HIDDEN HISTORIES
ÖTZI AND THE GEBELEIN MAN
Buried in ice and desert respectively more than 5,000 years ago, these natural mummies were preserved – as were their tattoos
The oldest preserved tattoos yet discovered are on Ötzi, the socalled ‘Iceman’ excavated from the Alpine permafrost at the border between Austria and Italy in 1991. Otzi lived around 5,300 years ago during the early Bronze Age, and his serendipitously preserved body is covered with 61 small tattoo marks made with ash. Since next to nothing is known about Otzi's cultural tradition, deciphering his tattoos with any certainty is not possible, but the dashes and crosses are tattooed primarily on sites of the body where he seemed to have suffered from particular ailments, inflammation or pain. Their locations suggest that they may have served some magical or medical purpose, intended to ease pain or invoke healing perhaps.
Of a similar age is the Gebelein Man, who lived in predynastic Egypt, just prior to the rule of the first pharaoh. Like Ötzi, his body was preserved by lucky accident in the desiccation of the North African desert, and – also like Ötzi – he was tattooed. While the body was brought to the British Museum in 1899 and been on display ever since, it was only recently, in 2018, that modern imaging techniques finally revealed his tattooing. On his arms, the Gebelein Man sports a lively image of a bull and another of a sheep, perhaps symbols of allegiance, masculine bravado, or
