Slashdot Mirror
World's Oldest Tattoo Written In Soot
ewenc writes "A series of tattoos belonging to Otzi the 5300 year-old Tyrolean Iceman are made of soot, reports New Scientist. Mountain climbers discovered Otzi's mummified body in the Austrian-Italian alps in 1991. What's left of his skin was littered with simple cross and line markings. Electron microscopy and spectroscopy now show that Otzi's tats are made of double-bonded carbon indicative of soot, as well as silicate crystals that probably came from rocks surrounding a fire pit."
Maybe they we burned in with hot rock edges?
What is the first post ever on slashdot? Can someone point to it or repost it?
All comments from before 1999/01/01 have been deleted. The first post on 1999/01/01, still in the archive is; Anonymous Coward on Friday January 01 1999, @05:15PM (#2049871) I agree, that really boiled my blood. I saw the new layout this morning, I thought it was pretty damn cool looking.
.. That he only intended getting three, but there was a language barrier between himself and the tattooist. he would have stopped more marks being made but he later fell asleep during the proceedure
. .
According to Wikipedia, there's about 360 acupuncture points. According to the article, the guy's skin was "littered with tattoos".
Birthday paradox, anyone?
What's left of his skin was littered with simple cross and line markings.
... upon closer inspection the scientists determined this to be Chinese writing which says "Forever Protector of Old Ladies". Work to locate the man's Facebook profile and collection of popped collar shirts is continuing.
Now back to you in the studio, Dave.
or a neander scrawl
rewriting history since 2109
and the Iceman probably had frosty piss
rewriting history since 2109
This is a practice that is probably still going on to these days.
My mum, who is from the Middle East and in her early 70s has had self-applied tattoos made out of soot since she was a teenager.
They're not like the tattoos one would be used to, but are just simple and crude symbols, one of them a cross. I am sure this is a practice still in many countries, especially 3rd world countries.
You can find some high quality images at http://iceman.eurac.edu/. You can see the whole body of Oetzi down to millimetric detail. You can also compare images taken with white light to images taken with a special UV light.
As a little side note: I live only about 30 km from the Oetzi museum where the mummy is kept. But whenever I went by the museum, people were lined up in an incredibly long queue in front of the entrance, so I haven't actually seen "the real thing" yet.
While I admire artistic tattoos, I probably won't get one for myself. The idea of something on my skin that is forever, but is perhaps not looking good or cool forever repels me.
But when I was a kid, I accidentally tattooed myself, atleast with one dot of ink :-)
It was in arts education in school. We did calligraphy with old fashioned dip pens. I had the habit then to gnaw on all my writing utensils like pencils, pens etc. So I did that with my dip pen too. Something fell on the floor, I bent down to get it and ...ouch... I had the tip of the nib in my thigh. It's still a small greenish dot after 30 years.
One would assume initially he's being unsettled by the new layout as he elaborates further on it, appearantly referencing to the first sentence.
But after closer analysis (reading it twice), the elaboration is a contradiction if he's speaking in a figurative speech. ("that boiled my blood; I thought it was damn cool looking.") unless, back in 1999, the boiling of blood would be a favourative state of being that is "cool".
To me, it seems the boiling of his blood is thus to be taken literally and the article could be about a DIY-project which could result in blood being boiled due to possible high pressure, dating back to prerecorded history.
I think it's safe to assume that the first poster on slashdot forgot to build his own pressure-suit making his blood boil and so agreeing with a poster who made the notion to take this into account. A pressure-suit of his time would be important to be though of attempting a simular endeavour which is communicated in the collaborative context, while expressing out his appreciation for the new environment which started the historical record for slashdot.
I propose the honouring of "Anonymous Coward" and to make a historical figure out of him. (record shows, in 1999, female presence was neglectable and the often found '18/F' notion was not, as priorly assumed, an indication of age and sex. So the assumpsion "Anonymous Coward" was a male has a 99% probability.)
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
Are you implying homeopathic medicine has no effect on people? i.e. same as a placebo?
Yes of course.
Are you suggesting that a solution diluted until there are no measurable levels of any active ingredient has any effect beyond that of plain water?
If so you'd better be writing this up because you'll get Nobel Prizes for chemistry, physics and medicine. Not to mention $1,000,000 from the James Randi Education Foundation.
This is the point in the discussion where someone will either mention their great aunt's best friend who was "cured of cancer" or start warning us of a vast medical conspiracy to keep homoeopathy a secret. Bonus points go to anyone who tells us all the repeatable controlled studies into the matter are flawed for some vague reason.