Tattoo is an ancient form of body art where needles and indelible inks are used to decorate the body – they ink a uniform blue, black or green color. The old style tattoos were for life, in-erasable.
Oldest known tattoos are 5200 years old and were found on the frozen iceman-mummy found on the Austro-Italian Alps. Female mummies from Egypt of 2000BC also bore tattoo marks. Tattooing is practiced regularly as a cultural marker in tribal societies of many countries even today.
Tattoos were valued for different reasons among different peoples – as having therapeutic effects, as amulets against evil and misfortune, as symbols of courage and valor, as signs of social status and prestige, as statements of religious significance, as pledges of eternal love or as ornamentation.
There are also unsavory associations with this art – in the Chinese empire of the Zhou dynasty tattoos were used to mark criminals and slaves; the Roman Empire used tattoos to prevent its soldiers from desertion and slaves from escape. The most recent use was in the Nazi concentration camps of World War II to tattoo serial numbers to mark persons of Jewish ethnicity.
The spread of tattooing as a novelty and curiosity started 300 years ago with the explorers bringing back exquisitely and elaborately tattooed men from Polynesia as trophies and exhibits.
In modern times, tattoos in the West were originally associated with sailors, bikers and gang members but is now adopted by everyone. They have become multicolored and elaborate in designs and fonts used with the option of being erasable.