Who Was The First Person To Get A Tattoo?
Ötzi the Iceman The oldest discovery of tattooed human skin to date is found on the body of Ötzi the Iceman, dating to between 3370 and 3100 BC.
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Who was the first human to get a tattoo?
Fred Verhoeven You might not think the sullen, tattooed teenager skulking around your local record store has anything in common with Winston Churchill, but you would be wrong. Sir Winston, King George V, and the slaves of ancient Greece—to name a few—all have their place in the colorful history of skin decoration. For a practice so commonly associated with youth, tattooing is remarkably old, says professor Nina Jablonski, head of Penn State’s anthropology department and author of Skin: A Natural History.
“Tattoos have probably been important to people for over 10,000 years,” she notes. The oldest documented tattoos belong to Otzi the Iceman, whose preserved body was discovered in the Alps between Austria and Italy in 1991.
He died around 3300 B. , says Jablonski, but the practice of inserting pigment under the skin’s surface originated long before Otzi. In Japan, tattooing is thought to go back to the Paleolithic era, and tattooed Egyptian mummies—primarily female—have been uncovered dating to the age of the pyramids.
- In 1948, the excavation of Siberian tombs revealed bodies over 2,000 years old decorated with tattoos of animals and mythical beasts;
- Egypt’s international trade spread the practice of tattooing to Crete, Greece, and Arabia, and there is a history of tattooing in ancient China, as well as among Celtic and Northern European tribes, such as the Picts—literally “painted people”—and in Samoa and the Polynesian islands, where the word “tatou” originated;
In fact, Jablonski explains, tattooing is as widespread as it is ancient, popping up on every inhabited continent. With the rise of Christianity, tattooing became increasingly associated with paganism and the criminal class, and was prohibited in Europe under the first Christian Roman emperor, Constantine.
In the late eighteenth century, the practice of tattooing became popular among British sailors around the time of Captain James Cook’s voyages to Tahiti, and for a time, tattoos were present in the western world mostly on the bodies of seamen returning from the South Pacific.
But the art form experienced a resurgence among the British gentry after King George V and later Edward VII were tattooed (with a dragon and a cross, respectively), and foreign courts followed the British Court’s lead, sparking a rash of tattooed royalty during the nineteenth century.
According to Jablonski, “Tattoos become more socially acceptable because they are visibly sported by people who are themselves socially accepted. ” “People’s reasons for tattooing have varied from place to place,” she adds, “but their central purpose in all places and throughout time has been to convey a message of great significance through a visible symbol.
” In the Middle East, mourners rubbed the ash from funeral pyres into self-inflicted wounds, thereby carrying a piece of the departed with them forever. Tattoos have long been used as a means of identification: The Romans tattooed their criminals and slaves, a practice that was adopted by the Japanese in the early 17 th century, and the Nazis tattooed numbers on the arms of Jews during the Holocaust to dehumanize concentration camp inmates and identify their corpses.
Despite these grim uses, people today primarily use tattoos to tell their personal stories, as talismans, or to memorialize a loved one. “Their permanence is their allure,” Jablonski explains. Today, actor Brad Pitt has an image of Otzi the Iceman tattooed on his arm, and the adoption of the practice by movie stars and sports personalities has taken some of the taboo out of the tattoo.
Still, says Jablonski, tattooing retains its reputation as a subculture identifier, though young people are more likely to view tattoos as just another form of self-expression. Tattoos have never been as varied in content and design as they are now. Observes Jablonski, “Classic tattoos will always have a place, but people are increasingly using their bodies to create landscape/bodyscape effects.
” Whatever the direction it takes, tattooing is here to stay. “Tattoos are part of an ancient and universal tradition of human self-decoration and expression,” she concludes. “They convey their messages without words and sometimes even long after death.
” Diamonds may be lost or stolen—it’s a tattoo that is forever. Nina Jablonski, Ph. , is professor and head of anthropology in the College of the Liberal Arts, ngj2@psu. edu. Skin: A Natural History was published in October 2006 by University of California Press..
When was the first person tattooed?
Early and ethnographic tattoos – The earliest evidence of tattoo art comes in the form of clay figurines that had their faces painted or engraved to represent tattoo marks. The oldest figures of this kind have been recovered from tombs in Japan dating to 5000 BCE or older.
