Your body is a temple. And what’s a temple without art?
For thousands of years, people have decorated their bodies with all kinds of kickass tattoos. As a company dedicated to tattoo culture, we couldn’t think of a better way to honor that history than to share what we know about some tattooed badasses from the past.
In the Beginning…
Where do tattoos start? Well… actually, everywhere.
Archaeologists have found ancient art from all over the world depicting tatted people, proving that people got hooked on ink pretty early on. Some tattooed figurines from Japan are over 7,000 years old.
So, when do we start seeing tats on skin, not just in art?
Meet Ötzi the iceman.
You know that brown banana you froze, thinking you’d make some f*cking muffins with it the next time your mom visits? That’s this guy. After some mischief involving a deadly arrow wound, he was frozen in the Alps for over 5,000 years.
And we hate to break it to you, but that’s about how long it’ll be till you make those f*cking muffins…
This guy’s 61 tattoos were made with a needle and charcoal, and they’re the earliest example of tattoos on skin. His ink is a series of lines covering acupuncture points and areas where he had chronic inflammation, so experts think these tats were part of an early method of pain relief.
Walk Like an Egyptian…
Never mind, stop that.
No, seriously. You’re freaking out the dog.
Fast forward a few centuries to ancient Egypt, and we start seeing the first examples of figurative tattoos on skin. A bull and sheep on a mummy’s upper arm mark the beginning of our record of tattoo art in Egypt, a tradition that would last millennia.
Tattoos had power for ancient Egyptians. People tattooed their bodies for protection, for fertility, and to honor the gods.
Tattooed mummies from other ancient cultures have also been found, showing us how tattoo traditions developed independently across the world.
The Tarim Basin in China is so dry that bodies naturally mummify in its arid climate. Some ancient human remains from this region have deeply-pigmented tattoos on their faces and bodies.
Another tattooed desert mummy, the Chinchorro Man, comes from Northern Chile. He had a badass mustache tat… let’s just say I now know what my next tattoo will be.
Tattoos in the West
As frozen banana bro taught us, tattoos have existed in Europe for a long ass time.
Romans used tattoos as a punishment for criminals and as a way of branding slaves, so with the exception of occasional military tattoos, ink had a bad reputation. Other groups they encountered, however, embraced the f*ck out of tattoo art.
When Roman legions reached Britain, for example, they encountered heavily-tattooed people. The native population’s bright blue tattoos were so widespread that the Romans combined the Celtic words prettani, meaning “tattooed person,” and brit, meaning “blue spec,” to call this new territory Brittania.
Tattoos became less common across Europe as Roman culture and customs spread through conquered territories, and by the early Middle Ages, tattoo traditions disappeared from Europe… As if hiding out in a damp castle while you watch some dumbass juggle turnips every night wasn’t enough of a buzzkill…
Tattoos weren’t doomed in the West, though. After the Crusades, Europeans started traveling to the Holy Land in large numbers for religious tourism. They sought unique souvenirs that would last a lifetime, and to meet this demand, local artists opened tattoo shops specializing in religious tattoos.
One such shop in Jerusalem, Razzouk Tattoo, has been around since 1300 AD. 27 generations of the Razzouk family have earned a living tattooing religious symbols on tourists.
Samoan Influence
But when did tattoos come back in full force in the West?
Ever heard of Captain Cook? You know, that British guy who sailed the Pacific and fell out with Captain Morgan because he didn’t get the f*cking rum contract?
Alright, that part about the rum is a lie, but this guy explored and charted a lot of the Pacific that was previously unknown to the West.
One of the groups of people he met on his voyage were the Samoans.
Extensive tattooing is a rite of passage in Samoa. Traditional Polynesian tattoos are tapped into the skin with a sharp needle, and the painful ritual can sometimes take months.
The word tattoo itself comes from their language; in Samoan, tatau means to mark.
Cook’s crew liked these tattoos so much that many of them returned home with their own.
When Captain Cook returned from his voyage, he brought with him not only the term “tattoo,” but also a resurgence in their popularity.
Gaining Traction
Tattoos first gained popularity among sailors, with different tattoos carrying different meanings.
An anchor, for example, proved that a sailor had crossed the Atlantic, a swallow marked 5,000 nautical miles of travel, and a rope on the wrist meant the sailor was a deckhand.
By the Victorian era, people in all levels of society had tattoos. They were mostly kept hidden, but with how people dressed back then, no sh!t you’d never see them.
Even Queen Victoria was said to have had a tattoo of a tiger fighting a snake.
F*ck yeah, Vicky.
If you were a Victorian looking for a tattoo, the good old stick and poke method with a needle and ink was your only option.
But that was about to change…
In 1891, a New York tattoo artist named Samuel O’Reilly modified Thomas Edison’s “electric pen,” and built the first tattoo machine.
Before this, tattoo artists could poke the skin about three times a second.
With O’Reilly’s tattoo gun?
50 times a second.
This drastically shortened the time it took to get a tattoo, making the experience much more bearable and opening the door to an explosion in modern tattoo culture.
Tattoo Culture Grows...
Even after the invention of the tattoo gun, visible tattoos were most often seen on sailors for quite some time.
In the ‘20s, however, women started tattooing lip liner and eyebrow makeup on their faces, and by the mid-30s about 1 in 10 Americans had a tattoo.
Sailor tattoos continued to dominate the tattoo market in the ‘40s, but they were becoming more widely visible. It was during this era that artist Norman Keith Collins, better known as Sailor Jerry, created a classic, richly pigmented style of tattoo that dominated the tattoo scene and is still around to this day.
Tats maintained a bad guy image for most of the 21st century, but public perception shifted by the ‘70s. A new generation embraced tattoos, and celebrities showed off their body art in growing numbers.
Today, tattoos and tattoo culture enjoy a level of popularity that hasn’t been seen in the Western world for millennia.
Don’t F With Pain…
Tattoos aren’t just a kickass way to express yourself…
They're part of what it means to be human.
Cultures all over the world have embraced tats for millenia, and you carry on that tradition when you go under the needle.
But what if our ancestors could say “F’ pain!” and still get the art they wanted?
Frankly, they’d probably say “‘F’ pain!” and you should too!
FranklyNumb™ is designed to give you the safest, most pain-free numbing experience available. Plus, artists love the FKit™ because you won’t squirm and their art will turn out perfect.
Say F Pain.
