Categories: News

After CAT Scans, Ancient Mummies Revealed To Have Worn Tattoos

In London, eight Egyptian mummies will be on display at the British Museum starting in May. The exhibit, “Ancient Lives: New Discoveries,” showcases the specimens and reveals that ancient Egyptians wore tattoos and suffered similar health ailments of people today.

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The British Museum examined the mummies using London hospital CAT scans, taking a far deeper look in to the lives and physiology of ancient Egyptians. Ranging in age, size, and region, these mummies span royalty and normal people living along the Nile River.

“We want to promote the idea these are not objects, but real human beings,” John Taylor, head curator of the British Museum’s Ancient Egypt and Sudan department, says. “We want to capture the humanity of these people.”


The oldest of the mummy group was tested to be at least 5,500 years old, while the more recent specimen was tested at around 1,500 years old.

The CAT scans provided scientists with grand detail, as some of the mummies still had skin, organ, and bones largely intact.

One of the female specimens bore a tattoo on the inside of her right leg. “The tattoo on her right inner thigh represents a monogram that spells Michael in ancient Greek,” said exhibition curator Daniel Antoine. “She is the first evidence of a tattoo from this period. This is a very rare find.”

The specimen was said to have lived around 700 A.D., and her tattoo may have symbolized the Archangel Michael, which was believed to have provided its wearer spiritual protection.

The scientists also discovered that some of the specimens suffered from heart problems and oral hygiene issues that may have led to some of them passing far sooner than usual.

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D.L. Chandler

D.L. Chandler is a veteran of the Washington D.C. Metro writing scene, working as a journalist, reporter and culture critic. Getting his start in the late 1990s in print, D.L. joined the growing field of online reporting in 1998. His first big break came with the now-defunct Politically Black in 1999, the nation's first Black political news portal. D.L. has worked in the past for OkayPlayer, MTV News, Metro Connection and several other publications and magazines. D.L., a native Washingtonian, resides in the Greater Washington area.

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  • Article: " her tattoo may have symbolized the Archangel Michael, which was believed to have provided its wearer spiritual protection."... How on earth did they come-up with that speculative conclusion?

    These Egypto-Africans were not Christians. Christianity had not fully invented itself or was forced upon the ancient world during that period, even after 700 years of Christ's alleged death. Ancient Kemet practiced the same Ancestral and Totemic spirituality as did all of Africa. We need to see the tattoo, and translate it from their own language and cultural perspective. The Greeks, who borrowed their own Gods from Africa, and poorly understood them, are not a reliable source.

  • There was a christian egyptian population as early as 451 AD, maybe even earlier. "Christianity was brought to Egypt by Saint Mark the Evangelist in the 1st century.[8] Diocletian's reign marked the transition from the Roman to the Byzantine era in Egypt, when a great number of Egyptian Christians were persecuted. The New Testament had by then been translated into Egyptian. After the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451, a distinct Egyptian Coptic Church was firmly established.[9]"
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Egypt#Arab_and_Ottoman_Egypt_.28641.E2.80.931882.29

  • that's plain bullshit , these people won't accept the fact that africans as always been smarter.
    and more civilized than others, so they always wants finds ways to squeeze themself in our proud history. so sad

  • Raia Pagan girl don't believe anything that a white man wrote. Christianity and islam is based on african consciousness and spiritualism. Founded by Moors=BLack Africans. Do more research ..the so called romans didn't invent anything, africans did. A lot of people are miss educated. Do you know that they found skulls only in africa dating all the way back to millions of years that was a black female they name her lucy just to name a few. Did you know that once upon a time this beautiful world was only inhabited only by the black race, that's why if you go all over the world, asia, europe,south america e.t.c you will find native black people there the media and the so called history don't show you or teach you that but instead they drop bombs on them on the hush to try to extinct them because their afraid that the world will find out about their lies , So the original Romans were black if you dont believe me go check in the museums all over europe and south america. But they dont want you to know that huh. So ask yourself if black people have been existing for millions of years why would a race that as been existing for about only 6 thousand years will be the ones to teach the world everything we seem to know now? Logically would you say its the oldest race due to all the life experience they've had. For example don't everybody learn from their elders like their parents, just like young kids learn from older kids!The so called religion is now a cult and controlled by one group to keep the world on a leash. :)

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