The Jodypigs Collective
19 Mar 2023
Tattoos are truly timeless it seems. Makes you wonder why they became so divided by people.
The oldest, best-documented tattoos belong to Ötzi the Iceman, a mummified man who lived between 3370 and 3100 BCE. Discovered in the Tyrolean Alps in 1991, his body features 61, 5,300-year-old, functional tattoos—small lines and dots—likely created for therapeutic, pain-relieving purposes.
Key Details About the Oldest Tattoos:
Location: Ötzi’s tattoos are located on his lower back, left wrist, lower legs, and ankles.
Method: Rather than ink inserted via needles, his tattoos were created by making small incisions and rubbing them with pulverized charcoal.
Significance: Because the tattoos are located on joints often suffering from degenerative pain, researchers believe they were a form of ancient acupuncture or medicinal treatment.
Other Early Examples: While Ötzi holds the record for the oldest direct evidence on skin, roughly contemporary tattoos were also found on the Gebelein Predynastic mummies in Egypt (c. 3351–3017 BCE).
Before this discovery, the oldest tattoos were thought to be from the Chilean Chinchorro mummies, but updated dating confirmed Ötzi as the oldest