ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI—Facial tattoos have been found on the mummified remains of children who lived in Nubia some 1,400 years ago, when Christianity was introduced in the region, Live Science reports. “If the tattoos were a symbol of the wearer’s Christian faith, then it might have been important for parents to create permanent ways to mark their children as Christian,” speculated Anne Austin of the University of Missouri–St. Louis. Austin and her colleagues examined more than 1,000 mummies recovered from three archaeological sites in Sudan, including the Christian-era site of Kulubnarti, using microscopy with infrared lighting. The researchers identified the remains of 17 people who had definite tattoos, and six people who had markings that may have been faded tattoos. They also determined that all but two of the tattooed people who had been buried at Kulubnarti had clusters of dots and dashes on their foreheads, temples, cheeks, or eyebrows, and most of these people were children under the age of 11. Four dots arranged in a diamond pattern on the forehead, perhaps echoing a Christian cross, was a common design. “It’s entirely plausible that tattooing was part of a form of baptism if it was used as a sign of Christianity at Kulubnarti,” Austin said. Parents may have also tattooed children as a way of protecting them or for medical reasons, she added. “Then maybe the high rate of tattooing in young children shows us that people at Kulubnarti were facing high amounts of health issues,” she concluded. For more on this ancient African power, go to "A Nubian Kingdom Rises."