- In terms of actual tattoos, the oldest known human to have tattoos preserved upon his mummified skin is a Bronze-Age man from around 3300 BCE;
- Found in a glacier of the Otztal Alps, near the border between Austria and Italy, ‘Otzi the Iceman’ had 57 tattoos;
Many were located on or near acupuncture points coinciding with the modern points that would be used to treat symptoms of diseases that he seems to have suffered from, including arthritis. Some scientists believe that these tattoos indicate an early type of acupuncture.
- Although it is not known how Otzi’s tattoos were made, they seem to be made of soot;
- Other early examples of tattoos can be traced back to the Middle Kingdom period of ancient Egypt;
- Several mummies exhibiting tattoos have been recovered that date to around that time (2160–1994 BCE);
In early Greek and Roman times (eighth to sixth century BCE) tattooing was associated with barbarians. The Greeks learned tattooing from the Persians, and used it to mark slaves and criminals so they could be identified if they tried to escape. The Romans in turn adopted this practice from the Greeks.
MORE: Is shoegaze the loneliest genre of music? ‘Stigma’ – now meaning a distinguishing mark of social disgrace – comes from the Latin, which means a mark or puncture, especially one made by a pointed instrument.
Elaborately-tattooed mummies have been found in Pazyryk tombs (sixth to second century BCE). The Pazyryks were formidable Iron-Age horsemen and warriors who lived on the grass plains of Eastern Europe and Western Asia..
What was the world’s first tattoo?
Gebelein Man A (right), who was knifed to death 5,000 years ago, has a wild bull and horned Barbary sheep (left) tattooed on his arm. British Museum Scientists have discovered the world’s oldest tattoos on the arm of a 5,000-year-old Egyptian mummy on display at the British Museum. The astonishing find – which rewrites the history of body art – came when researchers used new technology to examine a mummy known as Gebelein Man A dating from between 3341 and 3017 BC.
He has been one of the museum’s most popular exhibits for a century, but curators had no idea he was holding two surprising secrets. First, CT scans showed he was murdered by being stabbed in the neck aged around 18 to 21.
Then a sooty smudge on his arm was revealed by infrared imaging to be overlapping designs of a wild bull – a symbol of virility – and a horned barbary sheep. Daniel Antoine, the British Museum’s curator of physical anthropology, said: “These tattoos push back evidence of tattooing by 1,000 years.
” “We are very confident that this is tattooing and not painted or decorated. It would have been carried out with some type of needle made from bone or copper. ” He added, “It is quite a departure to see people putting images on their body and that will have resonance with people today.
” “Incredibly, at over 5,000 years of age, they push back the evidence for tattooing in Africa by a millennium. ” The oldest known tattoo in the world – a series of geometric dots and crosses – were discovered on Otzi the Iceman, dating from around 5,200 BC.
But Gebelein Man A shows the first evidence of tattooed images of real subjects such as animals. Antoine told The Times of London : “It is the earliest use of figurative tattoos. Here we have evidence that people are putting on their bodies what they put on pottery and rock.
“It is a great new insight. Arguably earlier cultures were being tattooed but we don’t have skin preservation to prove it. ” It is also the first evidence that ancient Egyptian men were tattooed as well as women. 
The mummy known as Gebelein Woman has a series of S-shaped tattoos on her arm and shoulder. British Museum A second mummy at the British Museum, called Gebelein Woman, was found to have complex linear and S-shaped tattoos on her arm and shoulder. It is believed the female mummy “may have been a person of importance. ” The new findings were published in the Journal of Archaeological Science ..
How did tattoos start?
On a fall day in 1991, two Germans hiking in the Alps near the Italian- Austrian border stumbled across what they initially believed to be a modern corpse frozen in the ice. Once the body was retrieved however, authorities discovered that it was anything but modern.
The mummy, nicknamed Ötzi after the valley where it was found, had survived in the ice to the ripe, old age of 5,300 years. Analysis of the remains showed that when Ötzi died, he was a 30 to 45 year old man, standing roughly 160 cm tall.
Mystery surrounds the exact circumstances of Ötzi’s death, although evidence suggests a violent end. That, however, is not the only secret Ötzi hides. Ötzi has over fifty lines and crosses tattooed onto his body – the earliest known evidence of tattooing in the world – most of them on his spine, knee and ankle joints.
