The History of Tattoos

            While many people today perceive tattoos in a negative light, the art of tattooing your skin has been a common and celebrated practice for thousands of years around the world.  While no one knows exactly when tattooing started, the oldest proof of tattoos is found in a 5000 year old corpse that was preserved in ice.  The man, nicknamed “Otzi the Iceman”, had 57 tattoos on his body, many of them simple lines and dots around the ankle and other acupuncture points.

            Evidence of tattoos has also been found on people from around the world, including Egyptian mummies from 4000 years ago and Pazyryk mummies (found on the border between China and Russia) from 2000 years ago.  Most tattoos were believed to be used for one of two purposes:  either to denote rank or prestige or to invoke or protect against spiritual elements.  Ancient tattoos have taken many forms, but the majority are either simple lines and dots or are graphical representations of animals. 

Traditionally, tattoos were hand-drawn, but in 1891, the electric tattooing machine was invented.  In modern history, the Christian religion has changed the perception of the tattoo, thus making it less common than it used to be.  However, the art form has survived in western society largely due to the fact that sailors wanted to be tattooed so that their bodies could be identified if lost at sea.  Today, the majority of the tattoos are done for cosmetic or spiritual purposes.