Tattoos On Mummified Tattoos Using Infra-Red

My senior project was over the History of Tattooing, I chose this as my topic because Tattoos really interest me with all the different styles and meanings behind them. Some things I already knew about Tattooing is a lot of tribes used tattoos to symbolize things, but I didn’t know what.

My first article is about forensic radiology and how it determines unexplained head injuries in child mummies. Janet Davey and Olaf H. Drummer explained that the identification of cause of death in ancient Egyptian child mummies have changed since advanced visual workstations have produced more detailed virtual data that allowed more accurate reporting on injuries and cause of death. They elaborated on the fact that virtual images from computerized tomography (CT) data have revolutionized the study of ancient mummified remains. It has also removed the need for destructive procedures linked to unwrapping of bodies and has been used in a number of forensic pathology institutions. Forensic radiology protocols were used in the study of two small child mummies from the human remains collection in a British museum. They have been mummified and wrapped two thousand years ago. They explained that the bodies presented unique problems in interpreting the radiological data due to external linen

- In ancient Greek and Rome tattooing was used in order to brand slaves and criminals. Greeks also used tattoos to identify and communicate with spies. It was during this period tattooing spread to central Europe and tattoos were used for medical purposes such as acupuncture which would later on influence the Chinese acupuncture society.

Tattooing is not just a recent fad. Tattooing has been around for a very long time. "The current first proven incident of a tattoo dates back 4,000 years B.C. a traveler was found in Italy near Austria, preserved in the permafrost of a glacier. Carbon dating and arte facts found near him suggest that he is over 5,300 years old" (Tattoos and Design). Tattoos have been used

On the 19th of September 1991 near the border of Austria and Italy, Helmut and Erika Simon, German tourists hiking in the mountains, found a corpse half buried in the snow. The corpse was named Ötzi after he was found in the Ötztal Alps. At what was thought to be a modern remains of a human were actually a 5,300-year-old body from around 3300 BCE. Initially when researchers were analyzing Ötzi, they had found that his body was covered, head to foot, in tattoos which archaeological evidence shows that he is the oldest tattooed mummy that has been discovered. They have claimed that Ötzi has 61 overall tattoos and “some of which were located on or near acupuncture points.” (Ellie Crystal, Cristalinks) They also theorized that the tattoos “alleviated lower back and joint pain” and “were connected to management of chest pain.” (Nicholas St. Fleur, 2015, the Atlantic) The tattoos are a puzzling discovery; is

Archaeologists recover and study the early history of societies and their culture. They uncover evidence left by people from the past. During my search on the web I found an article called Scientists Have Mapped All of the Otzi the Iceman’s 61 Tattoos. This article is about Otzi a prehistoric man discovered in Sep. 1991. Two tourists found his remains in a glacier in the Italian Alps. Since than scientist and researchers have analyzed him to paint a picture of what life was like during his life 5,300 years ago. He suffered from degenerative diseases or deterioration and loss of function in the organs or tissues, but he eventually died from a wound in the shoulder caused by an arrow. Early studies show he had 49 to 57 tattoos, but later it

For as long as there have been people, there have been methods of distinction amongst them. Throughout the years we have discovered ways in which to express our beliefs, our ideals, and our passions. Tattooing has been one of forefront methods in expressing our humanity, or in certain cases, our lack there of. For so many, they have taken on many different representations, each with an equal level of significance. The importance found in the symbolism of tattoos and their cultural relevance has consistently been a trend found throughout history, religion, and art.

I chose to focus on a specific artifact in the “Egyptian Mummies” exhibition of the Museum of Nature and Science. The overall theme of this exhibition was of course, Egyptian mummies and culture pertaining to their religious beliefs of the afterlife.

The treatment of human remains has greatly changed over time, with much more care and focus being put in remains especially bodies over a thousand years old. As the times of breaking into tombs and coffins ripping bodies apart and crunching old skeletons are over, nowadays much more research and importance towards the bodies take place. With science now being a major focus to examine the body and laws of how to treat and examine the bodies are now in place to stop the ruining of important ancient bodies.

II. Ben Guarino’s article for The Washington Post documents the findings of archaeologist Anne Austin. Austin discovered a 3,000-year-old Egyptian woman decorated with the first ever ornate tattoos.

