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The metal rods excavated form KHD, find no. 3075 (photograph Joris van Wetering; inset drawing by Serena Langousa not to scale).
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Tattooing was practised by many ancient societies, including the ancient Egyptians and Nubians. Egypt, for example, boasts iconographic and physical evidence for tattooing for a period spanning at least 4000 years – the longest known history of tattooing in the world. The second oldest physical evidence for tattooing worldwide was recovered from Mi...
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... make these examples unsuitable as tattooing needles. Therefore, the use of these tools must still be in question. During the 1998/9 field season at Kafr Hassan Dawood (KHD), a Late Predynastic to Early Dynastic cemetery site (c.3200 BC) in the East Delta of Egypt (Hassan 2000;Hassan et al. in press), five metal rods or awls were discovered ( Fig. 3 and inset), the context and association of which may indicate their use as tattooing needles. The five metal rods were found in Grave 1027, a disturbed, multiple burial that lay partly beneath and was cut by Grave 1015, a secondary multiple inhumation. The osteological mate- rial from Grave 1027 was examined by Teri L. Tucker (Washington State ...
Citations
... El tatuaje, en concreto, se ha encontrado en el registro arqueológico desde hace más de 5,000 años (Ballén & Castillo, 2015;Contreras, 2018;Hermosillo et al., 2011). Su evolución ha sido drástica y fuertemente dual: mientras que para algunas sociedades y culturas se considera un símbolo de estatus con propósito psicológico, espiritual, religioso o práctico (Diaz-Granados & Deter-Wolf, 2013;Tassie, 2003), para otras es una marca que funciona como estigma y sirve para criminalizar (Durkin & Houghton, 2000;Funk & Todorov, 2013;Miranda, 2016). ...
Tattoos as an identification tool in the forensic field. The creation of a methological proposal that capture the information of tattoos in a forensic context will aid to the creation of a classification for mexican population.
... 3. Tattoos were arising from Egypt and Nubians. 4 Omaha men admire their success in combat zone by tattooing the back sides or breasts of their daughters. Osage men make tattoos of skull on their back to show their success in feast. ...
Background:The trend of tattoos increases day-by-day in many of the countries but unfortunately there is no evaluation of this practice in Pakistan.The term “tattoo” is the art of making colourful designs beneath the skin. There are different types of tattoos with different colour of inks. This practice is done for many reasons including fashion, beauty, to hide skin marks, addiction to pain, to memorize something or due to any personal reasons. Some people hide their tattoos due to some restrictions. Tattooed people may face restriction in jobs. They may cause different type of skin infections and other medical conditions. Objective:Our motive of research is to evaluate the relation of tattoos with disease conditions and reasons for adaptation of tattoos in Pakistan. Methodology:The data was collected by online interviews and face-to-face interactions with participants and tattoo artists. All the participants (N=181) with permanent tattoos were asked about different questions regarding age, gender, motivations for being tattooed, opinions and side effects following tattooing etc. Results: In Pakistan, tattooing is more common among males (74.03%) than females (25.96%). The highest motivation of being tattooed was found to be fashion (31.57%) and beauty (36.31%). Greater number of participants considered tattooing as harmless (66%) and less considered it as harmful (28%), while few (N=6%) have mixed opinions. Common side effect experienced by participants was inflammation (23.36%) and then allergy (11.41%) but majority of the participants did not experience any severe side effects. People belonging to any occupation were equally influenced by tattooing but it is more common in teenagers. Conclusion:In Pakistan, tattoos trend seems to be increasing day-by-day. Most people regardless of age, occupation, religion and side effects got tattoos because of fashion and beauty and there were no severe side effects of tattooing in Pakistan. Bangladesh Journal of Medical Science Vol. 21 No. 03 July’22 Page: 730-740
... Se cree que dichos tatuajes se relacionaban con el tema de la magia, la protección y la fertilidad. Arte, Cultura y Sociedad: Revista de investigación a través de la práctica artística E-ISSN: 2215-6461, Vol. 1, N.°1 Abre 15 de julio, 2021; cierra 15 de enero, 2022 Muñoz-Brenes, T. Reflexiones sobre la historia, legitimación e inserción del tatuaje en el arte contemporáneo 5 En los escritos de Heródoto se documenta esta práctica entre los tracios, utilizada para distinguir a la nobleza (Tassie, 2003). No obstante, si recordamos el proyecto civilizatorio griego, es de esperarse que el tatuaje lo leyeron y lo pasaron a la posteridad como una práctica de barbarie, puesto que proyecta una otredad. ...
