Let’s pretend I was 18 when I got my first tattoo. That’s still a considerable whack of years to have been inked.
让我们假装我18岁时第一次纹身。 这仍然是一个相当大的年份。
The word tattoo means literally “a puncture, or mark made on the skin”, first noted in Captain Cook’s notes on his rampage around Polynesia. Yet tattoos can be found throughout history, as far back as civilisation itself.
纹身这个词的字面意思是“在皮肤上留下的刺穿或痕迹”，首先在库克船长关于他在波利尼西亚横行的笔记中指出。 然而，纹身可以在整个历史中找到，可以追溯到文明本身。
One of the earliest human remains, Ötzi The Iceman, has no less than 61 tattoos all over his body. Our 5,300-year old ancestor was found freeze dried in the Tyrolean Alps in 1991, and has fascinated scientists and anthropologists ever since with his eerily well-preserved skin and its snazzy inkwork. Originally, these carbon markings were assumed to have been made by rubbing soot into incisions in Ötzi’s skin, or perhaps plant matter packed into wounds and then set on fire.
最早的人类遗骸之一，冰人Ötzi，全身不少于61个纹身。 我们5300岁的祖先于1991年在蒂罗尔阿尔卑斯山被冻干，从那时起，他保存完好的皮肤和时髦的墨水作品一直吸引着科学家和人类学家。 最初，这些碳标记被认为是通过将烟灰摩擦到Ötzi皮肤的切口中，或者可能是将植物物质塞入伤口，然后点燃。
Sooo glad I wasn’t cutting my inking teeth back then, if that’s what they were using.
很高兴我当时没有切墨牙，如果那是他們用的。
But as with all knowledge, new insight comes from trans-disciplinary, co-arising obsessions. Last month, in fact, archaeologist Arron Deter-Wolf published the results of a 2022 study “Examining the Physical Signatures of Pre-Electric Tattooing Tools and Techniques” wherein the authors experimented with eight tools made from animal bone, obsidian, copper, and boar tusk and a modern steel needle, to create tattoos on the leg of co-author Danny Riday.
但与所有知识一样，新的见解来自跨学科、共同的痴迷。 事实上，上个月，考古学家Arron Deter-Wolf发表了2022年一项研究“检查前电动纹身工具和技术的物理特征”的结果，其中作者实验了八种由动物骨头、黑曜石、铜和野猪牙以及一根现代钢针制成的工具，在合著者Danny Riday的腿上纹身。
Before you sit back, aghast at the thought of archaeologists attacking each other with inky bones and tusks for the pursuit of knowledge, rest easy.
在你坐下来之前，一想到考古学家为了追求知识而用墨尖的骨头和獠牙互相攻击，就感到很气颅，请放异。
Co-authors Riday and Maya Sialuk Jacobsen hail from the field of tattoo artisans, and are long skilled in the inking industry, along with other ink-stars, Benoit Robitaille and Aurélien Burlot.
合著者Riday和Maya Sialuk Jacobsen来自纹身工匠领域，与其他墨水明星Benoit Robitaille和Aurélien Burlot一起，长期精通墨水行业。
Deter-Wolf was curious as to how the lack of experiential and procedural knowledge impacted the previous theories regarding Ötzi’s body art, and that of other pre-modern mummies discovered in Greenland and The Andes.
Deter-Wolf很好奇，缺乏经验和程序知识如何影响之前关于Ötzi身体艺术的理论，以及在格陵兰和安第斯山脉发现的其他前现代木乃伊的理论。
Through a mixed method of hand poking, hand tapping, incision and subdermal tattoos, the tattoo artists spent a total of 12 hours inking the same motif onto Riday’s limb using a variety of methods posited in scientific studies.
通过手戳、手敲、切口和皮下纹身的混合方法，纹身艺术家总共花了12个小时，使用科学研究中提出的各种方法将相同的图案墨刻在Riday的四肢上。
The results were surprising. Not only did the healed skin and line thickness of the incision methods not correlate with that on the skin of Grandpa Ötzi and other pre-modern mummies, but the thicker lines of tattoos from the Greenland and Andes mummies were almost certainly not produced by subdermal methods (like the burning of the plants. Thank Goodness).
结果令人吃惊。 不仅切口方法的愈合皮肤和线条厚度与Ötzi爷爷和其他前现代木乃伊的皮肤上的线条厚度无关，而且来自格陵兰和安第斯山脉木乃伊的纹身线条几乎肯定不是通过皮下方法产生的（如燃烧植物）。 谢天谢地）。
Riday’s leg seems to suggest that pre-modern tattoo methods were far more similar to our modern methods than previously suspected.
Riday的腿似乎表明，前现代纹身方法与我们的现代方法比之前怀疑的要相似得多。
The authors note that “Just as contemporary tattoo artists use a variety of needle arrangements to address specific lining and shading needs, different tool forms and/or techniques were likely used in the past to achieve different desired effects.”
作者指出：“就像当代纹身艺术家使用各种针头安排来满足特定的衬里和阴影需求一样，过去可能使用不同的工具形式和/或技术来实现不同的预期效果。”
So basically, our ancestral body artists were sick at inking.
所以基本上，我们祖先的身体艺术家在墨水方面很不耐用。
Ok, that’s the end of the history lesson. Curiously, however, that is not the end of Ötzi’s relevance to modern tattoo practices. Another, less horrific theory regarding his well-preserved skin art is that they were healing marks made to alleviate chronic pain at the joints, spine, wrist and lower legs. A sort of permanent from of acupuncture, of you will.
