findÖtzi
61 marks, mostly on the legs, about 3300 BCE
about 3,300 BCE – 3,100 BCE · Radiocarbon range for the body
What it is
The Alpine body with sixty-one tattoos — nineteen groups of black lines, and the greatest concentration on the legs.
The long version
The marks are 1–3 mm wide and 7–40 mm long: groups of parallel lines along the body's long axis and either side of the lumbar spine, a cross behind the right knee, another at the right ankle, parallel lines round the left wrist. Twelve of the nineteen groups are on the legs.
Microscopy on samples showed the pigment was made from fireplace soot.
Inference — the oldest tattooed body in Europe is a set of short lines on the legs and lower back, put there with soot. Five thousand years later, the htoe kwin is a leg tattoo made with lamp soot. Nothing connects them and the resemblance is not a lineage; it is what the available tools and the available pigment produce.
Connected to
- Soot and water What the pigment turned out to be.
- Five thousand years The oldest dated point on it.
Named here by
- Soot and water The oldest example that has been analysed.
- Five thousand years The oldest.
Where each claim comes from
| Field | Tier | Source | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| default | cited | Ötzi — Wikipedia (en) | |
| text_th | inference | written in Thai by this project, not machine-translated |
Sources
- Ötzi — Wikipedia (en)
cited Cited — a named source, linked · harvested Harvested — fetched from an open dataset, with its licence · tradition Tradition — general knowledge of the tradition, hedged · inference Inference — this project's own reasoning from the above · field Field — someone stood there