The History of Tattoos

A friend of mine sent me an online article about the history of tattoos the other day. As I was reading the article I was intrigued by how such a permanent mark became so fashionable. Tattoos were first discovered by Sir Joseph Banks, who served as a botanist on Captain Cook's first voyage to the Pacific. He discovered that it was a custom that many Polynesian natives tattooed themselves, generally on their faces, whilst travelling the island in the Pacific. Even though Banks thought the custom of tattooing absurd, he still detailed the process the Polynesians went through to gain their tattoos. The word tattoo itself is derived from a Tahitian (Tahiti is a Polynesian island) word tatau, meaning 'to mark'. Bank's detailing of the process lead to many sailors taking up the practice of wearing tattoos. Amongst sailors the tattoos became symbols of where they had traveled, with a turtle signalling that the sailor has crossed the equator, an anchor they had crossed the Atlantic, a dragon to signify a sailor had served on a China station and a golden dragon to signify that the sailor had crossed the International date line, to name a few.

Although sailors had been tattooing themselves since the 1700s, it wasn't until the late 1800s when it became popular amongst the high society of England. In 1862 the playboy prince, Bertie (later Edward VII), adopted a Jerusalem Cross as his first tattoo. His sons also gained tattoos during their service with the Royal Navy and this started a trend in the upper classes of England. This trend continued for a couple of decades, until 1891, when Samuel O'Reilly invented the modern day electronic tattooing device, which dramatically decreased the cost of getting a tattoo, thus making the practice more affordable to the lower classes. This affordability lead to more commoners sporting tattoos and the upper class covering up their body art in fear of being branded common. It has only been in the last 20 years that celebrities around the world have once again sparked an interest in tattoos amongst the general public, and today tattoos are more common than they have even been before, with more than 1,500 tattoo parlours in the United Kingdom alone.

If you would like to read more about the history of tattoos, check out the full article on HistoryToday.