A tattooed mummy over 3 years old has been discovered in Egypt!

Egypt - Are you wondering how your tattoos will age? Egyptologist Cedric Gobeil gives us a good answer with the discovery of this tattooed mummy, 3 years old!

Incredible ! A word is not enough to qualify the discovery of Egyptologist Cedric Gobeyl, who discovered a tattooed mummy over 3 years old! And the unusual nature of this discovery goes beyond tattooing because it deals with patterns, as Cedric explains to us. “We already knew about fifteen mummies, all women, with geometric tattoos, but with images of animals, this is the first time! "

This woman, who lived several years after the reign of Tutankhamun, was discovered in the village of Deir el-Medina (a village of artisans in the Valley of the Kings). She was an Egyptian craftswoman who, like their masters, had the privilege of being mummified after death.

If these tombs had already been explored in 1930, Cedric Gobey decided to restore the layer. Well, I took it. As Le Point informs us, “his team quickly discovered a cluster of more or less as many as hundreds of mummies plucked from their sarcophagi by marauders many centuries ago”.

No head or legs, but a bust covered with a tattoo

Then Cedric Gobey invites American expert Jane Austen, who first discovered the tattooed mummy.

After verification, the experts are formal. This is not a posthumous painting, but rather motifs written in ink during the life of this woman, probably between her 25 and 35 years. Imagine that the tattoo technique is close to the one practiced by our current tattooists. “There was no doubt about it. These tattoos were done more or less the way we practice today, the head of mission confirms, Egyptian tattooists covered the skin with blue-black pigment obtained from burning plants and then tattooed it with a set of needles. "

Tattoos of baboons, cobras, flowers and cows on his body

This very old young woman's tattoos extend from her throat to her elbows. “We raised several eyes of Ujat, representing the sign of Nefer, which means good, beautiful or perfect. We also have on our necks two seated baboons, depictions of the god Thoth, performing a preventive function. There are several more wavy cobras that are oriented towards the person from the front, as if they accompanied him in everyday life. We still have flowers and two cows facing each other, representing the goddess Ator, who was a cult target in Deir el Medina, ”says Egyptologist Cedric Gobeil.

Of the hundreds of mummies discovered, only this one was represented by tattoos. Which raises the question of its status. Tattoos as a sentence or vice versa as a sign of recognition? The most likely hypothesis put forward by the American anthropologist (Jane Austen for followers) and Cedric Gobale is that it will be a priestess or a wizard. "The snakes on her skin can also make a person think of a wizard who could come to the aid of people as a snake or scorpion charmer, or even communicate with the dead."

This discovery, if anything, reminds us of the infamous Egyptian tattoo artist Favez Zahmul, who was beaten a few days ago for opening a tattoo parlor in Egypt. You can find our published article on this topic here.