New Tattoos and Skin Marks Discovered on the Famed Iceman Oetzi

The famed Iceman Oetzi is one of the most telling mummies ever found. Now, scientists have used a non-invasive photographic technique that revealed new tattoos on the man who was found preserved in a glacier.

When Oetzi was first discovered in 1991, his founders had already noticed a few tattoos. Since then several studies have investigated and itemized these skin marks. Now, though, researchers have used a new technique to better map the tattoos of the Iceman, which are some of the oldest documented tattoos in the world.

The researchers photographed the mummy's body from different angles using a multi-spectral procedure which covered the whole range of wavelengths from infrared to ultraviolet. This allowed tattoos deep within the skin layers to show up. In this case, the researchers found that the 61 different skin markings on Oetzi's skin consist of lines from .7 to 4 centimeters in length, mostly arranged in groups of two, three or four parallel lines, and also include two crosses.

"Each shot was taken seven times, using a different wavelength each time," said Marco Samadelli, one of the researchers, in a news release. "This enabled us to cover the different depths at which the carbon powder used for the tattoos had been deposited. The ultraviolet waves were adequate for the upper skin layers, whilst we resorted to infrared light for the lower layers."

What are interesting are the newly discovered tattoos on the lower right-hand side of the ribcage. The other tattoos are mostly found on the lower back and the legs between the knee and the foot. On account of the various locations of the tattoos, the researchers once thought that the marks may be part of some therapeutic medical treatment-rather like acupuncture to relieve pain in the joints. The ribcage tattoos, though, reopens the debate about the role of tattoos in prehistoric times.

The findings are published in the Journal of Cultural Heritage.

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