World's oldest figural tattoos discovered on 5,000-year-old Egyptian mummies

The world's oldest figural tattoos have been discovered on two Egyptian mummies in the British Museum, The Guardian reported.

Drawings of a Barbary sheep, wild bull and S-shaped motifs were spotted on the bodies that date between 3351 and 3017BC.

The mummified man and woman are reportedly from the predynastic period, which is before the unification by the first pharaoh in 3100BC. Many ancient cultures used the art of tattoos.

"Incredibly, at over 5,000 years of age, they push back the evidence for tattooing in Africa by a millennium," Daniel Antoine, the curator of physical anthropology at the British Museum is quoted as saying by The Guardian.

Gebelein Man A, the male mummy is one of the best-preserved mummies. He is thought to have had ginger hair and possible murdered. S-shaped motifs were found on Gebelein Woman, the female mummy.

CT scanning, radiocarbon dating and infrared imaging “has transformed our understanding of the Gebelein mummies. Only now are we gaining new insights into the lives of these remarkably preserved individuals,” said Antoine, one of the lead researchers on the paper, the report revealed.

The findings were originally published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.