The world’s oldest figurative tattoos have been discovered on 5,000-year-old Egyptian mummies at the British Museum.
The tattoos are of a wild bull and a Barbary sheep on the upper-arm of a male mummy, and S-shaped motifs on the upper-arm and shoulder of a female.
The find dates tattoos containing imagery rather than geometric patterns to 1,000 years earlier than previously thought.
Researchers say the discovery ‘transforms’ our understanding of how people lived during this period.
The world’s oldest figurative tattoos have been discovered on Egyptian mummies at the British Museum. Pictured are four S-shaped motifs that run down a female mummy’s right shoulder
The 5,000-year-old male mummy, which is naturally preserved, has been one of the star displays at the British Museum, visited by millions each year, since its discovery in a cemetery over 100 years ago.
Previous research revealed that the man, known as Gebelein Man A, died a violent death between the ages of around 18 to 21, from a stab wound to his back.
But dark smudges on his arm, which appeared as faint markings under natural light, have now been examined.
Infrared technology has now revealed that the smudges were tattoos of two slightly overlapping horned animals well known in Predynastic Egyptian art.
Daniel Antoine, the British Museum’s curator of physical anthropology, said the male mummy was ‘one of the most popular displays at the British Museum’.
‘His remains were preserved naturally perhaps because he was buried in the peak of summer or was in a shallow grave,’ he added.
A mummy of a young man shown one of the world’s oldest figurative tattoos. It appears as a dark smudge at the top of his arm. He is believe to have died a violent death between the ages of around 18 to 21, from a stab wound to his back
Shown here is a wild bull with a tail and horns, above it, a Barbary sheep with curving horns and a humped shoulder
‘We are very confident that this is tattooing and not painted or decorated. It would have been carried out with some type of needle made from bone or copper. These tattoos push back evidence of tattooing by 1,000 years.’
Linear and s-shaped motifs were also identified on the upper arm and shoulder of a ‘mysterious’ female mummy, who ‘may have been a person of importance’.
The designs are under the skin and the pigment is probably soot.
They could be crooked staves or throw-sticks, batons or clappers used in ritual dance.
The female mummy has tattoos which may denote status, bravery and magical knowledge
The oldest known tattoos in the world were discovered on Otzi the Iceman, dating from around the same time, but they are purely geometric.
‘It is quite a departure to see people putting images on their body and that will have resonance with people today,’ the curator said.
‘Incredibly, at over 5,000 years of age, they push back the evidence for tattooing in Africa by a millennium.’
Previously, archaeologists had thought only women wore tattoos in ancient history.
The new discovery shows that such body modifications were practiced on both sexes.
The tattoos may have denoted status, bravery and magical knowledge.
Both mummies were found in Gebelein in the southern part of Upper Egypt, close to Luxor.
They lived between 3351 and 3017 BC, not long before the region was unified by the first pharaoh in 3100 BC.
The findings are published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.
A tattoo discovered on Gebelein Woman, a 5,000-year-old mummy in the British Museum’s collection