Más que un recorrido cronológico por la historia del tatuaje, nos proponemos descubrir cómo algunos hitos de esta historia, aún en construcción, todavía no muy clara del todo, está llena de contradicciones, de uso del poder, de estatus sociales, políticos y religiosos; pero siempre con un elemento de segregación, exclusión y distinción de individuos y grupos, sea a través de marcas voluntarias y consensuadas, o no. En ocasiones, como veremos, se ha vivido esta práctica según una doble moral o un doble discurso que nos permite problematizar –contrario a lo que el estigma social sostiene– que los tatuajes no son solo un signo de desviación. Posteriormente, terminaremos con una discusión acerca de la inserción del tatuaje dentro del paisaje del arte contemporáneo, a partir de categorías extrapoladas desde el concepto histórico y “oficial” del Arte.
... She has approximately seven tattoos, the majority of which seem to be on her torso and on her abdomen in particular (Tassie 2003, 90). The specificities of these tattoos are unclear as Keimer, Fouquet, and Tassie seem to present different interpretations (Keimer 1948, Tassie 2003. The tattoos are all made up of dots which form lines or geometric shapes. ...
... I consider this experiment as a huge success as it answered all questions that arose from the initial hypothesis. Not only did we find a likely explanation for how the points were made which contrasts with the methods previously suggested by Booth (2001) and echoed by Tassie (2003) and Poon (2008), but it was discovered that these points have the ability to tattoo skin. This confirms Booth's claim and can contribute to the identification of future potential Egyptian tattooing implements. ...
The aim of this research is to use experimental archaeology and comparative studies in order to obtain a potential answer to the theory that UC 7790 is a set of tattooing implements. Comparing the tools, methods, and inks of other cultures that practice tattooing is a way to offer some guidance regarding the identification of tattooing tools in the archaeological record. The experiment reproduced the original points using the closest modern metal and tested each one with an organic mixture of charcoal and water, and Indian ink as a control ink. The reproduced needles are tested on pigskin and human skin to test efficacy and healing. The experiment proves that UC 7790 may have been tattoo needles as they successfully tattoo human skin and were probably hafted implements.
... Simple pointed implements dating back to the Magdalenian (21,000-14,000 cal BP) may constitute single and inline tattooing tools (e.g., P equart and P equart 1962:244), while Middle Stone Age bone points in South Africa are also suggested to perhaps have been utilized in such a function (Deter-Wolf 2013), though as yet no detailed work has been undertaken and their identification as tattooing implements is ambiguous. Tassie (2003) found that evidence for early multi-toothed tools in Egypt andNubia, andZidarov (2009, 2017) in the Balkan Copper Age, was inconclusive and that confirmation required trace evidence to identify use wear, blood, and pigment. Similarly, when comb tattooing (compare scarification/skin scratching) first began in the Pacific is unknown, Figure 4. Tattoo implements mentioned in text (not to scale). ...
Angle-hafted bone tattoo combs are found on many Pacific islands occupied by people speaking languages of the Oceanic sub-group of the Austronesian linguistic family, with the most elaborate bone tattoo tools restricted to Polynesia. A critical problem in understanding the development of an Oceanic tattooing tradition based on hafted bone combs is their conspicuous absence from nearly all early sites in the region. Did tattooing with bone combs arrive in the Pacific with early Neolithic dispersals around 3,000 years ago, or was it an innovation that developed in West Polynesia that was later diffused to other parts of the Pacific? AMS dating and traceological examination of four bone combs from a site in Tonga indicate they are the oldest multi-toothed tattooing implements in the Pacific and confirm the existence of the angle-hafted bone comb technology in Polynesia ∼2,700 years ago. The basic tattooing toolkit represented by narrow bone combs from the TO.1 site appear to have been remarkably stable over millennia and we suggest that the angle-hafted bone comb probably dispersed from West Polynesia to other parts of Oceania.
... The question of tattooing in early Egypt had long been debated based on the evidence of female clay figurines, their bodies ornamented with a variety of motifs, both geometric and figural (Keimer, 1948;Bianchi, 1988;Tassie, 2003). These clay figurines are not especially prevalent in the Neolithic and Predynastic record (Stevenson, 2017) and of the roughly 250 examples, only 16 have body decorations. ...
... We can only speculate on the method and context in which the tattoos were applied. A set of copper needles found in a Naqada III grave (Tassie, 2003) as well as the copper awls present within the burials predominately of women in contemporaneous A-Group Nubia (Nordstr€ om, 2002) have been interpreted as tattooing implements. Recent research has shown that polished bone awls are equally as effective for this purpose (Deter-Wolf and Peres, 2013), and the presence of such awls as part of a kit including pigments, resins, amulets and incense in the grave of an older woman at Hierakonpolis suggests that tattooing was in the hands of specialists and accompanied various rituals and ceremonies (Friedman, 2017). ...
