Children as young as 18 months old were given facial tattoos in the Nile Valley region 1,400 years ago, archaeologists have discovered while studying mummified corpses in Sudan. Furthermore, this practice coincided with the introduction of Christianity into the region known as Nubia.
“If tattoos are a symbol of the wearer’s Christian faith, then it may be important for parents to come up with permanent ways to mark their children as Christians,” says the study’s lead author. Anne Austinan archaeologist at the University of Missouri-St. Lewis told Live Science.
Tattooing is an ancient human practice. Some of the oldest archaeological evidence of tattoos can be found Ötzi the Snowman“, His well-preserved 5,300-year-old body discovered in the Alps was decorated with 61 of them. Other early tattoos were found on Egyptian mummies 5000 years ago, Siberian mummies 2300 years ago, and Peruvian mummies 1200 years ago. All of these examples were tattoos on adults; Tattooed children are discovered less commonly.
In the new study, researchers identified large-scale examples of tattooing at the Christian-era site of Kolobanarti in northern Sudan. Two cemeteries on the site were used between 650 and 1000 AD. Infrared rays By lighting, which can penetrate the skin to reveal tattoos that are barely visible to the naked eye, the researchers identified 17 people with definite tattoos and six people with potentially faded tattoos.
While investigating the exact location where people buried at Kolobnarti wore body tattoos, researchers noticed an unusual pattern: two people had tattoos on the back, but the rest had designs on their foreheads, temples, cheeks, or eyebrows. Face tattoos already exist Relatively uncommon In the archaeological record, however, researchers have found a much rarer practice: tattooing children.
The researchers wrote in the study that most of the people with tattoos in Kolobnarti were children under the age of 11, while the youngest person with a specific tattoo was 18 months old. A 3-year-old girl was found to have a tattoo that was placed directly on top of another tattoo, indicating that young children were frequently tattooed.
The tattoo consists of clustered dots and dashes. The most common design was four dots tattooed in a diamond pattern on a person’s forehead, which could represent a Christian cross, according to Austin. “It is entirely plausible that the tattoo would have been part of a form of baptism if it was used as a sign of Christianity in Kolobnarti,” she said.
But researchers are also investigating another theory about the prevalence of tattoos on children found in the cemetery.
“If parents tattooed their children for protection or medical reasons, perhaps the high rate of tattooing in young children tells us that people in Kolobnarty were having an unusually high amount of health problems,” Austin said.
Forehead tattoos may represent parents’ attempts to protect their children from headaches or high fevers, both of which are common in migraine attacks. malariaIt is a disease that has a long history in the Nile Valley, according to the study.
The team also found that Nubians likely used knives, not needles, to make tattoos, based on the shape of the tattoo marks.
Even if tattoos are merely decorative, Austin said, we shouldn’t be so quick to judge people’s exes because of the practice.
“Kolubnarti’s form of tattooing — which could have been done very quickly — seemed no more extreme than piercing a young child’s ears or circumcising newborns,” she said.