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Humans have been scarring their skin for thousands of years. All over the world, in all cultures, tattoos have had many other meanings. Ancient Siberian nomads, indigenous Polynesians, Nubians, South American Native Americans, and Greeks all wore tattoos for a variety of reasons. : to themselves from harm; claim your love; represent prestige or devotional beliefs; as embellishments and even as a punitive bureaucracy.
Joann Fletcher, an honorary research fellow in archaeology at the University of York in the UK, studies the imprint of tattooing on history and culture. She specializes in the ancient Egyptians, who, according to her, were long the first tattoo artists, thanks to the discovery of tattooed mummies. This was replaced in 1991, with the excavation of Ötzi the Iceman, a 5,300-year-old frozen mummy near the border between Italy and Austria, whose frame is adorned with ink.
In the millennia since Ötzi’s creation, tattoos have proliferated around the world. According to a study by the Pew Research Center, 32% of Americans have at least one tattoo, and many of them carry non-unusual motivations. In the U. S. , 69% of adult tattooed people say they got them to “honor or not forget someone or something,” while 47% say they sought to express their beliefs and 32% say they got them to improve their personal appearance. It turns out that many of our former counterparts around the world had similar motivations.
Fletcher explained all about the functions, prevalence and permanence of tattoos in cultures around the world.
What is the first of the tattoos?
When it comes to tattoos on real bodies, the earliest known examples have long been Egyptian and are found on several female mummies dating back to approximately 2000 BC. But following the most recent discovery of the Iceman in the border region between Italy and Austria in 1991 and in his tattoo designs, this date was pushed back another thousand years when they carbon-dated about 5,200 years.
Can you describe the Iceman tattoos and what they mean?
After conversations with my colleague Professor Don Brothwell of the University of York, one of the specialists who examined him, the distribution of tattooed dots and small crosses on the lower spine and at the right knee and ankle joints correspond to spaces of stress-induced degeneration. with the suggestion that they might have been implemented simply to relieve joint pain and were therefore necessarily therapeutic. This would also explain its somewhat “random” distribution in frame spaces that would not have been so simple to demonstrate if they had been used as a shape. of prestige marker.
Why did the ancient Egyptians get tattoos?
In fact, there is evidence that women wore tattoos on their bodies and limbs, from figurines from around 4000-3500 BC to around 4000-3500 BC. Occasional female figures depicted in tomb scenes around 1200 BC are the first to be seen in the 1200s BC. Figurines around 1300 B. C. , all with tattoos on their thighs. Small bronze tools known as tattoo teams have also been discovered at the site of the city of Gurob in northern Egypt and date to around 1450 BC. And then, of course, there are the tattooed mummies of the 3 women already discussed and dated. until around 2000 B. C. , to several later examples of female mummies showing such permanent mark forms, discovered in Greco-Roman burials at Akhmim.
What are these tattoos for? Who did they give them to and why?
Because it appeared to be an exclusively female practice in ancient Egypt – [although recent discoveries reveal that at least one man was tattooed] – mummies discovered with tattoos were regularly shunned by (male) excavators who seemed to assume that women had a “questionable status. “”. . . described in some cases as “dancers”. However, the female mummies had been buried at Deir el-Bahari (opposite modern-day Luxor) in a domain related to royal and elite burials, and we know that at least one of the women described as “probably a royal concubine” was a high-status concubine of the priestess named Amunet, as revealed through her funerary inscriptions.
And although it has long been assumed that such tattoos were marks of prostitutes or were intended to protect women from sexually transmitted diseases, I personally believe that the tattoos of ancient Egyptian women had a healing effect and functioned as a permanent form of amulet. [a decoration intended to protect the wearer] – during the very complicated time of pregnancy and childbirth. This is supported by the distribution trend, largely around the abdomen, in the most sensitive area of the thighs and chest, and also by the expressive types of trends, i. e. the network-like distribution of points applied in the abdomen. During pregnancy, this express trend evolved in a protective way, just as bead nets were placed on wrapped mummies to protect them and “keep everything inside. ” The placement of small figures of the domestic deity Bes on the most sensitive part of her thighs would recommend the use of tattoos as a means of safeguarding the royal birth, since Bes was the shield of women in hard work and their position in the most sensitive part of the thighs in a suitable place. This would ultimately leave tattoos as a purely feminine custom.
