History of Tattooing

History of Tattooing Middle East -Egypt
A little known fact about the Egyptian Culture and Tattooing is that oddly enough that tattoos were worn by only the Egyptian females! Of course in the future, it may be possible that archaeologists may unearth new mummies with proof of tattooed male Egyptian mummies, but to date, the proof states that if you were a woman of Egypt thousands of years ago you and your female counter parts would be the only ones getting tattooed while the males just sat around and watched, perhaps in envy.

An Egyptian mummy known as "Amunet" was discovered in Thebes in 1891. Amunet (The Goddess of Love) was later to be found to be the remains of "The Priestess of Hathor, her time dates back to approximately 2200BC. Decorated with diamond shaped and elliptical dot patterns, groups of linear markings decorating her arms and thighs and a fairly large pattern with a mixture of dots and smaller lines resting below her navel area, this High Priestess and as well "dancer" may have been an inspiration to other dancers and performers of her area. Many other mummies were discovered to have basic renditions of the Goddess Amunet, tattooed upon their own bodies, along with similar linear and circular markings. Although there is no known word or glyph associated with tattooing in our current understanding of the Egyptian language, it must have been important to them as it is rumored that the Egyptians played a major role in the spreading the art of tattooing throughout the area and as well onto the world itself during the days of the Great Pyramid build. Many local and non local laborers and various artisans were traveling to Egypt to take their respective places in the audacious task of building the Pyramids.

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Augustine Anggat Ganjing: Basic Iban Design

The Ibans are one of the indigenous tribes of Borneo, one of
the Holy Lands for Tribal Tattoo devotees. If you are into Bor-
neo style tribal tattooing, I can wholeheartedly recommend a
visit to those shores: beautiful place, very nice people, and in
my experience nothing but positive reactions towards heavily
tattooed persons.

Ganjing's book has by many tattoo artists been labelled the
"Bible of Iban (Tattoo) Design". Very likely that this is true:
the subject is not widely written about in the first place.

"Basic Iban Design" does in its introduction recount the story
of how tattooing first arrived on the island of Borneo, but
only a small part of the book is specifically on Iban tattoo de-
signs. Though all the fabric, pottery, etc. patterns are defini-
tely more than just a little helpful in learning to understand
Iban Tattoo design, and one can easily see how they corre-
late to traditional Borneo tattooing; and vice versa.

Without a doubt, "Basic Iban Design" is a must-have for all
of you tribal tattoo aficionados out there.

This is, btw, one of the exclusive tattoo books that I carry.
I have so far not found "Basic Iban Design" anywhere but
in Borneo (not even on Malaysian Mainland; where in many
parts tattoos are usually frowned upon anyways).