Egyptian Tattoos

Egyptian tattoos, like many other tattoo designs from mythology or ancient cultures, are growing in popularity. They are tasteful, socially acceptable, and a great way of exploring and utilizing art imagery from all over the world. Egyptian tattoos are beautiful and striking images from the ancient past.

Most of us have a fairly evolved concept of what Egyptian art looks like and how it may be adapted to a modern tattoo design. On the other hand, most of us have no more than a generalized idea of what ancient Egyptian tattooing looked like.

It appears that tattooing was not particularly widespread among the Egyptians, with one notable exception - some Egyptian women, from priestesses to princesses to dancers, were tattooed with a pattern of parallel lines and shapes.

We know this because some of these women were mummified, which preserved the skin and the tattoos. These original Egyptian tattoos had a significance which, unfortunately, has been lost. Anthropologists are grateful for this and other evidence that the elaborate Egyptian burial rituals have given us.

Modern Egyptian tattoos consist of images that are taken from ancient Egyptian art, preserved as components of the pyramids and other structures.

Ankh tattoos for example, consist of an ancient symbol that's imbued with magical protection. The ankh is a cross symbol that predates the Christian cross by several thousand years.

The Ankh cross looks like the Latin cross with a rounded component at the top of the cross. It is the hieroglyphic symbol for 'life'.

The ankh is a very versatile tattoo image, it can be small and discrete or larger and quite dramatic. Like other 'symbol' tattoos, ankh tattoos look good on an ankle, upper arm or shoulder.

Ankh tattoos are a common sight in gangs, where they symbolize eternal life.

Besides Ankh tattoos, the Eye of Horus tattoo(aka Egyptian Eye tattoo or Eye of Ra tattoo) must be the most popular Egyptian art tattoo. The Eye of Horus (aka Wedjat) is a protection symbol (from the god Horus). The symbol was used on ships, amulets, bracelets, etc.

Horus was the god of the sky and looked like a falcon. The eye is the right eye of the falcon. The markings under the eye represent a teardrop.

Eye of Ra tattoos look the same as Eye of Horus designs because the gods Ra and 

Horus became one. Ra was the sun god, that's why Eye of Horus tattoos often include a sun in its design.

Eye of Horus tattoos are a common form of gang tattoos, for protection from other gangs and back stabbers.

Something you also see fairly often is the eye pyramid tattoo, a design in which the Eye of Horus is incorporated in a pyramid.

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