Continuing on the theme of old, I wonder what the oldest stuff is. What do we prize and keep? There's a website named oldest.org and it tracks "oldest" things. There are simple things like the 9 oldest wood schoolhouses, lighthouses banks, buildings, bridges, and so on.
Little did I think that the oldest tattoos would be significant. Ethnographic and historical texts reveal that tattooing has been practiced by just about every human culture in historic times. The ancient Greeks used tattoos from the 5th century on to communicate among spies; later, the Romans marked criminals and slaves with tattoos. Other cultures had sacred messages and symbols.
Finding the oldest tattoos entails finding mummies. The oldest? Ötzi the Iceman from 3400 BCE had tattoos - 61 in 19 groups of black lines. The locations of many of the markings are consistent with traditional Chinese acupuncture points, specifically those that are used to treat back pain and stomach upset. What is intriguing is that Ötzi lived roughly 2,000 years before the oldest generally accepted evidence of acupuncture, and well west of its purported origins in China. X-rays revealed that Ötzi had arthritis in his hip joint, knees, ankles and spine; forensic analysis discovered evidence of whipworm eggs - known to cause severe abdominal pain - in Ötzi’s stomach. It is, therefore, possible that Ötzi’s tattoos did in fact play a therapeutic role, and that acupuncture has a slightly more complicated history than previously believed.
Now that is intriguing. It tells us that there is much to learn from old things, antique things and vintage things. There's a trend to get rid of old stuff these days - things we have just finished using. It has led to the waning appreciation of antiques and vintage.
That leaves us with National Old Stuff Day. - March 2nd. It is a day to celebrate old things and get rid of old things. The two live side by side.
Certainly steam locomotives and railroad layouts represent old stuff from a previous time. I wonder if I would find any tattoos on the figures. I've never considered looking or asking. It would be remarkable, wouldn't it.
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