The locations of many of the markings are consistent with traditional Chinese acupuncture points, specifically those that are used to treat back pain and stomach upset. What is intriguing is that Ötzi lived roughly 2,000 years before the oldest generally accepted evidence of acupuncture, and well west of its purported origins in China.
X-rays revealed that Ötzi had arthritis in his hip joint, knees, ankles and spine; forensic analysis discovered evidence of whipworm eggs – known to cause severe abdominal pain – in Ötzi’s stomach. It is, therefore, possible that Ötzi’s tattoos did in fact play a therapeutic role, and that acupuncture has a slightly more complicated history than previously believed.
- Before Ötzi poked his head through the ice, the earliest conclusive evidence of tattoos came from a handful of Egyptian mummies that date to the time of the construction of the great pyramids over 4,000 years ago;
Indirect archaeological evidence (i. statuettes with engraved designs that are occasionally associated with needles and clay discs containing ochre) suggests that the practice of tattooing may actually be much older and more widespread than the mummies would have us believe.
Ethnographic and historical texts reveal that tattooing has been practiced by just about every human culture in historic times. The ancient Greeks used tattoos from the 5th century on to communicate among spies; later, the Romans marked criminals and slaves with tattoos.
In Japan, criminals were tattooed with a single line across their forehead for a first offence; for the second offence an arch was added, and finally, for the third offence, another line was tattooed which completed the symbol for “dog”: the original three strikes and you’re out! Evidence suggests that the Maya, Inca and Aztec used tattooing in rituals, and that the early Britons used tattoos in certain ceremonies.
- The Danes, Norse and Saxons are known to have tattooed family crests onto their bodies;
- During the crusades, some Europeans tattooed a cross on their hands or arms to mark their participation and indicate their desire for a Christian burial should they not return;
From the Tahitian “tatau” which means to mark or strike, the word tattoo refers to some of the traditional modes of application where ink is “tapped” into the skin by using sharp sticks or bone. Certain peoples in the Arctic however, have used a needle to pull carbon-embedded thread under the skin to create linear designs.
And still others have traditionally cut designs into the skin and then rubbed the incisions with ink or ashes. Modern electric tattoo machines are modeled on the one patented by New York tattoo artist Samuel O’Reilly in 1891, which itself is only slightly different from Thomas Edison’s electric engraver pen, patented in 1876.
The needles of a modern machine move up and down at a rate of between 50- 3000 vibrations per minute; they penetrate only about 1 mm below the surface of the skin to deliver pigments. Our bodies treat the injected pigments as non-toxic foreign elements that need to be contained.
So, certain types of cells in our bodies engulf the minute amounts of pigment. Once full, they move poorly and become relatively fixed in the connective tissue of the dermis, which is why tattoo designs do not generally change with time.
A pigment’s molecules are actually colorless. Those molecules though, are arranged into crystals in various ways such that colors are produced when light refracts off of them. The pigments that are used in tattoos are often made of metal salts, which are metals that have reacted with oxygen; this process is called oxidation and is exemplified by rusting iron.
The pigment is held in a carrier solution to disinfect the pigments by inhibiting the growth of pathogens, to keep it evenly mixed and to facilitate its application. Most modern pigments are carried by alcohols, specifically methyl or ethyl alcohols, which are the simplest and most commonly used types.
The popularity of tattoos has continuously risen and fallen through time. Currently, the practice of tattooing is booming, and it is estimated that roughly one in every seven people in N. America – over 39 million people total – have at least one tattoo. Through time and around the world, the reasons for getting tattoos are numerous and varied.
They include religious purposes, for protection or as a source of power, as an indication of group membership, as a status symbol, as an artistic expression, for permanent cosmetics, and as an adjunct to reconstructive surgery.
And now, a new reason can be added to the list: Andrew Fisher, an American webpage designer, recently auctioned his forehead as ad space on eBay. It sold for over $37,000 and left Andrew with a snoring remedy logo tattooed (semi- permanently) on his head for a month.
Why is tattoo a sin?
Sunni Islam [ edit ] – The majority of Sunni Muslims believe tattooing is a sin, because it involves changing the natural creation of God, inflicting unnecessary pain in the process. Tattoos are classified as dirty things, which is prohibited in Islam.
