Tattoos Have Been Around Forever

My senior project was over the History of Tattooing, I chose this as my topic because Tattoos really interest me with all the different styles and meanings behind them. Some things I already knew about Tattooing is a lot of tribes used tattoos to symbolize things, but I didn’t know what.

Tattoos have been around throughout our history, from Egyptian times to the present day. Many people may say they know the history of tattoos, and where they originate from, but do they really? Does one know that there were reasons that some people had tattoos? There may be people who know the actual history of tattoos and body art and why one would decide to get one; however there are people who do not. To be able to understand the idea of tattoos, one should educate themselves to the history of tattoos. Although tattoos have been considered taboo and a stereotype, history reveals that this particular form of body art has been used for self expression, status and

- In ancient Greek and Rome tattooing was used in order to brand slaves and criminals. Greeks also used tattoos to identify and communicate with spies. It was during this period tattooing spread to central Europe and tattoos were used for medical purposes such as acupuncture which would later on influence the Chinese acupuncture society.

Tattooing is not just a recent fad. Tattooing has been around for a very long time. "The current first proven incident of a tattoo dates back 4,000 years B.C. a traveler was found in Italy near Austria, preserved in the permafrost of a glacier. Carbon dating and arte facts found near him suggest that he is over 5,300 years old" (Tattoos and Design). Tattoos have been used

Tattoos have been around since 450 BC, it was used to mark the criminals and those fallen from social grace. But since then or since the Europeans discovered the “New World” and the tattooed tribes, its concepts has changed many times. You could classify the different changes in six eras in the tattoo history; the colonist or pioneer Era, the circus or carnival Era, the working-class era, the rebel era, the new age era and presently the supermarket era. The colonist or pioneer era was between the 1760s and 1870s is when the Europeans discovered tattoos amongst Native American tribes such as Hawaiians and Borneans whose tattoos had spiritual meaning, it was a way to protect themselves from physical harm and snakebite. But after their introduction with the Europeans

Tattoos have been around since 3,000 B.C. The oldest discovery of a tattooed mummy was the “Iceman”. The frozen body was discovered by hikers in 1991. The tattoos discovered on the body had no specific drawing there were just straight lines and small crosses. This led to believed that tattooing was used as a therapeutic to relieve pain. The Egyptians hold the true claim to fame regarding tattoos. It was common practice for Egyptian women of high status to received tattoos for the same sort of therapeutic reasons. “Tattooing of ancient Egyptian women had a therapeutic role and function as a permanent form of amulet during the very difficult time of pregnancy and birth” (Line berry 2).

For a women who died without such tattoos, it was believed that she would not be recognized by her parents in the afterlife. Tattoos also signified a person of high status. In 450 BC the greeks wrote that among the scythians and thracians, “tattoos were a mark of nobility, and not to have them was testimony of low birth”.

Egypt of 5000 years ago utilized tattoos to show an important individual. It was brought over to the West by US Sailors traveling to the Philippians. It's not necessarily a good stereotype, since as it's been stated, the idea of tattooing comes from far more than just troublemakers in any country. It has historical and cultural significance all over the world.

The renaissance of tattoo in modern and post-modern society owes its resurrection to Captain James Cook and the crew aboard the HM Bark Endeavour who brought back accounts of tattooed peoples, examples of tattoos upon their skin, and the Samoan word, tatau to Great Britain after their voyage to Tahiti and New Zealand.

The purpose of tattooing has varied from culture to culture and its place on the time

Many Indian cultures started tattooing by pricking the skin and some even introduced color into scratches. Pigment coated string was threaded through punctures in the culture of East Siberia (Tattoo, 2016). A shaman or religious person would do the tattooing within older or more traditional cultures (Ross, 2013). Tattoos had changed much until, in 1891, Samuel O’Reilly introduced his electric tattoo machine. This machine made it easier to outline and shade with its multiple needles (Giles, 2015).

It was used for sprictal, labeling, medical and as a punishment. Tattooing goes back as far as 5000 BC. Throughout the years tattooings meaning has differed and grown into new ideas and meanings. Now people can even do temporary fum tattoos or permanent ones that are for enjoyment, labeling they are in a group or even to remember an important time or someone.

So tattoos were used in a symbolic manner. As seen on television, movies about old Egyptian times embrace their characters with tattoos all over their bodies. But it seems as if in reality old Egyptians used tattoos as rituals for the gods to help them get something they wanted. The word “tattoo” comes from the Polynesian word ‘ta’ which means ‘to strike something’ and the Tahitian word ‘tatau’ which means ‘to mark something’(DBoom). Both ways of saying it make sence and still do explain how modern day tattoos are done. In 1991 a mummie called “Otzi the Ice Man” was found in a mountain range between Italy and Austria, this mummie had to be 5000 years old. The mummie consisted of 57 tattoos around the knees, kidneys, and the ankles. All the tattoos were either vertical or parallel lines and most likely had to do with therapeutic reasons. The supposed reasoning behind the tattoos were some sort of treatment for arthritis. Compared to now and the past, the past usage for tattoos usually had to do with some symbolic reasoning. The Scythians were an ancient people whose graves were found in the Altai mountains of Southern Siberia. The graves were made of solid ice so the corpses were preserved very well (MSU). These corpses had tattoos on them of totems and game animals. These tattoos were symbolic because the game animals let us know that the Scythians liked to hunt. During the late 1700’s

What used to be the property of sailors, outlaw and rock star is now become a popular body decoration for many people. It’s not just anchors, skulls, and spider web anymore, people have found plenty ways to express themselves with their tattoo. You might be thinking to get your first one, but fear of the unknown can sometimes hold you back from it. The best thing you can do is educate yourself about the process how the human skin is transformed into a beautiful work of art.

In todays generation, its hard not to walk among todays society and not spot someone with a tattoo. Since the 1970s, tattoos have become a mainstream part of Western fashion, common among both sexes, to all economic classes, and to age groups from the later teen years to middle age. In todays generation, the tattoo has taken on a noticeably different meaning than for previous older generations. The tattoo has shifted from a form of deviance to an acceptable form of expression. Neurologists to biohackers are reinventing the very idea of the tattoo. With the right technology, tattoos can do a lot more than just be coloured pigmented skin. They can become digital devices as useful and complex as the smartphone. This sounds like a fabricated