Who did the tattoos?
Although we have no particular written evidence in the case of ancient Egypt, it could well be that older women in a network created the tattoos for younger women, as happened in 19th-century Egypt and occurs in some parts of the 19th century. world. .
What tools did they use?
It is conceivable that a tool described as a sharp point inserted into a wooden handle, dating back to around 3000 BC, could be used as a tool to be used as a sharp point inserted into a wooden handle. Discovered by archaeologist W. M. Petrie at the Athroughdos site, it may have been used to create tattoos. Petrie also thought he discovered the aforementioned set of small bronze tools dating back to around 1450 BC. They resemble large flattened spires, at the site of the ancient city of Gurob. If they were connected to each other, they would provide repeated patterns of various points.
These tools are also remarkably similar to the much later tattoo tools used in 19th-century Egypt. Englishman William Lane (1801-1876) observed: “The operation is performed with several needles (usually seven) joined together: with them the skin is cut. “It is pricked according to the desired pattern: then a little black smoke (wood or oil) is rubbed, combined with milk from a woman’s breast. . . It is regularly practiced around the age of five or six and through [Roma] women. “
What did those tattoos look like?
Most examples of mummies have dotted line patterns and large-component diamonds, while the figurines feature more naturalistic imagery. Tattoos found on tomb scenes and on small female figurines that are part of cosmetic pieces also feature small figures of the dwarf god Bes. on the thigh.
What were they made of? How many colors were used?
Usually, a dark or black pigment, such as soot, is introduced into the pricked skin. It turns out that brighter colors were widely used in other ancient cultures, such as the Inuit, who would have used a yellow color with the same darker pigments.
What’s your maximum about ancient Egyptian tattoos?
It turns out that it was reserved for women in the purely dynastic period, i. e. before 332 B. C. In addition, the way in which some designs can be considered very well placed, once it is accepted that they were used as means of protecting women during pregnancy and childbirth.
Can you describe the tattoos used in ancient cultures and how they differ?
Among the many ancient cultures that seem to have used tattooing as a permanent form of frame adornment, the Nubians of southern Egypt are known to have used tattoos. Mummified remains of women from the indigenous Group C culture discovered in cemeteries near Kubban around the year 2000. 15,000 B. C. They had blue tattoos that, in at least one case, had the same arrangement of dots on the stomach as seen on the female mummies from Deir el-Bahari mentioned above. The ancient Egyptians also represented the male rulers of neighboring Libya around 1,300-1,100 BC. They had marks of transparent, geometric tattoos on their arms and legs and depicted them in scenes of Egyptian tombs, temples, and palaces.
The Scythian Pazyryk of the Altai Mountains region were another ancient culture that used tattoos. In 1948, the body of a 2,400-year-old Scythian man preserved in ice was discovered in Siberia, his limbs and torso covered in tattoos adorned with mythical animals. Then, in 1993, a woman with tattoos of mythical creatures on her shoulders, wrists and thumb and of similar date, was discovered in a tomb in Altai. This practice is also shown throughout the Greek Herodotus around 450 B. C.
Accounts of the ancient Britons also recommend that they, too, were tattooed as a sign of superior status, and with “various bureaucracies of beasts” tattooed on their bodies, the Romans called a northern tribe “Picti,” literally “the painted people. “”»
However, among the Greeks and Romans, the use of tattoos or “stigmata” as they were then called turned out to have been widely used as a means of marking someone as “belonging” to a devout sect or to an owner of the religion. in the case of a person’s slaves or even as a punitive measure to label them as criminals. So it’s quite intriguing that in Ptolemaic times, when a dynasty of Macedonian Greek monarchs ruled Egypt, the pharaoh himself, Ptolemy IV (221-205 B. C. ), would have been tattooed with ivy leaves to symbolize his devotion to Dionysus, the Greek god. Wine and patron deity of royal space at that time. The fashion was also followed by Roman foot soldiers and spread throughout the Roman Empire until the rise of Christianity, when tattoos were thought to “deface what was done in the symbol of God” and were therefore banned during Emperor Constantine (306-373 AD).