They believe that a dirty body will directly lead to a dirty mind and will destroy their wudhu, ritual ablution. [24] Some Shafi’i scholars such as Amjad Rasheed argue that tattooing causes impurity and that tattoos were prohibited by the Prophet Muhammad.
They also claim that those who are decorated with tattoos are contaminated with najas , [25] due to potential mixture of blood and coloured pigment that remains upon the surface of the skin. [26] Blood is viewed as an impure substance, so a person with a tattoo cannot engage in several religious practices.
[27] However, in the present day, it is possible to get a tattoo without mixing dye with blood after it exits onto the outer surface of the body, leaving a possibility for a Muslim to wear a tattoo and perform a valid prayer.
Scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi states that tattoos are sinful because they are an expression of vanity and they alter the physical creation of God. [28] According to the online South African Deobandi fatwa service called Ask-the-Imam , Muslims should remove any tattoos they have if possible or cover them in some way.
How old is the oldest tattoo?
The oldest discovery of tattooed human skin to date is found on the body of Ötzi the Iceman, dating to between 3370 and 3100 BC.
Do tattoos shorten your life?
the MPR take: – Having a tattoo may mean an earlier death, says a new report in the American Journal of Clinical Pathology. Investigators compared the deaths of people with and without tattoos and found that people with tattoos appeared to die earlier than people without (mean age of death: tattooed: 39yrs; nontattooed: 53yrs).
What does the Bible say about tattoos?
FIRST PERSON TO SAY NO HAS TO GET A TATTOO! *INSANE*
Tattoos have been around for millennia. People got them at least five thousand years ago. Today they’re common everywhere from Maori communities in New Zealand to office parks in Ohio. But in the ancient Middle East, the writers of the Hebrew Bible forbade tattooing.
Per Leviticus 19:28, “You shall not make gashes in your flesh for the dead, or incise any marks on yourselves. ” Historically, scholars have often understood this as a warning against pagan practices of mourning.
But language scholar John Huehnergard and ancient-Israel expert Harold Liebowitz argue that tattooing was understood differently in ancient times. Huehnergard and Liebowitz note that the appearance of the ban on incisions—or tattoos—comes right after words clearly related to mourning, perhaps confirming the original theory.
And yet, looking at what’s known about death rituals in ancient Mesopotamia, Syria, Israel, and Egypt, they find no references to marking the skin as a sign of mourning. They also note that there are other examples in Leviticus and Exodus where two halves of a verse address different issues.
So that could be the case here, too. What tattoos were apparently often used for in ancient Mesopotamia was marking enslaved people (and, in Egypt, as decorations for women of all social classes). Egyptian captives were branded with the name of a god, marking them as belongings of the priests or pharaoh.
But devotees might also be branded with the name of the god they worshiped. Huehnergard and Liebowitz suggest that, given the key role of the escape from Egyptian bondage in ancient Jewish law, the Torah originally banned tattooing because it was “the symbol of servitude.
” Interestingly, though, they write that there’s one other apparent reference to tattooing in the Hebrew Bible. Isaiah 44:5 describes the children of Jacob committing themselves to God: “One shall say, ‘I am the LORD’s’… Another shall mark his arm ‘of the LORD.
- ‘” Here a tattoo appears to be allowable as a sign of submission, not to a human master but to God;
- Ancient rabbinic debates produced a variety of different theories about the meaning of the prohibition on tattooing;
Some authorities believed that tattoos were only disallowed if they had certain messages, such as the name of God, the phrase “I am the Lord,” or the name of a pagan deity. Talmudic law developed around 200 CE says that a tattoo is only disallowed if it is done “for the purpose of idolatry”—but not if it’s intended to mark a person’s enslaved status.
Why do humans get tattoos?
Body art, body bling, self-graffiti, walking billboards, fashionable ink accessories. Each of these expressions depict the physical nature of the tattoo. What’s often NOT discussed, however, is the emotional side of tattoos. I vividly remember the first time I saw a “tramp stamp.
- ” A woman was reaching for something in the front row of a large auditorium and a few rows of men and women witnessed her walking artistry;
- Everyone had a reaction;
- And once she left the room, we all talked about it;
It was like group therapy. The responses ranged from “She’s definitely a party girl, probably drinks a lot, has a lot of sex and a rough childhood,” to “She’s probably really creative, edgy, a leader and an independent thinker. ” Some liked her more, some liked her less and many guys were more interested in her because of the tattoo.
