Researchers find evidence of youngest-ever children tattooed

Researchers at the Arizona State University and the University of Missouri believe they have found evidence of the youngest-ever children to have been tattooed.

Brenda Baker and Anne Austin scanned the bodies of people from several cultural groups in what is now Sudan. Some of these are hundreds, or even thousands of years old. Infrared scans were used to look for tattoos on the skin of the bodies. Baker believes signs of tattooing on a toddler who was between 7 and 10 months old may make this child the youngest tattooed person ever found.

In their newly published article in PNAS, “Revealing Tattoo Traditions in Ancient Nubia through Multispectral Imaging,” they document their findings of tattoos on individuals at two of the three sites – Semna South and Kulubnarti – including on young children.

Brenda Baker, bioarchaeologist and professor in Arizona State University's School of Human Evolution and Social Change, joined forces with Anne Austin, associate professor in the Department of History at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, to conduct a systematic survey of more than 1,000 individuals found in three different sites in Sudan – Semna South, Qinifab School and Kulubnarti – and spanning the period from 350 BCE-1400 CE.

When Austin came to the Tempe campus for the survey, she brought with her multispectral imaging technology.

Using multispectral imaging technology Baker and Austin found 25 previously unknown individuals with tattoos – almost doubling the 30 known tattooed individuals from the Nile Valley. Microscopic imaging and the distribution of the tattoos further revealed a shift in tattoo practices during the Christian period, including tattooing on children under age 3.

Early Christian traditions

Extensive tattooing at Kulubnarti – including what may be cross-shaped markings on the forehead – provides the earliest evidence for Christian tattoo traditions in northeast Africa and could be ancestral to modern Christian practices in the region. Tattooing might also have been done for medicinal purposes, as a way to prevent or treat illnesses, such as malaria.

Baker added that two adults had tattoos on their backs, which may have also been for medicinal purposes.

The excavation of cemeteries at Semna South and Kulubnarti were conducted by the University of Chicago and University of Colorado, respectively, in the 1960s and 70s as part of the UNESCO International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia, while work in at Qinifab was conducted by an ASU team under Baker’s direction as part of the international Merowe Dam Archaeological Salvage Project. All remains were gifted to the institutions by the government of the Republic of Sudan and are cared for at ASU. The collections had undergone further examination in the years since their excavation, but the evidence of tattoos had not been readily apparent without the use of modern near infrared technology and software.

For Baker, more work needs to be done to gain a better understanding of tattooing in the region.