The peat fields of northwestern Europe are nothing particularly exciting on first inspection. Appearing as empty field, though sometimes lined with strange brown blocks stacked or piled. These blocks are pieces of peat carved from the ground used as a traditional source of energy. However, these peat blocks are perhaps slightly less interesting than the other commodity the peat bogs have to offer; incredibly well preserved mummies or bog bodies. The peat bogs provide the perfect combination of sphagnum moss and a lack of oxygen allow for the preservations of bodies from as far back as 8000 BCE. Some are only skeletons, but many of the more famous bog bodies are incredibly well preserved. Many bodies found are from the Iron Age and provide valuable information on an era that lacks written records. These mummies are significant as they offer a view into the lives of man thousands of years in the past. They provide evidence in to previously misunderstood events and people. They allow for a first person postmortem accounts of peoples lives, cultures and deaths. Through new scientific methods bodies discovered centuries can be reexamined and allowing archaeologist and anthropologist to fill in the gaps and tell these peoples full stories.

While many musings and theories have been put forth to explain the presence and purpose of the heads, no previous work has attempted to combine the archaeological contexts with objective descriptions of the heads themselves. Tefnin’s work is impressive in its detail, yet he spends little time discussing the archaeological context beyond general geographic position. Reisner and Junker, who excavated the majority of the tombs containing reserve heads, published the heads with their context. Nevertheless, neither included the heads or contexts excavated by the other. Luckily, the methodologies employed by both Reisner and Junker were ahead of their time. Thanks to their careful publication, it is possible, at least to some degree, to discuss the contexts with confidence. With the publications of the other excavators, the situation is not as auspicious. Similarly, the heads themselves are often described in romanticized terms meant to capture the character of the person portrayed. Even more recent scholarship frequently generalizes about the features extant on the heads. This subjective,

The exhibition will focus on the mummification process in the ancient Egyptian civilization as a part of ancient human thoughts. It will review reasons behind mummification and how ancient people knew about mummification from nature and what are the motives behind inventing different ways to mummify human and animal bodies. This Exhibition will illustrate benefits of the mummification process according to ancient Egyptian thoughts and how the mummification idea helps in understanding thoughts of ancient human beings. The exhibition will provide the other audiences with valuable information about the ancient Egyptian civilization. In addition, the exhibition will provide broad valuable information about the ancient Egyptian civilization and

Ancient Egyptians had a strong belief in preserving the body for the afterlife in hopes of achieving immortality. Part of this preservation was to protect and identify the body by painting or carving pictures, hieroglyphics, and symbols on the coffin. One very good example of this is represented by the ‘Mummy of Irethorrou in Coffin.’ This coffin, made of wood with polychrome, is adorned with hieroglyphics, symbols, and a portrait of the Egyptian priest. It was found in a cemetery in Akhmim, and dates back circa 500 BCE. The inside of the coffin, where the mummy lays, also has a carved outline of Irethorrou’s profile standing on some sort of platform. The portrait of the priest is painted with traditional Egyptian accessories such as, a

If his clothes were "exclusively made from wild game, this would be a sign for [a more primitive] gatherer-hunter society with no access to domesticated species like sheep, goat, or cattle," (Hollemeyer, 2008). Otzi’s well preserved body similarly helped revel that tattooing was used in his society. Although not known if its purpose was decorative or therapeutic, the tattoos are some of the oldest ever recorded. The tattoos were placed in areas traditionally covered with clothing, leading some scientists to think they were intended as therapy, like a primitive form of acupuncture. When Otzi was first studied, archaeologists were surprised as no one had never seen Copper Age tattoos, and because acupuncture was a treatment for joint distress, rheumatism, and arthritis which was thought to have originated in Asia more than 2,000 years later (A. Powell, & A. Lobell, 2013). The around 50 tattoos, most of which were lines and crosses (see Appendix 1) were created by a small incision in his skin, which was then rubbed with charcoal to make the marks (A. Powell, & A. Lobell, 2013). This knowledge of acupuncture demonstrates that people in the Iceman’s time would have known not only about the nature around them, but also the human body and its reactions (A.