…  It was a surprise to find the tattoos on a male mummy. [Oxford professor Dr Renee] Friedman says other, later female Egyptian mummies with tattoos had been discovered, and a set of figurines with drawings on them did suggest to Egyptologists that tattoos likely existed at the time for women. The male’s body art “was a real game changer in our perceptions of tattooing,” she says.

These markings are roughly contemporaneous with Otzi, a man who was preserved in ice in Europe and dates back to the late 4th millennium BCE. However, archaeologists have suggested that his tattoos may have had a medicinal purpose – Friedman suggests they could be an early form of acupuncture.

These Egyptian tattoos, she says, were meant for show. “They’re on parts of the body that would have been on daily display,” she says, adding to what we already know about predynastic fashion. “You’re showing off tattoos, we know that they had colorful clothing, they had colorful leather. They probably looked fabulous.”  …

Via my BF & Some Of The Oldest-Ever Tattoos Found On Egyptian Mummies : The Two-Way : NPR