The application of tattoos to the human body has enjoyed a long and diverse history in many ancient cultures. At present, the oldest surviving examples are the mainly geometric tattoos on the individual known as Ötzi, dating to the late 4th millennium BCE, whose skin was preserved by the ice of the Tyrolean Alps. In the Egyptian Nile valley, the arid climate has also promoted extensive soft tissue preservation. Here we report on the tattoos found during the examination of two of the best preserved naturally mummified bodies from Egypt's Predynastic (c. 4000-3100 BCE) period, making them the earliest extant examples from the Nile Valley. Figural tattoos that mirror motifs found in Predynastic art were observed on the right arm of one male and the right arm and shoulder of one female, demonstrating conclusively that tattooing was practiced in prehistoric Egypt. These findings overturn the circumstantial evidence of the artistic record that previously suggested only females were tattooed for fertility or even erotic reasons. Radiocarbon testing and datable iconographic parallels for the motifs indicate that these tattooed individuals are nearly contemporaneous with the Iceman, positioning them amongst the bearers of some of the oldest preserved tattoos in the world. At over five thousand years of age, they push back the evidence for tattooing in Africa by a millennium and provide new insights into the range of potential uses of tattoos in pre-literate societies by both sexes, revealing new contexts for exploring the visual language of prehistoric times.
... In an effort to understand the time depth associated with tattooing, scholars must instead turn to the archeological record. There are three principal lines of archeological evidence for tattooing in ancient and pre-literate societies: Anthropomorphic art, tattoo tools, and preserved human skin Tassie, 2003). The first two lines of evidence allow for some conjecture as to the antiquity of tattooing and suggest the practice may have originated at least as early as the Upper Paleolithic. ...
... The first two lines of evidence allow for some conjecture as to the antiquity of tattooing and suggest the practice may have originated at least as early as the Upper Paleolithic. However, interpreting possible permanent body decoration in ancient art is difficult, and methods for differentiating between tattoo tools and similar implements that may have served different functions are not yet refined (e.g., Hendrix, 2003;Piprani, 2010;Renaut, 2004b;Tassie, 2003;Zidarov, 2009). Consequently, the best evidence, and only direct archeological proof, for the antiquity of tattooing is found on preserved human skin. ...
The practice of tattooing has been documented in cultures across the globe and throughout recorded history. While there are several lines of archeological evidence through which to study ancient tattooing, the marks identified on naturally and deliberately preserved human skin provide the only direct evidence of tattooing in antiquity. Until recently there was a discrepancy regarding the identity of the oldest tattooed human remains, with popular and scholarly sources alternately awarding the honor to the Tyrolean Iceman known as Ötzi, or to an unidentified South American Chinchorro mummy. Through a reexamination of the identity of the South American specimen and the associated radiocarbon data, we are able to identify the source of this confusion, and confirm that Ötzi presents the world's oldest preserved tattoos.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352409X15301772
... Alps (Spindler 1994) reveal ancient decorative and therapeutic tattoo trad- itions in Europe and Central Asia. Other examples of tat- tooed mummies have also been recovered in western China (Mallory & Mair 2000), and northern Africa (Tassie 2003). ...
Although tattooing existed throughout the ancient world, there have been few archaeological identifications of actual tattoo implements outside of Oceania. This chapter discusses the archaeological footprint of ancient tattooing and uses cross-cultural comparative ethnographies to examine the material culture of the practice. These data show that identifying tattoo tools in an archaeological setting requires convincing association of those materials with pigments, supported by various additional items from a tattoo toolkit. Applying these associations to the archaeological record allows for identification of the oldest potential tattoo tools to date and suggests tattooing originated during the Middle Stone Age in southern Africa.
Body art is an important expressant of personality, religious beliefs and social habits in any society. Ancient Egypt was no exception to the rule. The aim of this article is to research the ways our ancient ancestors practiced body art and the purpose of such physical decorations. We have evidence that body art was practiced in ancient Egypt since the Pre-dynastic period in the form of tattoos which were applied mostly to women and in some rare examples to men as well. Cosmetics were widespread in all classes of society and along all historical stages. Henna was used for colouring hair , balms, feet and nails of mummies. Piercing and earlobe stretching of ears was practiced, especially during the New Kingdom. Branding was a cruel measure taken mostly against criminals and war prisoners. It was concluded that body had different purposes like beautifying, protection, connection to certain gods and marking for identification or punishment.