- Whatever the response, we were all intrigued, and each of us conjured up our own personal version of her story — all from the sight of a well-placed tattoo;
- In those days, tattoos were still controversial;
Now, they’re more accepted than ever. You could even call them “trendy. ” In the nightlife scene, tattoo artists are rapidly becoming a popular career choice. Sooner or later, we’re going to see a leather-clad, tattoo-sleeved, multi-pierced guy named Rocko at our kid’s career fair standing next to the “Be a DJ” booth.
- Although tattoos have been around for more than 5,000 years (Egyptians used tattoos to differentiate peasants from slaves and social branding has been around a long time), ink art has really exploded in the last 25 years;
[1] Is it social branding? Tattoos are a conversation starter. Either there’s a story attached or a “skin”-showing session or an emotional response derived from the sight of ink art. And the emotional response from the sight of tattoos leads to a modern-day version of social branding.
“He must be tough. ” “She’s probably easy. ” “He’ll never get a corporate job. ” “She just wants to drink vodka tonics and dance on a speaker. ” Of course there are variables. In my opinion, the older you are, the less chance you’ll be forgiving of tattoos.
Neck and face tattoos are usually not as well-received as other locations no matter what your age (sorry, Big Mike). Where you put the tattoo, how may tattoos you have, what the tattoos is and the size of the tattoos all help shape the emotional response of the viewer.
- And that observer could be anyone from a potential boss, a family member or a date;
- You’re incredibly naïve or in total denial if you think your tattoos aren’t going to have a significant positive or negative influence on people who don’t know you well;
Why Get Tattoos? People get tattoos for many reasons: for attention, self-expression, artistic freedom, rebellion, a visual display of a personal narrative, reminders of spiritual/cultural traditions, sexual motivation, addiction, identification with a group or even drunken impulsiveness (which is why many tattoo parlors are open late).
- And now, according to some research studies , 15-38 percent of Americans have some type of long-term body art;
- What was once considered self-mutilatory behavior and a psychiatric problem has now become almost normative behavior;
What Does Your Tattoo Mean? Some people mark themselves for life to remind them of past family members or ancient sayings or religious scriptures or names of their current family/love interest. Other people use tattoos to enhance their sexual prowess or feed their exhibitionist side, and many people use tattoos to visually promote their identity and/or group affiliation. Research on tattoos reveals some interesting findings:
- Adults with tattoos have been shown to be more sexually active than controls without tattoos.
And I’ve personally seen tattoo markings used as an endorphin release and substitute for addictive behavior. An individual addicted to pills was able to stop popping pills but then subsequently became addicted to getting body ink. So what does this mean? Our current society craves individuality and self expression. And now many people wear their artistic expression.
- “I stand for;
- ” Johnny Depp said, “My body is my journal and my tattoos are my story;
- ” Tattoos can visually reveal more about you or distract people from getting to know the real you;
- Some people hide behind their tattoos;
We are having more trouble communicating with each other than ever before, as electronic communication will never replace face-to-face human contact. So, it’s not surprising that there’s a growing trend toward communication via body ink. We don’t have to talk, we just have to look.
Our bodies have become the refrigerator magnets of quotes, sayings and reminders. Whether you like it or not, tattoos are growing in popularity. The long-term fear of being “marked for life” is being tempered by tattoo removal technology and people getting used to seeing tattoos.
Personally, I chose not to have a tattoo (henna tattoos don’t count) because the beauty of life is that it’s unexpected and we change with our experiences. What we stand for and believe in at 18 is very different than 35 or 60. If we stood for one thing in life and it never changed, then we could all have “life script” tattoos (and face boredom on a regular basis).
- But we do grow and change;
- I appreciate the artistry of tattoos but also enjoy the mystery of learning about someone without being “visually influenced” to have a response;
- We all judge, and first impressions probably carry more weight than they should;
Whatever your feelings are about tattoos, one thing is for sure: There’s definitely more than meets the eye. Reference: 1. Caplan J. (Ed). 2000. Written on the Body: The Tattoo in European & American History; Princeton N. , Princeton University Press For more by Reef Karim, D.
How old are tattoos?
