#oldesttattoo

We often think of tattoos as a modern art form made with buzzing machines inside shops that smell of green soap while in reality humans have been tattooed for thousands of years!  It has been long difficult to pin point exactly when humans began to tattoo our bodies for decoration and because of this the archeological community is making constant new discoveries.  Recently it was discovered that two mummies that are currently housed at the British Museum in London have the world's oldest known decorative tattoos.  These people are estimated to have lived around 5100 years ago before the rise of the first pharaoh. This pushes back evidence that tattooing existed in Africa by 1000 years!  The male mummy has been scanned by infrared photography which revealed a bull and sheep on his right upper arm.  The female mummy was revealed to have bears and four S shaped patterns on her right shoulder and a line with bent ends on her right arm by the same infrared photography. These mummies are about as old as Otzi the Iceman, however, their tattoos are decorative as his were functional. This makes this pair of mummies the oldest surviving of decorative tattoo art!

Photos from the Trustees of the British Museum

Some links if you’d like to read more!

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-43230202

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/02/health/egyptian-mummy-tattoos/index.html

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/worlds-oldest-tattoo-egypt-mummy-british-museum-infrared-a8233536.html

https://nypost.com/2018/03/01/worlds-oldest-tattoo-found-on-5000-year-old-mummy/

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/02/590347574/some-of-the-oldest-ever-tattoos-found-on-egyptian-mummies