Tattooing is enjoying a renaissance, becoming more popular and socially acceptable, with sport and film stars, such as David Beckham and Angelina Jolie, displaying increasingly flamboyant tattoos. For the first time, tattooed women (23%) outnumbered men (19%) in the USA in 2012.
Tattooing is enjoying a renaissance, becoming more popular and socially acceptable, with sport and film stars, such as David Beckham and Angelina Jolie, displaying increasingly flamboyant tattoos. For the first time, tattooed women (23%) outnumbered men (19%) in the USA in 2012.
How much of what we see as human beauty has not been enhanced? Modern beauty standards and norms put pressure on us to augment or modify our bodies in pursuit of a perceived ideal.
This can range from make-up, haircuts and clothes to orthodontistry and the various forms of plastic surgery – and then there are tattoos.
Caroline van der Mescht gave a talk on the history and practice of tattooing to the University of the 3rd Age on Thursday at St Andrew’s Prep.
She said that with its long history in various cultures, tattoos have used by human beings to decorate their bodies, show status or belonging – whether tribal or cultural, or as a criminal or member of a gang – and engage with the spiritual world around them, among other things.
The oldest known tattooed human, “Iceman”, a 5 200-year-old cave man was discovered near the Italian-Austrian border in 1991.
His tattoos are thought to have been for therapeutic rather than symbolic reasons. Symbolic tattoos first appeared in Egypt around 2000 BC and are commonly found on female mummies.
They were used to show both occupation and status. Early nomadic tribesmen would tattoo themselves with the clan totem – tigers, wolves, birds, monkeys – to show belonging.
Japanese irezumi are another ancient tattoo form, possibly from 10 000 BC. Tattoos have been used by a variety of cultures to differentiate between slaves or criminals from India to Japan to Victorian England, where deserting soldiers would be marked out with a “D”.
Such practices are probably where much of the stigma around tattoos originates.
Tattoos were re-introduced to the West by sailors who brought the tradition and technology back with them from Pacific voyages in the sixteenth century.
They were often associated with sailors and other members of the working class for this reason. Today people get them for as many reasons as they did in the past – artistic and cosmetic reasons, to memorialise an important event or person or to show belonging to a group.