Tattoos are considered one of the oldest forms of art. The oldest evidence of tattoos dates back to 3370 BC. If we’re measuring from the present day, that’s 5,390 years ago. Yes, that’s a whopping 3,370 years before Christ was born.
When did tattoos get color?
The first colour tattoos didn’t actually come around until after the ancient Egyptians were tattooing. The ancient Inuit people were believed to have colors in their tattoos, specifically including a dark yellow color.
Who invented tattoo gun?
History and Patenting – The electric tattooing machine was officially patented on Dec. 8th, 1891 by a New York tattoo artist named Samuel O’Reilly. But even O’Reilly would be the first to admit that his invention was really an adaptation of a machine invented by Thomas Edison —the Autographic Printing Pen.
When did US ban tattoos?
In 1962, Massachusetts became one of the few states in the country to consider tattooing a “crime against the person,” and ban the practice except for medical purposes. The law took effect on March 12, 1962, five months after New York City imposed a similar prohibition.
- The New York City Board of Health believed that tattoo parlors were fueling an outbreak of hepatitis;
- At the time Massachusetts was not experiencing a hepatitis outbreak, but health officials believed that tattooing might lead to one;
Over the years, tattoo artists and lawmakers made some lackluster attempts to challenge the statute, but nothing materialized from their efforts. The statute remained in effect until 2000 when the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts launched a successful court battle to overturn it.
- ACLU lawyer Harvey Schwartz made the novel argument that the art of making tattoos was protected as free expression under the First Amendment;
- The Suffolk Superior Court ruled that the Commonwealth’s public health interest in a ban on tattooing could better be served by licensing and regulation, which would ensure that tattooing is conducted under sanitary conditions;
On January 31, 2001, the Cambridge Public Health Department enacted rules and regulations overseeing the practice of tattooing and body art in the city. The regulations were revised on July 1, 2003 pursuant to General Laws, Chap. 111, §31 for the granting of licenses to practice Body Art in the City of Cambridge. Last updated on January 31, 2020 .
Who made tattoos popular?
‘The 1970s was really a time period when we started seeing celebrities that were visibly tattooed,’ Lane says, citing major stars such as Cher, Peter Fonda, and Janis Joplin as among the first to display their ink.
What are tattoos made of?
Pigment bases Professional inks may be made from iron oxides (rust), metal salts, or plastics. Homemade or traditional tattoo inks may be made from pen ink, soot, dirt, ash, blood, or other ingredients.
How were tattoos done in the 1700s?
From high class beginnings to the myths of inked up criminals, tattoo historian Dr Matt Lodder plots out a history of British body art. From high class beginnings to the myths of inked up criminals, as a new exhibition opens in Cornwall, tattoo historian Dr Matt Lodder plots out a history of British body art.
A tattooist once said to art historian Matt Lodder that while it’s all well and good to be an art historian, researching paintings and the history of sculptures, to understand the history of a nation you need to understand the history of its tattoos.
What we mark on us is what resonates; the images, words and symbols that a generation forever stamps onto its skin. In a new exhibition at The National Maritime Museum in Cornwall Matt Lodder does exactly that. “I’m an academic and art historian, and have been working on tattooing history for quite along time,” Matt tells me.
“One of the things that has always frustrated me is that tattooing is constantly portrayed as a new ‘thing’, as if there was some kind of mythical beforehand when tattoos were just for criminals or sailors.
” In his research Matt has collected examples of that cliché from every decade from the 1870s onwards; it turns out tattoos have long been an important part of British culture and history. Our generation isn’t responsible making them the new big thing. Think back a little longer though, and no doubt you’d point to criminal gangs as the starting point for all think ink, but Matt says this too is simply wrong. 
“The relationship between tattooing and criminality comes largely from Italian and French criminologists,” Matt explains. “It’s linked into broader intellectual movements of scientific racism and eugenics. ” The idea that you can tell something about the character of an individual from their bodies was all the rage in the 19th century, and Cesare Lombroso, an Italian criminologist, even inspired Austrian cultural commentator Adolf Loos in 1908 to assert: “People with tattoos who are not in prison are either latent criminals or degenerate aristocrats.
If a tattooed man dies at liberty, he has simply died some years before he has been able to commit a murder. ” It’s a falsity that Matt has been keen to dispel. “Sure, lots of tattooed people were in prison, but no comparable evidence was produced from the wider population,” he says.
