Tattoo: A History Off

Tattooing has been around for thousands of  years, A man from the Ice Age was discovered to have 57 tattoos on his body, cross's and straight lines. The picture may be small, But you can see the black shades and lines in his skin.

Tattoos did and still have some social stigmata, This is shown by some people who where heavily tattooed being in " freak shows" and shown to be " primitive animals"

German woman from the Circus

Throughout the years they have also been part of the criminal part of society, The underworld if you could call, In Ancient Japan, Criminals where tattooed on parts of there body which would not be able to hide, although some people say this is where tattooing started as we know, With people modified and covering up there incriminating tattoo's.

Tattoo's also have a culture in prisons, Where people make crude yet sophisticated machines and tattoo designs known for gangs and cultural reasons.

A Hispanic gang member with cultural tattoo's

Tattoo machine typical in prisons.

Modern tattooing as we know it can be traced back to naval and army personal, Where tattoo's where mainly black and white and the inks around where not as modern as they where, Tattoos in this design are classed as " old school" and are in bold lines and sometimes simple colours are added.

Some traditional old school designs

Old school tattoo's seem to be "in vogue" however there is still mordern tattoo work, Which is litrally using the skin as a canvas and some of the designs that have been put "ink to skin" do take your breath away, Tattoo's also seem popular in the TV viewer with shows like Miami Ink,London Ink and LA Ink showing life in a tattoo shop.

Tattooing seems to be popular on TV