Koi Fish Tattoo Designs

Historical Facts About Tattoos

Tattoos are hot, plain and simple. More than 30% of Americans between 25 and 40 has at least one tattoo. And they can go to more than twenty thousand parlors to get one. Today, tattoos are considered normal, acceptable and to many – attractive. Was it always like that?

Tattooing has been around since at least Neolithic times. The oldest known tattoo was found on a 5,300-year-old mummy discovered on an Alpine glacier in 1991. Otzi the Iceman, as is the nickname of the mummy, had 57 tattoos running along his back, left knee and ankles. Otzi is the first known tattooed human.

Tattoo art was also very widespread in ancient Egypt. Tattoos was found on mummies dating back as far as the third millennium BC. One of the most famous tattooed mummies is a priestess of the goddess Hathor that lived at Thebes some time between 2160 – 1994 BC.

Ancient Egypt is commonly considered as the cradle of tattoo art and from there it spread throughout the ancient world – to Roman, Greek, Persian, Chinese and Japanese regions. Tattoos were and remain especially important to Polynesian culture.

To pacific cultures tattooing has always had a huge significance. Polynesian tattooing had evolved over thousands of years and is considered the most complex and skillful of the ancient world. European explorers often brought home tattooed Polynesians who were then exhibited at fairs and lecture halls. Tattooing soon became popular in Europe.

The word tattoo was not used or known in the Western civilization until the late eighteenth century. It was introduced by Captain James Cook, after his encounters with Polynesians in 1768. The word itself is derived from the Polynesian word “tatau” which means to mark or brand someone.

Thanks to sailors and explorers in the eighteenth century, tattoos gradually became popular in the western world. In the twenty-first century they are one of the most popular choices for body art and appear to have gained a wide social acceptance.