Uncovered Medieval Tattoos Flesh Out a Misunderstood Practice

by Admin
Uncovered Medieval Tattoos Flesh Out a Misunderstood Practice

In northeast Sudan lies the Bayuda Desert, home to the Medieval Christian monastery of Ghazali. Although it was abandoned in the 13th century, recent excavations have uncovered several archaeological finds from this monastic community, which thrived in what was once the kingdom of Makuria. Following the excavation of the early-Medieval cemetery near the monastery, archaeologists discovered only the second known example of a tattoo from Medieval Nubia, a region along the Nile extending from southern Egypt to northern Sudan. The findings flesh out part of the history of tattooing as an art form symbolic of identity, a practice dating back over 5,000 years. 

Published in the journal Antiquity, the findings reveal clues about religious tattooing in the Middle Ages. It also corrodes assumptions that such tattoos might have been taboo in the premodern Mediterranean. It was authored by a multidisciplinary team led by anthropologist Kari A. Guilbault of Purdue University with Robert Stark and Artur Obłuski of the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology at the University of Warsaw. As the researchers note, the discovery confirms the long history of tattooing within the Nile Valley, which existed from at least 3100 BCE onward into the Middle Ages. It also indicates continuities and parallels with tattoo cultures in North Africa, particularly Morocco, as well as in Ethiopia. 

During the 7th century, the Nubian kingdom of Makuria built the Ghazali monastery and its adjacent complexes, which were in use from 680 to 1275 CE. These included outlying churches, a refectory, living facilities, an iron-smelting workshop, and numerous cemeteries that held thousands of human remains, largely excavated from 2012 to 2017. In 2023, the team of archaeologists led by Guilbault began to examine individual human remains more closely, finding one likely middle-aged male tattooed with what is known as a Christogram — consisting of the Greek letters chi (X) and rho (P) superimposed and flanked by an alpha (A) and omega (Ω or ω). Archaeologists estimate that the man lived around 667 to 774 CE, during the early Middle Ages. However, tattooing practices have a longer history in the region.

The word “tattoo” is derived from the Sāmoan word tatau, which entered into English parlance around 1769. The oldest known tattooed male is Ötzi the Iceman, a 45-year-old mummified man found in the glacial ice on the border between Austria and Italy, who likely lived around 3400 to 3100 BCE. In 2015, scientists published a complete map of Ötzi’s 61 tattoos, all of which are rough lines. However, the oldest known figural tattoos come from Ancient Egypt on what are known as the “Gebelein” mummies, dating to between 3351 and 3017 BCE during the period of Predynastic Egypt. Although the mummies were excavated in the late 19th century and acquired by the British Museum around 1900, it was not until 2018 that archaeologists and scientists published new analysis of their previously unknown tattoos, discovered on two of the remains through infrared imaging scans. A tattooed bull and a Barbary sheep appear on a man’s arm, while four “S”-shaped motifs appear vertically on a woman’s right shoulder and in a curved line on her arm. Scientists know of around 45 tattooed mummies from Nubia and Egypt dating to between 3100 BCE and 74 CE.

Current research on the premodern history of tattooing in the Ancient Mediterranean Basin and within ancient Northeast Africa has proposed numerous reasons for these important marks, underscoring how the body itself acted as a medium for signaling social standing and expressing religiosity or spiritualism. Although tattoos could be imposed on the enslaved as a visible marker of bondage and as a form of penal punishment, particularly within certain Greco-Roman contexts, Ancient Egypt had long practiced religious tattooing. Both the known mummy tattoos and heavily tattooed figurines in Egyptian gravesites indicate that such markings had ties to fertility, childbirth, and, often, to Hathor, goddess of beauty, music, and dance.

As such, the Medieval Nubian tattoos found in Sudan should be viewed within a broader cultural context. In remarks to Hyperallergic, University of California, Los Angeles historian of Ancient Nubia and Egypt Solange Ashby noted that, whether tied to Ancient Egyptian religion or Christianity, there is a continuous history of tattoos in ancient Nubia and other areas of Africa.

“Nubian Christians are carrying on an earlier tradition of marking their bodies with signs of their belief in the sacred in the way that earlier priestesses proclaimed their devotion to and service for the goddess Hathor,” Ashby said. As she has previously proven, there were strong links between Nubia, tattoos, and the revered goddess.

In the Ancient Roman period, the most common Latin term for a tattoo was “stigma,” derived from the Greek verb στίζω, meaning “to prick.” There was often a negative, punitive, or barbaric connotation tied to the practice among the ancient Greco-Roman elite. Involuntary tattoos and branding could be imposed on prisoners, enslaved people who tried to escape, and others viewed as deviants. This view later influenced the elite Western mindset in places like Victorian Britain (even if a few Victorian rebels enjoyed secret tattoos) and even caused the overlooking of tattooed women as lower-class sex workers or concubines during excavation of Ancient Egyptian sites like Deir el-Bahari in the late 19th century.

During the European Middle Ages, tattoos became symbols of spirituality, religious identity, and often pilgrimage. They functioned as important markers of faith and were not generally viewed as disreputable or as signifiers of class, as they later would be. As I have discussed prior, early Christian pilgrims began to adopt religious tattooing that continues to this day, particularly in long-standing tattoo parlors. The Razzouk family has operated a pilgrim tattooing shop in Jerusalem since the 14th century, providing religious tattooing services to customers from Coptic Christian, Armenian, and other communities. 

We are only now beginning to understand that inking the skin was part of the Christian experience in Medieval Nubia — although its frequency is still unknown. In 2014, the British Museum revealed the existence of the only other known Medieval Nubian tattoo — a marking found on the inner thigh tattoo of a woman living along the Nile around 655 to 775 CE. The tattoo spelled the name Michael (MIXAHΛ) in Greek or Coptic, likely referencing the Archangel Michael and calling upon him to guard her. Ultimately, researchers concluded that the tattoo had no “aesthetic value” and was meant to be protective, or “apotropaic.” Her tattoo revealed the woman’s Christian identity to modern researchers, but it also speaks to a longer tradition of religion and tattooing that is only now materializing through advancements in technologies like ultraviolet to infrared scanning.

While the stigma and disdain directed toward tattooing persist today, more people are embracing the deeply personal experience of tattooing as a historical art form that was often subject to colonial erasure, whether it be by the Māori people of New Zealand, Indigenous facial tattoo practices, or the Swedish love of some good ink. These recent discoveries of tattoos on human remains from the premodern world underscore the role of new archaeological methods and technology in bringing secretive and often ephemeral written landscapes to life.

Perhaps more importantly, knowledge of these tattoos discloses how expressive and protective these marks could be. Whether in Ancient Egypt or Medieval Nubia, for ancient worshippers of Hathor or for those wishing to call upon Saint Michael in times of need, tattoos have always been a way to communicate through the most personal canvas we have available: our bodies.

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