好的，历史课到此结束。 然而，奇怪的是，这并不是Ötzi与现代纹身实践的相关性的结束。 关于他保存完好的皮肤艺术的另一个不那么可怕的理论是，它们是为了缓解关节、脊柱、手腕和小腿的慢性疼痛而留下的愈合痕迹。 一种永久的针灸，你会的。
Recent research has revealed that the modern deluge of tattoos across the globe, including here in Middle Kingdom, may too be linked with forms of harnessing healing powers and easing pain.
最近的研究表明，包括中王国在内的全球现代纹身的洪水也可能与利用治疗能力和缓解疼痛的形式有关。
Dr. David Griffin’s 2019 book “Tattoos and Trauma” explores the healing powers of tattoos in emergency responders.
David Griffin博士2019年出版的《纹身与创伤》一书探讨了纹身在急救人员中的治疗能力。
First person accounts from 148 people who have worked as medical professionals, military personnel, firefighters, and police officers shed light on the restorative powers of tattoos as tangible marks of intangible trauma and PTSD.
148名曾担任过医疗专业人员、军事人员、消防员和警察的人的第一人称叙述阐明了纹身的恢复力，作为无形创伤和创伤后应激障碍的有形标志。
Similar studies of late make for compelling reading on the correlation between tattoos and other forms of body art, and childhood neglect or abuse.
后期的类似研究对纹身和其他形式的人体艺术以及童年的忽视或虐待之间的相关性进行了令人信服的阅读。
Of course, that’s not to say that ALL tattoos are testament to a traumatic past; many have cultural or aesthetic value and thankfully nothing at all to do with adverse life events or formative experiences.
当然，这并不是说所有的纹身都是创伤过去的证明；许多纹身都有文化或美学价值，值得庆幸的是，与不良生活事件或形成性经历完全无关。
Drawing on a research pool of over 1,000 participants in Germany, a 2022 study, published in BMC Psychology by Borkenhagen, Fegert, et al., indicates a similar correlation between trauma and the recuperation of a multifaceted loss of agency in childhood through the act of tattooing.
根据德国1000多名参与者的研究库，Borkenhagen、Fegert等人于2022年发表在BMC Psychology上的一项研究表明，创伤与童年时期通过纹身行为恢复多方面的机构丧失之间存在类似的相关性。
Agency is a feeling of control over your own actions, together with the consequences of said actions.
代理是一种控制自己行动的感觉，以及上述行为的后果。
Turning intangible pain into something beautiful can be cathartic. The feeling of taking back control can lead to increased empowerment across a broad spectrum of life choices.
把无形的痛苦变成美好的东西可以有宣泄。 重新掌控的感觉可以导致在广泛的生活选择中增加赋权。
In any case, this study and others speak to the power that tattoos give to those coping with sad, bad life experiences. As a bespoke form of narrative therapy, they allow for the transformation of the unspeakable into a permanent visual reclamation of a hijacked life.
无论如何，这项研究和其他研究都谈到了纹身给那些应对悲伤、糟糕的生活经历的人的力量。 作为一种定制的叙事疗法形式，它们允许将不可言喻的转变为被劫持生活的永久视觉回收。
No one gets out of this life alive, and no one gets out unscathed by pain, loss and grief. Some people choose to use the body as a canvas for healing.
没有人能活着离开这个生活，也没有人能不受痛苦、损失和悲伤的伤害。 有些人选择用身体作为治疗的画布。
Grandpa Ötzi and his ilk were doing so as far back 5,300 years ago.
早在5300年前，Ötzi爷爷和他的同种人就这样做了。
Whether his tattoos were spiritual or shamanic, it is impossible to say. But the skill and craft with which they were created implies that they were more than teardrops and clocks-with-no-hands from the pre-historic prisoner tattoo catalogue.
他的纹身是精神上的还是萨满的，这是无法确定的。 但它们被创造出来的技巧和工艺意味着它们不仅仅是史前囚犯纹身目录中的泪滴和没有手的时钟。
Throughout Asia, this may well have been the case, and here in China in particular, tattooing used to be a permanent mark of shame reserved for the criminal classes.
在整个亚洲，情况很可能都是如此，特别是在中国，纹身曾经是留给犯罪阶层的永久耻辱标志。
Nowadays, this cultural taboo is shifting rapidly, with a multitude of highly skilled artists pushing the boundaries of body ink aesthetics both here in Nanjing and beyond. Many of my favourite pieces have been created by one of Nanjing’s finest.
如今，这种文化禁忌正在迅速转变，许多高技能的艺术家在南京和其他地方都突破了人体墨水美学的界限。 我最喜欢的许多作品都是由南京最优秀的人之一创作的。
Who knows that other surprises await us in the melting ice? Not I. But it is pleasing to think that some things do not change; the human impulse to impose order and strive for betterment in times of adversity. The urge to use language to rewrite new stories and reimagine new futures.
谁知道在融化的冰中还有其他惊喜等着我们？ 不是我。但想到有些事情不会改变是令人高兴的；人类在逆境中强加秩序和努力改善的冲动。 用语言来改写新故事和重新想象新未来的冲动。
Hopefully, for Ötzi, his tattoos gave him respite from his pain (before he was shot with an arrow and died). Hopefully, those who get inked to write a new story for themselves get the peace they seek. Hopefully, there are “No Ragrets”, as the global inking fetish looks like it’s here to stay.
希望，对于Ötzi来说，他的纹身能让他从痛苦中得到缓解（在他被箭射中而死之前）。 希望那些为自己写新故事的人能得到他们所寻求的和平。 希望有“No Ragrets”，因为全球墨水恋物癖似乎会一直存在。