If you’re a historian looking for evidence of tattoos in history, you’ll look on official records. Normal people just don’t have their bodies recorded in the same way as criminals. ” This link is just an artefact of the historical record, not an artefact of history itself.
But if tattoos aren’t a modern fad, and didn’t spawn from the British criminal underworld, then where does our rich heritage of inking come from? “What we wanted to do with the exhibition was to lay out a chronology in order to show there’s no before and after, there’s growth, development and change,” Matt continues.
“There was no time when tattoos were for just one type of person. ” Tattoos are the longest sustained trend in history, according to Matt, and this is how it all began. 
“We start with 17th century and antiquarian ideas of Britain’s past. In the 17th century colonial exporters start bringing back tattooed ‘natives’ from the East Indies and the Americas. In fact, they were put on public display as early as the 1500s. “But it was in the 17th century that we see this better documented. A captive was literally exhibited in a pub, as a human curiosity.
- British antiquarians compared these tattoos with those the Roman’s had written about on accent Britons;
- These scholars would write about people needn’t worry about ‘savages’, as our own ancestors were just the same, like there was an embedded history;
But the modern tattoo trade in Britain – with tattoos as commodities – began in the late 17th century with pilgrims. “Wealthy people – mostly men – would travel to Bethlehem, Jerusalem and Nazareth and get tattoos when they were there. Often very extensively, like footballers today, with lots of crosses and religious iconography.
- Essentially designs were carved into wooded blocks, and then printed onto the skin by dipping the block into ink;
- Then tattooists would use a single needle and puncture by hand with blank ink into the skin;
It’s a slow process, but similar to the hand poke artists today. “There’s lots of theological debate about whether tattooing is prohibited in religion, but even in Islamic cultures there’s an embedded tattoo culture. It’s Christianity that forms the basis of the western tattoo tradition. 
“Next we move into the 18th century (1700s). The standard story was that Captain Cook in the 1790s discovered tattooing in Tahiti and New Zealand and bought it back to the UK, as if it was an imported practice. But we’ve found images of a tattooed lady from 1740s, a criminal from the 1730s. Even before Cook set sail there are tattoos in Britain.
We do tell the story of Cook’s voyages, it marks the moment – if not a rise in popularity – of at least when it enters the historical record because from then the navy kept track of tattoos. “On your enlistment records the navy would have a column in the record book which lists what sort of designs you had, where on the body, sometimes the tattoo would be drawn or sketched.
There’s even a painting in the House of Lords – The Death of Nelson – featuring all these tattooed men sacrificing their lives for the nation. It puts tattooed men at the centre of British life and history. 
“In 1868 Japan is opened up to the west, until then it had been closed to western trade for centuries. Now a new government was taking over, and the west was flooded with all things Japanese. From ceramics to prints, and textiles to tattooing. Wealthy travellers would go to Japan, and the same shops that would sell tourist isouveriners would now have in house tattooists.
The wealthy clientele would head back too Europe or America with tattoos, and their friends would want them too. “In 1871 there was a famous case in the tabloids all across Victorian London about Roger Tichborne – an aristocrat lost at sea – turned up alive many years later.
“His siblings were suspicious as he appeared to have put on lots of weight, and seemingly had selective amnesia. The thing is, he stood to inherit the family fortune, so the siblings took him to court. It turned out that this aristocrat, Tichborne, had been tattooed, but this imposter didn’t have one.
It turned out he was in fact a butcher’s son from Wapping. “The first tattoo artist opened up a space in a Turkish baths in the late 1880s in Jermyn Street, London, then the height of the fashionable West End.
It means that from then it was possible to make a living. Where does the professional industry begin? At the upper class of British society. ” Sutherland MacDonald was the first professional tattoo artist in Britain, and developed the first tattoo machine.
- He became the patent holder of an electric tattoo machine;
- And the thing is, with electrification comes speedier tattooing; if you can work with electricity it’s much quicker;
- “One of the potential drivers for the tattoo’s fall from grace may well have been this opening up to people with less means;
From then on in tattoos were part of British society at every level. ” Tattoo: British Tattoo Art Revealed is open at the National Maritime Museum in Cornwall until 7 January 2018. Enjoyed this article? Like Huck on Facebook or follow us on Twitter ..
When did modern tattooing start?
