As we know how hard it is to grow credibility as an artist we want to give every young artist the possibility to showcase their work as long as we like what they do of course :)
so here are the top tattoo facts by Kate Critchlow.
1.
Tattoos are an interesting topic and certainly have an interesting history; while we might not know a
huge deal about tattoos no one can deny that learning about them is interesting, nor that they have
a much more complicated past than we might have first suspected.
The following are some interesting facts about tattoos and their history.
The exact date of the first tattoo or the invention of tattoo technology is not known, however we do
know that it is a very old technology and one that has been improved and modernised only recently.
2.
In 1991 a frozen Bronze Age hunter was found, the body is estimated to be around 5000 years old
and has been named Özti the Iceman, and one of the most interesting things about this body is
that it features a number of tattoos. The meanings behind these tattoos is not clear, however they
consisted of six straight lines located around 15cm above the kidneys, a series of parallel lines on the
ankles and a cross on the inside of the left knee. Scientists have suggested, due to the location of
these tattoos against the location of certain pressure points on the body, that the tattoos may have
been given for therapeutic reasons; the tattoos were located in areas that are frequently targeted in
acupuncture therapy.
3.
Tattoos have a very strong history when it comes to the Christian faith. It states in the bible
(Leviticus 19:28) that ‘Ye shall not make any cuttings into your flesh for the dead, nor print any
marks upon you’ however there were many early Christians who has religious symbols tattooed onto
their bodies; in particular their arms and faces. It was not until AD 325 that the Emperor Constantine
prohibited the act of tattooing the fact, insisting that the human face was made in God’s image
and must not be disfigured with ink. It was in AD 787 that tattoos were completely renounced by
the Christian faith. Much later it was brought back and used as an ‘act of kindness’ towards slaves,
some slaves would receive a representation of the crucifixion tattooed on their back to prevent their
master’s from whipping them.
4.
There was a sharp rise in the number of babies being tattooed by their parents after the Lindbergh
baby was kidnapped, this was because the body of the baby found could not be positively identified
as the same child that had been kidnapped due to the state of decomposition and the body was very
quickly cremated. Over the following decades many men, and even women, came forward claiming
to be the lost child, parents who heard the story worried about how they would identify their own
children if they were kidnapped which lead to many children being tattooed from the late 1930s
and into the 50s. It was more recently made illegal to tattoo anyone under the age of 18 in most
countries.
5.
During the early days of tattooing the colours were often made using soot and brick dust, which
had to be bound using a missing agent, many tattooists used their own spit and even urine to mix
the colours before they could be used. There were a number of ways the tattoos could be done,
whether it meant cutting the skin and rubbing the colour into it, dipping the point of a pen in colour
and then stabbing quickly and repeatedly or whether it means dipping a length of threat in the
colour then threading it through the skin. Tattoo parlours now have machines that make the process
much faster and easier, however in many prisons the old methods of tattooing are still used, making
use of whatever the inmates can get hold of.
6.
Getting a tattoo on an area of the skin that is close to the bone hurts more than getting one on a
fleshy area; tattoos to areas like ankles, knees and shoulders can be some of the most painful while
tattoos to the chest, stomach and buttocks are the least painful.
7.
In the first few years following the social security cards being issued in 1936 one of the most popular
tattoo options among both men and women became their social security numbers; many people
had these tattooed onto their arms to help them to remember them. Less than twenty years later in
1955 the assistant secretary of defence in the US started recommending that people get their blood
type as a tattoo on their arms, in case there was an attack.
Author’s Bio
Kate Critchlow is a young writer with a very quickly developing interest in tattoos, with everything
from the process of selecting a tattoo to the aftercare of a tattoo.
