The history of tattoos

Though tattoos may seem like a modern phenomenon they have been around for a long time, and are probably the earliest form of body art dating back to well before the time of Christ.

The first real record of tattooing comes from ancient Egypt where wall paintings show images of people bearing tattoos.

The tattoos that started appearing in Egypt at the time of the construction of the pyramids were made by puncturing the skin with a needle, without sterilisation, or gloves. Then the fashion travelled to Crete, Greece, Persia and Arabia on to China.

Since then, tattoos have appeared throughout history as pagan decoration, or in various rituals. They have been used as body art, as a way of communicating knowledge from generation to generation, as a stamp of authority and as part of religious or coming of age ceremonies.

Greek spies communicated through their tattoos, which served to identify spies and their rank.

Romans used tattoos to brand criminals and slaves.

The Japanese also marked their convicts. A single line on the forehead represented a first-time offender. Two lines marked a repeat offender, and three lines spelled "dog."

The Ainu tribes of Asia used tattoos to differentiate social classes and their respective status, especially in the case of married women.

In Burma, tattoos were used to reaffirm religious and spiritual beliefs.

In New Zealand, the Maori people had an elaborate facial tattoo known as Moko, which served to graphically represent the value and rank of warriors.

Mexicans and Peruvians may have held the art of tattoo as a ritual in Mayan, Incan and Aztec cultures.

In the British Isles, tattooing was part of a ceremony. Germans, Saxons and Danes used to tattoo themselves with their family symbols. Tattoos faded off the scene for 400 years, between 1200 and 1600.

When the British explorers started returning from their voyages with completely tattooed natives, in the late 1600s and 1700s, the Polynesian tattoos caused a sensation in London.

In 1891, Samuel O'Reilly patented the first electric tattooing machine. It was formed by a bar that held several needles, a tube that held the bar, and a small gyrating drum.

Towards the end of the 1800s into the first decades of the 20th century, characters covered in tattoos were considered fairground attractions and earned a living from their 'freakish' appearance.

On December 21, 1970, Time magazine ran an article looking at the boom in tattooing at that time, which stated, "Now, after one or two decades of silence, tattoos are experiencing a rebirth and have become the symbol of the counter-culture."

Ironically, for a practice that for a large part of its history has had negative social connotations, three decades after that article was published, tattoos no longer symbolize the counter-culture, but have become part of the establishment.