TattooNOW likes History

We like history here at TattooNOW.com and when we say history we mean 4.5 thousand years before Sailor Jerry. Last month our historical highlight focused on tattoo removal through the ages which you can see here. This month we'll be looking at Ötzi, our friendly tattooed herder and potentially chieftan. Ötzi died some 5 thousand years ago in modern day Italian Alps during an expedition. His body and tattoos  perserved by snow and freezing temptures.


(Courtesy South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology; Courtesy South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology/Eurac/Samadelli/Staschitz)

So, why is Ötzi the focus of TattooNOW? Well he was covered in unique tattoos. In fact, his corpse provided the first sighting of tattoos from the European Copper Age. The tattoos were applied by rubbing charcoal into a raw wound. I imagine Ötzi would be pretty impressed with todays sanitary level, but not so much the subjects of our tattoos.  Ötzi's tattoos are not believed to be symbolic or decorative like so many of todays.  Researchers believe that Ötzi's tattoos were done for therapy(think accupunture). The 50 or so tattoos on Ötzi are near major areas of stress: ankles, behind the knees, back. To put this in perspective, Ötzi was experimenting in accupunture 2000 years before the earliest recordings of its practice in China. Although, that is a bit of specuation, and we are mostly wiki-storians.

To read more about it check out these links!
http://archaeology.org/issues/109-1311/features/tattoos/1351-oetzi-copper-age-alps-iceman-tattoos
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96tzi
http://www.iceman.it/en/node/262