We also observed tattoos on the mummified remains of some of the ancient pre-Columbian cultures of Peru and Chile, reproducing the same highly ornate photographs of stylized animals and a wide variety of symbols discovered in their textile and ceramic creations. The Nazca culture figure wears what appears to be a huge tattoo just around the lower torso, extending down the stomach and extending to the genitals and, presumably, down the back in allusion to birth-related regions. Then, on the mummified remains that survived, tattoos appear. They were seen on the torso, limbs, hands, hands, and thumbs, and facial tattoos were infrequently performed.
Along with many facial and frame tattoos used among Native Americans, as believed by them, the mummified bodies of an organization of six Inuit women from Greenland in 1475 CE also revealed evidence of facial tattoos. Infrared examination revealed that five of the women had been tattooed. along a line that runs along the eyebrows, along the cheeks, and in some cases, with a series of lines on the chin. Another tattooed mummy, dated 1,000 years earlier, also discovered on St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Sea, its tattoos of dots, lines, and hearts confined to the arms and hands.
Evidence of tattoos has also been discovered among some of the ancient mummies discovered in the Taklamakan Desert in China around 1200 BC. By the end of the Han Dynasty (202 BC), the Han Dynasty was a major factor in the development of the Han Dynasty. 220 A. D. ) It turns out that only the criminals were tattooed.
Japanese men began decorating their bodies with elaborate tattoos in the late third century. The elaborate tattoos of Polynesian cultures are believed to have evolved over millennia and feature very elaborate geometric designs that, in many cases, can cover the entire body. Following James Cook’s British expedition to Tahiti in 1769, the term “tatatau” or “tattau,” meaning to strike or strike, gave the West our buzzword “tattoo. “Markings have become elegant among Europeans, especially in the case of men such as sailors and coal miners, both of which carried grave dangers and no doubt explained the almost amulet-like use of anchors or tattoos of miner’s lamps on men’s forearms.
What about popular tattoos outside the Western world?
Modern Japanese tattoos are true works of art, with many practitioners in fashion, while highly professional tattoo artists in Samoa continue to create their art as it was practiced in ancient times, before the invention of trendy tattoo equipment. Several cultures in Africa also use tattoos, adding the fine dots on the faces of Berber women in Algeria, the elaborate facial tattoos of Wodaabe men in Niger, and the small crosses on the inside of the forearms that mark the Christian Copts of Egypt.
What do the drawings of Māori faces represent?
In New Zealand’s Māori culture, the head was thought to be the ultimate vital component of the body, with the face adorned with incredibly elaborate tattoos or ‘moko’, which were considered marks of higher status. Each tattoo design was unique to each individual, and because it conveyed express dissatisfaction about their status, rank, ancestry, and abilities, it was as it should be described as a form of identity card or passport, a kind of aesthetic barcode for the face. After employing sharp bone scissors to cut the patterns in the skin, a soot-based pigment was applied to the open wounds, which then healed to seal the pattern. With the tattoos of warriors made at other stages of their lives as a kind of rite of passage, the decorations were noticeable. how to show off their features and make them for the opposite sex.
Although Māori women also tattooed their faces, the marks tended to be concentrated around the nose and lips. Although Christian missionaries tried to prevent this procedure, the women claimed that tattoos around the mouth and chin kept the skin from wrinkling and kept them young; This practice continued until the 1970s.
Why do you think so many cultures have left their mark on the human structure and their practices have influenced others?
In many cases, it turns out to have emerged independently as a permanent means of placing protective or healing symbols on the body, and then as a means of classifying other people into suitable social, political, or devout groups, or simply as a form of Self-Evaluation. Fashion expression or statement.
However, as in so many other spaces of adornment, there were, of course, cross-cultural influences, such as those that existed between the Egyptians and the Nubians, the Thracians and the Greeks and the many cultures found through Roman foot soldiers, the expansion of Roman civilization. Empire. in the last centuries a. C. ère. et the first centuries A. D. And in fact it is believed that Polynesian culture influenced Maori tattoos.
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