Lower back tattoos seem like an early 21st century fad, but new archaeological evidence shows the practice is more than three thousand years old.
The New Kingdom site of Deir el- Medina has tattoos on ancient flesh and figurines that are connected to the ancient Egyptian god Bes. They published their findings in a journal.
Across from the archaeological site of Luxor is the western bank of the Nile called Deir el- Medina. The site was excavated by a French team after King Tut's tomb was discovered. In the New Kingdom period, Set- Ma'at was a large neighborhood with gridded streets and houses for the workers who built tombs for the Egyptian rulers. The men would leave for days at a time to work on the tombs while the women and children lived in the village. The Great Pit is an important feature of the site and has helped archaeologists better understand the lives of the common people.
tzi the Iceman's tattoos might have been primitive.
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The discovery of at least six tattooed women at Deir el- Medina was a surprise. Anne Austin is a bioarchaeologist at the University of Missouri-St. An email was sent to Live Science by Louis. Since we would never unwrap mummified people, our only chance of finding tattoos are when looters have left skin exposed and it is still present for us to see thousands of years later.
Austin and her team looked at two tombs in the year 2019. A woman's left hip bone was found in one of the tombs. The dark black color on the skin created an image that would have run along the woman's back. There is a depiction of Bes and a bowl on the left side of the tattoo.
A middle-aged woman was found in a nearby tomb. The tattoo is hard to see with the naked eye. A wedjat, or Eye of Horus, and a possible image of Bes wearing a feathered crown can be seen in a reconstruction drawing of this tattoo. According to Austin, the zigzag line pattern may represent a marsh, which ancient medical texts used to relieve pain from menstruation or childbirth.
Three clay figurines depicting women's bodies that were found at Deir el- Medina decades ago were reexamined by study co-author Marie-Lys Arnette, an Egyptologist at the University of Baltimore.
The tattoos and representations of tattoos would have visually connected with imagery referencing women as sexual partners, pregnant, and mothers participating in the post-partum rituals used for protection of the mother and child.
A bioarchaeologist who was not involved in the current study told Live Science that the newly described tattoos are very intricate. "These tattoos are making protective representations of gods on their body, almost like the person has their own portable magical amulet with them," said Zakrewski.
Austin says that tattoos are more common in Deir el- Medina than people realize. She hopes that more scholars will find evidence of tattooing so that we can see if what is happening in this village is unique or part of a broader tradition in ancient Egypt.
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