The World’s Oldest Tattoos Are on the Weathered Skin of an Alpine Ice Mummy:Ötzi the Iceman

Detail of a wrist tattoo on Ötzi the Iceman, the oldest-known tattooed mummy in the world
(© South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology/EURAC/Samadelli/Staschitz)

When hikers in the Alps stumbled upon the mummy known as Ötzi the Iceman along the Austrian–Italian border in 1991, the body was so well preserved that they feared they’d discovered the corpse of a fellow mountaineer. Later research revealed he died around  3105 BCE. In the decades since, scientists have thoroughly studied Ötzi, who is preserved at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, Italy. Their research continues to reveal unknown details about ancient European life, including mapping Ötzi’s 61 tattoos last year with new non-invasive multispectral imaging.