Somerton Man: The Engraver

In the last post we covered off on the fingerprint issue and detailed why SM was right handed and that he had scars and markings on his right thumb, forefinger and middle finger. These things suggested he had been using a hand tool and that the markings were indicative of that hand tool being an engraving tool. Here's some solid information that supports the evidence.

In the image above you can see the prints from the man's thumb, forefinger and middle finger in that order.

In the image of the thumb print, note that the wear/indentations are near the top.

The Forefinger print shows wear almost exactly radiating from the centre of the print.

The Middle finger print shows its wear off to the left as you look at it.

Now lets look at the typical grip used by an engraver as per the images below:

Notice the thumb pressed close at the top, the forefinger almost central and the middle finger, somewhat hidden has a grip off to the left.

The closeness is obvious and is entirely consistent with the wear in the fingerprints submitted as being from the Somerton Man.

The next image below shows a slightly different grip style but nonetheless still consistent in the location of the wear, in this case the image shows part of the Intaglio printing technique:

Once again the fingerprint wear and the grip used in the Intaglio printing process are consistent.

Now let's look at further evidence that completely supports this argument, below are two images, the first image shows the knife found in the suitcase and the image to the right shows a vintage engraving tool:

You can clearly see the similarities between the two, almost identical in shape, this particular tool is for engraving wood. Wood block printing techniques were much in use during the 1940s. The shape of the tool means a different grip to the one shown prior to this. Here's a video clip link showing one Intaglio process:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJVN4Plhbc0

The above is all new information but based on the hard evidence that remains, all that was needed to be done to uncover these additional and important facts was to treat this case as an investigation.

An interesting fact is that engravers were extremely well skilled at fine details including micro writing so yet again we have brought even more evidence to support the existence of micro writing in a number of places in this case.

The image above is of President Lincoln's fob watch, as you can see a message was engraved into it, it deals with details of a military attack. I have included this image because at one time one of Jestyn's relatives told me that there was a watch and something had been engraved into it on the inside. I can't vouch for the watch's existence, it is interesting though given the discovery that the person's fingerprints are consistent with those of an engraver.

Here's the message in Lincoln's watch:
"April 13th 1861, Fort Sumpter was attacked by rebels on the above date. J Dillon'
The second part of the message is repeated and states the location as Washington and then states
"Thank God we have a government"

I have more posts coming soon with further information on another item of evidence, I hope you'll drop by again soon.