{"id":39023,"date":"2024-04-30T10:48:25","date_gmt":"2024-04-30T10:48:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/30\/a-tattoo-experiment-hints-at-how-otzi-the-iceman-got-his-ink\/"},"modified":"2024-04-30T10:48:25","modified_gmt":"2024-04-30T10:48:25","slug":"a-tattoo-experiment-hints-at-how-otzi-the-iceman-got-his-ink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/30\/a-tattoo-experiment-hints-at-how-otzi-the-iceman-got-his-ink\/","title":{"rendered":"A tattoo experiment hints at how \u00d6tzi the Iceman got his ink"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"680\" height=\"846\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.snexplores.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/032824_bb_iceman_inline1.jpg?fit=680,846&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"A tattoo experiment hints at how \u00d6tzi the Iceman got his ink\" title=\"A tattoo experiment hints at how \u00d6tzi the Iceman got his ink\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<p>An off-beat experiment has poked holes in a common assumption about \u00d6tzi the Iceman\u2019s tattoos.<\/p>\n<p>\u00d6tzi is a roughly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.snexplores.org\/article\/new-otzi-iceman-dna-ancestry-genome-appearance\">5,200-year-old mummy<\/a>. His body was found in a mountain glacier along the border of Austria and Italy in 1991. That body is decorated with the world\u2019s oldest known tattoos. There are 61 in total, including black lines and crosses on \u00d6tzi\u2019s left wrist, lower legs, lower back and chest.<\/p>\n<p>Scientists had thought that \u00d6tzi got his tattoos by rubbing&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencenews.org\/article\/iceman-has-worlds-oldest-tattoos\" rel=\"noopener\">charcoal ash into slices in his skin<\/a>. Those cuts would have been&nbsp;made with a sharp stone tool. But until now, that idea had never been tested.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"wp-block-sciencenews-inline-related-post alignleft\">\n<h4><a href=\"https:\/\/www.snexplores.org\/article\/scientists-say-mummy\">Scientists Say: Mummy<\/a><\/h4>\n<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cOur study shows that the past 30 years of [thinking] as to how the Iceman was tattooed is incorrect,\u201d says Aaron Deter-Wolf. He\u2019s an archaeologist at the Tennessee Division of Archaeology. That\u2019s in Nashville.<\/p>\n<p>Deter-Wolf and his colleagues did tattooing experiments. They also reviewed traditional tattooing practices around the world. Their new findings suggest that the common story about how \u00d6tzi got his tattoos is wrong.<\/p>\n<p>Instead,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1017\/eaa.2024.5\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">a hand-held, single-pointed tool with pigment on its tip likely punched many tiny holes in \u00d6tzi\u2019s skin<\/a>. Such closely spaced pricks of ink could have built up the lines of the Iceman\u2019s tattoos. &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The researchers shared the findings March 13 in the&nbsp;<em>European Journal of Archaeology<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>This \u201chand-poke\u201d tattooing technique has been used by non-industrial cultures around the world. And that includes \u00d6tzi\u2019s home region of central Europe.<\/p>\n<p>.cheat-sheet-cta {<br \/>\n  border: 1px solid #ffffff;<br \/>\n  margin-top: 20px;<br \/>\n  background-image: url(&#8220;https:\/\/www.snexplores.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/cta-module@2x-2048&#215;239-1.png&#8221;);<br \/>\n  padding: 10px;<br \/>\n  clear: both;<br \/>\n}<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-group cheat-sheet-cta is-layout-flow\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container\">\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\">Do you have a science question? We can help!<\/h2>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/forms.gle\/YbhPosFTMqjbSNnV7\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Submit your question here<\/a>, and we might answer it an upcoming issue of&nbsp;<em>Science News Explores<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Tattooing for science<\/h4>\n<p>A 2022 study set the stage for the new findings. Deter-Wolf teamed up with two professional tattoo artists for that study. Both artists specialize in traditional, nonelectric methods of tattooing. One was Danny Riday, who works at The Temple Tattoo in Tamahere, New Zealand. With help from his colleague, Riday tattooed his leg with eight identical line designs. He did this using eight tools and four techniques.<\/p>\n<p>The tools were made from animal bone, obsidian, copper, a boar tusk and a steel needle.<\/p>\n<p>The first technique was hand poking. The second involved tapping the handle of a bone point or a bone comb with a wooden tool. This caused the pigment-coated tips of the point or comb to puncture the skin. The third technique was slicing the skin with an obsidian blade and then rubbing pigment into the cut. The fourth method involved using a needle to pull a pigment-infused thread through the skin\u2019s outer layer.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><span class=\"caption wp-caption-3138015\">Tools and techniques used by a professional tattooist to make tattoos on his own leg, shown here, consisted of: (upper row, left to right) hand tapping the handle of a bone point, hand poking a copper awl, slicing skin with an obsidian blade, and pulling pigment-infused thread through skin with a bone needle; (lower row, left to right) hand tapping a boar tusk comb, hand poking a steel needle, hand poking a bone point, and hand poking an obsidian flake.<\/span><span class=\"credit wp-credit-3138015\">A. Deter-Wolf, D. Riday and M.S. Jacobsen\/<em>EXARC Journal<\/em> 2022<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In the new study, the researchers compared microscope images of Riday\u2019s tattoos to images of \u00d6tzi\u2019s. Riday\u2019s tattoos were viewed after they had healed for six months.<\/p>\n<p>Tattoos drawn with different tools and techniques showed distinct features, Deter-Wolf says. Those made with the hand poking technique, using a bone point or a copper awl, looked most like \u00d6tzi\u2019s.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image  has-alignleft\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"680\" height=\"441\" src=\"https:\/\/www.snexplores.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/032824_bb_iceman_inline2.jpg\" alt=\"A photo of a sharpened bone awl on a white background\" class=\"wp-image-3138016\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><span class=\"caption wp-caption-3138016\">A sharpened bone awl from \u00d6tzi\u2019s toolkit (pictured) should be examined for evidence of having been used in tattooing, investigators recommend.<\/span><span class=\"credit wp-credit-3138016\">Harald Wisthaler, South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>On both Riday and the Iceman, these tattoos featured lines 1 to 3 millimeters (0.04 to 0.11 inch) wide. They were made up of many small dots and had round ends. And their pigment seeped irregularly along the edges.<\/p>\n<p>The new study cannot prove for sure how \u00d6tzi got his tattoos, says Marco Samadelli. But it does provide \u201cextensive and plausible\u201d evidence for the hand poking technique. Samadelli works at the Institute for Mummy Studies at Eurac Research in Bolzano, Italy. He directed conservation of \u00d6tzi\u2019s remains from 1998 to 2021.<\/p>\n<p>A bone awl was found among \u00d6tzi\u2019s belongings when the Iceman was unearthed. That tool may have a point sharp enough for use in tattooing, Deter-Wolf says. So might an antler tip from \u00d6tzi\u2019s quiver. But those artifacts have not yet been examined for tattoo-related damage or pigment remains.<\/p>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.snexplores.org\/article\/how-otzi-iceman-mummy-got-tattoos\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An off-beat experiment has poked holes in a common assumption about \u00d6tzi the Iceman\u2019s tattoos. \u00d6tzi is a roughly 5,200-year-old mummy. His body was found in a mountain glacier along the border of Austria and Italy in 1991. That body is decorated with the world\u2019s oldest known tattoos. There are 61 in total, including black [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39024,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.snexplores.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/032824_bb_iceman_inline1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[606],"tags":[1447,4161,24676,41416,24675,40225],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39023"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39023"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39025,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39023\/revisions\/39025"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}