G etting tattoos can be painful, but did you know they were partly invented to treat pain? In the mid-18th century, Native American women tattooed themselves to alleviate toothaches and arthritis, similar to acupuncture. New York City is considered the birthplace of modern tattoos because it’s where the first professional tattoo artist Martin Hildebrandt set up shop in the mid-19th century to tattoo Civil War soldiers for identification purposes, and it’s where the first electric rotary tattoo machine was invented in 1891, inspired by Thomas Edison ‘s electric pen.
- So it’s fitting that the city is currently home to two separate exhibitions on the history of the art;
- Tattooed New York , from which the fact above is drawn, documents 300 years of tattooing at the New-York Historical Society;
At the same time, with The Original Gus Wagner: The Maritime Roots of Modern Tattoo , the South Street Seaport Museum dives into the maritime origins of tattoos by showcasing the life of the sailor and sideshow star Gus Wagner, whose 800 tattoos earned him the title of the most tattooed man in America at one point and who was one of the first sailors to see that there was money to be made in tattooing.
- In English, the word “tattoo” has late-16th century origins;
- Somewhat ironically, in the United States their history among indigenous peoples goes back even earlier than that — but, though the idea was already widespread on American soil, it would take voyages to the other side of the world to turn the tattoo into a mainstream American concept;
One of the earliest images of a tattooed person is of the King of the Maquas (the Mohawk tribe) whose chest and lower part of his face are covered in black lines, as seen in The Four Indian Kings , a portrait series painted when Mohawk and Mohican tribal king traveled to London in the early 18th century.
Another is a 1706 pictograph by a Seneca trader that represents his signature tattoos — the one of a snake on his face and one with a bird, a symbol of freedom. At this point in American history, indigenous people often sported tattoos representing battle victories or protective spirits, of which the bird was one example, according to New-York Historical Society curator Cristian Petru Panaite (who sports a tattoo of his U.
naturalization date). But it was during voyages to the South Pacific led by explorers like James Cook and William Bligh that Western sailors began to learn about traditional Polynesian pictographic tattoos. Before long, they were getting inked — sometimes with the name of a particular ship or their birthdates, or to mark the first time they crossed the equator or rounded Cape Horn or the Arctic Circle.
(The word “tattoo” also comes from Polynesian sources. ) The common anchor tattoo was meant to signify stability and to safeguard them from drowning, and is also thought that some got tattoos of pigs and roosters on their feet for the same reason because legend has it those animals rush to land.
“Sailors are a superstitious lot,” says Capt. Jonathan Boulware, executive director of the South Street Seaport Museum.
Did ancient Egypt have tattoos?
This infrared image shows the male mummy known as Gebelein Man. On his arm, you can see his tattoos.
- Photo Gallery
The 5,000-year-old mummies have tattooed images of sheep, bulls, and mysterious lines. Ancient Egyptians were getting inked up earlier than we thought. A new analysis of two mummies shows the pair were sporting tattoos. The mummies belong to a collection of six found in 1900. They were named the Gebelein mummies after the region in which they were found.
- Now in the possession of the British Museum, they were reanalyzed as part of an ongoing project to reexamine valuable artifacts;
- Both individuals date anywhere from 3351 B;
- to 3017 B;
- , making them some of the earliest known bearers of tattoos;
The next known example of ancient Egyptians getting tattoos doesn’t appear for more than a millennia later. Only Ötzi the Ice Man , a cave man dating back to about 3370 B. , has earlier evidence of tattoos. Unlike Ötzi’s tattoos, which have more geometric designs, the Egyptian tattoos are the earliest known examples of figurative tattoos, or tattoos that represent images.
- The new findings are published in the Journal of Archaeological Science;
- What initially looked like a smudge was reexamined with infrared imaging, which allows scientists to see the markings on the mummified skin with more clarity;
On the male body, scientists spotted the images of a wild bull and what appears to be a Barbary sheep. The woman’s body contains four “S”-like symbols on her top shoulder joint and an “L”-shaped line on her abdomen that archaeologists think might be a stave, or wooden staff.
When did the tattoo craze start?
‘ The 1970s was really a time period when we started seeing celebrities that were visibly tattooed,’ Lane says, citing major stars such as Cher, Peter Fonda, and Janis Joplin as among the first to display their ink.
