Mother Mummies In Egypt Found With Protective Childbirth Tattoos
By Sidra Lackey
A tattoo on the left hip bone of a mummified Egyptian woman buried at Deir el-Medina. (Image credit: Anne Austin/University of Missouri-St. Louis)
Some ancient Egyptian mothers got tattoos that were likely meant to protect them during childbirth and during the postpartum period, an analysis of their mummies reveals as reported by Live Science’s Kristina Killgrove, an archaeologist with specialties in ancient human skeletons and science communication.
New archaeological evidence from Egyptian mummies shows the practice of tattooing is actually more than three millennia old, Killgrove reported in, “Protective childbirth tattoos found on ancient Egyptian mummies.” At the New Kingdom site of Deir el-Medina (1550 B.C. to 1070 B.C.), researchers Anne Austin and Marie-Lys Arnette discovered that, “tattoos on ancient flesh and tattooed figurines from the site are likely connected with the ancient Egyptian god Bes, who protected women and children, particularly during childbirth.”
“Of Ink and Clay: Tattooed Mummified Human Remains and Female Figurines from Deir el-Medina,” is the recent article in the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, where Austin and Arnette published their findings. “The mummified remains of two tattooed women in conjunction with three unpublished figurines with tattoo motifs from Deir el-Medina. Several recurrent motifs are shared between these women and the figurines, including the use of Bes-images, Nilotic elements, and points at the neck. These themes also appear in previously published tattooed figurines, so-called cosmetic spoons, and paintings. In some cases, the figurines and the women even share the same location of the tattoos on their body, suggesting that the combined location and tattoo motifs are integral to their function and/or meaning,” Austin and Arnette’s research reported.
"It can be rare and difficult to find evidence for tattoos because you need to find preserved and exposed skin," study lead author Anne Austin, a bioarchaeologist at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, told Live Science. "Since we would never unwrap mummified people, our only chances of finding tattoos are when looters have left skin exposed and it is still present for us to see millennia after a person died." Deir el-Medina where the tattooed mummies were found, lies on the western bank of the Nile, across from the archaeological site of Luxor. Known in the New Kingdom period as Set-Ma'at ("Place of Truth"), this was a planned community, a large neighborhood with rectangular gridded streets and housing for the workers responsible for building tombs for the Egyptian rulers. An important feature of the site is the so-called Great Pit, an ancient dump full of pay stubs, receipts and letters on papyrus that have helped archaeologists better understand the lives of the common people. But nothing in the Great Pit mentions the practice of tattooing, so the discovery of at least six tattooed women at Deir el-Medina was surprising, “Protective childbirth tattoos found on ancient Egyptian mummies” further explored.
The new evidence that Austin discovered came from two tombs that she and her team examined in 2019. Human remains from one tomb include, “ a left hip bone of a middle-aged woman. On the preserved skin, patterns of dark black coloration were visible, creating an image that, if symmetrical, would have run along the woman's lower back. Just to the left of the horizontal lines of the tattoo is a depiction of Bes and a bowl, imagery related to ritual purification during the weeks after childbirth.” The second tattoo comes from a middle-aged woman discovered in a nearby tomb. In this case, infrared photography revealed a tattoo that is difficult to see with the naked eye. A reconstruction drawing of this tattoo reveals a, “wedjat, or Eye of Horus, and a possible image of Bes wearing a feathered crown; both images suggest that this tattoo was related to protection and healing. And the zigzag line pattern may represent a marsh, which ancient medical texts associated with cooling waters used to relieve pain from menstruation or childbirth,” according to Austin.
A reconstruction of a tattoo on the lower torso and legs of one of the mummified Egyptian women. (Image credit: Anne Austin/University of Missouri-St. Louis)
In addition, 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 Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, who suggested that they too show, “tattoos on the lower back and upper thighs that include depictions of Bes.” The researchers concluded in their paper that, "when placed in context with New Kingdom artifacts and texts, these tattoos and representations of tattoos would have visually connected with imagery referencing women as sexual partners, pregnant, midwives, and mothers participating in the post-partum rituals used for protection of the mother and child."
Sonia Zakrzewski, a bioarchaeologist at the University of Southampton University in the U.K. who was not involved in the current study, told Live Science that, "the newly described tattoos are extremely intricate relative to earlier Egyptian tattoo practices," and that "images of pregnant women are extremely rare in Egyptian art." Because childbirth and fertility of the soil were linked in Egyptian thought, Zakrzewski suggested that, "these tattoos are imprinting protective representations — including of gods — on their body, almost like the person has their own portable magical amulet with them."
Tattooing in Deir el-Medina, “is even more common than people realized,” according to Anne Austin, though it is unknown how widespread it may have been elsewhere in Egypt during that period. "I'm hopeful 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 that we simply haven't discovered yet," Austin told Live Science’s Kristina Killgrove.