This mysterious woman was first discovered in 2014 by an expedition from the French Institute of Oriental Studies near the village of Deir El-Madina, a settlement contaianing workers who built royal mausoleums in the Valley. Valley of the Kings. Over the years, more information about the squid mummy has come to light.
Mustafa el Waziri
secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Egypt, said in a new statement issued to Spanish newspaper El Mundo: "Scientific and archaeological studies show that it is is the mummy of a woman who probably lived from about 1300 to 1070 BC and died when she was about 25 to 34 years old.”
Her decomposed skin is adorned with at least 23 tattoos, including depictions of bulls, sheep, baboons and lotus flowers. She also has a tattoo of cows on her arm, most likely a reference to the baseball jersey design goddess Hathor, associated with motherhood, fertility, and beauty. More importantly, she also has several tattoos of Horus' eyes on her neck, shoulders, and back, a divine symbol believed to ward off evil.
Biologist Anne Austin of Stanford University in California told Nature News in 2016: "Every angle you look at this woman, you'll see a pair of divine eyes looking back at you."
Dr el Waziri added that her tattoos suggest she was most likely an elite member of the community, and that many of her tattoos "reflect that the mummy belonged to a woman of religious status." important throughout life”.
However
much of this person remains a mystery, mainly because she lacks a head and arms, and her grave has been heavily plundered over the centuries. In fact, when archaeologists first discovered her body in 2014, they didn't know she was tattooed so much, they thought it was just drawings on her skin.
The oldest known tattoos in the world belong to Ötzi the Iceman, a naturally 3d shirt preserved glacial mummy who lived between 3370 and 3100 BC in the European Alps. In Egypt, people also got tattoos shortly after this time, as seen on two mummies of ancient Egypt. These are the oldest tattoos in the world.
Wherever early incarnations of this body art are found in the world, they often seem to use tattoos to show affiliation with a certain group or to indicate a relationship. spirit, or position of power.
In the case of Ötzi the Iceman, researchers believe the 63 tattoos are associated with healing because they are placed very close to traditional acupuncture points on the body. Unfortunately, the changes to his body did not help him survive a brutal attack by a vengeful enemy.