African Tattoos

African tattoos are not extremely common in the mainstream world of body art today.  The first African tattoos were inspired by the Egyptian culture.  After all, Egypt is where the first tattoos took place in 2000 BC.   Egyptian tattoos typically involved images with hieroyglyphics, pyramids, and ankhs---all of them symbols that are highly meaningful in Egyptian culture.  The first tattoos done in Africa were on Egyptians, and thus started a trend with African tattoos. 

Ancient African tattoos were found on mummies thousands of years ago.  These ancient tattoos were typically of various patterns in primitive black ink.  The first African tattoo found was dated back to a mummy in 1994 BC.  During these times, most of the tattoos were of symbols representing sun worship or religion. 

Cicatrisation is an extremely popular alternative to African tattoos, still practiced today.  This type of body art is done by those in Africa whose skin is too dark to alter with color pigmentation in the form of tattoos.  Cicatrisation works by opening a small part of the skin to create a wound, and then rubbing ash into the wound.  When it heals, the result will be a raised scar.  Sometimes they will reopen the scar to boost up the visibility level or add pebbles and pearls into the scar tissue to make the scar even bigger and more raised than before.  This form of African body art represented beauty, strength, and status, especially when the scars are found in a decorative pattern. 

African tattoos require a lot of talent.  If you are thinking of getting an African tattoo, try visiting some artists and looking at their portfolios to make sure they have had some experiencing creating African tattoos. 

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