EJA-578 Supplementary Video S4.mp4 (37.18 MB)

Incision tattooing

media

posted on 2024-01-03, 18:51 authored by Aaron Deter-WolfAaron Deter-Wolf, Danny Riday

This video shows tattoo artist Danny Riday tattooing his own leg using a flake of Waihi obsidian. In incision tattooing, or “cut and rub” tattooing, the skin is shallowly sliced before pigment is rubbed into the wound from the surface.

This tattooing was done in 2021 as part of an experiment designed to evaluate the physical signatures of tattoos created with different pre-electric tools. That study was funded in part by John Kiernan and an EXARC Experimental Archaeology Award, and published in the EXARC journal (https://exarc.net/ark:/88735/10654). The video was uploaded to Figshare as supplemental material to accompany the article “Chalcolithic Tattooing: Historical and Experimental Evaluation of the Tyrolean Iceman’s Body Markings” (Aaron Deter-Wolf, Benoît Robitaille, Danny Riday, Aurélien Burlot, and Maya Sialuk Jacobsen, European Journal of Archaeology, 2024, DOI: 10.1017/eaa.2024.5)