An Overview of Ancient Egyptian Tattoos
by The ancient Egyptians developed and used tattoos for cultural, religious, as well as social reasons. The Ancient Egyptians would go on to develop highly complex forms of tattoos. The complexity was needed in order for them to meet the requirements set out for them in the first place.
The ancient Egyptians used tattoos to fulfil various cultural, artistic, religious, and social functions. The Ancient Egyptians were always very keen to use art and other forms of culture to honour the things that were most important for them in both live as well as death. From the great pyramids, to the largest temples, down to tattoos the majority of things in Ancient Egypt were meant to convey cultural, religious, and social messages.
As with many things in Ancient Egypt the practice of giving people tattoos was designed to serve higher religious and social purposes, rather than just been fashion statements or being trendy. There was certainly no cultural, economic, social, and religious stigmas attached to the practice of getting tattoos within Ancient Egypt, quite the reverse in fact.
Some ancient and indeed some modern societies regard tattoos as being tasteless and even socially unacceptable. Not so the ancient Egyptians, they consider tattoos to have artistic merits that could be put towards helping to worship the gods, goddesses, as well as to pay homage to their divine Pharaohs.
The ancient Egyptians used tattoos to worship their gods; their goddesses as well as the Pharaoh by making the tattoos selected to represent deities or indeed royalty. Tattoos were regarded as being very helpful in serving such political, religious, and social functions.
Instead of being social outcasts by choosing to have tattoos done Ancient Egyptians were demonstrating their allegiance to the deities and also to their Pharaohs. The Ancient Egyptians could even opt to have tattoos for specific gods, goddesses, and monarchs. The Ancient Egyptians used tattoos to distinguish between the priests of their gods and their goddesses, as well as their other followers.
Bibliography
Crystal, D (2003) The Penguin Concise Encyclopedia, Penguin Group, London
Geddes and Grosset (2004) Ancient Egypt Myth & History, The Gresham Publishing Company, New Lanark
Grimal, N (1992) A History of Ancient Egypt, translated by I Shaw, Blackwell, Oxford
Moore, R I (1999) Philip’s Atlas of World History, Chancellor Press, London
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