830 years BC (BC) - which "increased" the age of the mummy by almost two thousand years. If Krutak is right, then the "ice man" is at least 500 years older than the Chinchorro mummy.
Otzi's body tattoos are mostly lines and crosses. They were applied by making incisions on the skin, into which charcoal was then rubbed. That is, they performed not decorative, but medicinal tasks.
Krutak believes that Otzi will not be the owner of the most ancient tattoos for long. By the time of the ice man's life, tattooing had already become a standard cultural practice, and future excavations are likely to find more ancient mummies with traces of such patterns.
Otzi Tattoos
Photo: Staschitz / Samadelli / EURAC / South Tyrol Museum of Archeology
Promotional video:
Chinchorro mummy (drawing)
Image: Lars Krutak