Tattoo Ancient History
A Visit to the Villain Arts Tattoo Festival
Two weeks ago, friend and former Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital executive team member Laura Neiberg and I visited the Villain Arts Tattoo Festival. It was held at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Illinois. In case you’re wondering, neither of us left with ink.
The event featured hundreds of the best tattoo artists from across the country. Thousands of attendees streamed in to be tattooed or to look for inspiration for their next tat.
Early Tattoo History
For thousands of years, humans have marked their bodies with tattoos. According to Cate Lineberry in the Smithsonian Magazine, “These permanent designs—sometimes plain, sometimes elaborate, always personal—have served as amulets, status symbols, declarations of love, signs of religious beliefs, adornments and even forms of punishment.”
The earliest documented tattoo dates back five millennia. Ötzi the Iceman, "Europe’s most famous mummy," was murdered in the Alps 5,000 years ago and discovered in a glacier in 1991.
He had tattooed dots and small crosses on his lower spine, right knee, and ankle joints. These locations corresponded to areas of strain-induced degeneration, raising the possibility they may have been applied to alleviate joint pain.
Egyptian female figurines and tomb scenes dated to c. 4000-3500 BCE had body and limb tattoos. Most are dotted patterns of lines and diamond patterns. Several female mummies c. 2000 BCE also had tattoos in the same locations.
These exclusively female tattoos may have played a therapeutic role. It’s possible they functioned as a permanent form of amulet during the very difficult time of pregnancy and birth.
Other ancient cultures used tattooing. Mummified remains of Nubian women south of Egypt were found to have blue tattoos. They sometimes featured the same arrangement of dots across the abdomen as Egyptians.
Ornate tattoos of mythical animals are seen in male and female mummies of the Scythian Pazyryk of the Altai Mountain region in central Asia. The Greek writer Herodotus c. 450 BCE wrote that among the Scythians and Thracians "Tattoos were a mark of nobility, and not to have them was testimony of low birth.”
Accounts of ancient Britons suggested they were also tattooed as a mark of high status. "Divers (more than one) shapes of beasts" were tattooed on their bodies and the Romans named one northern tribe "Picti," literally "the painted people."
Among the Greeks and Romans, the use of tattoos or "stigmata" seemed to have been used to mark someone as belonging to a religious sect. Tattooing spread across the Roman Empire until the emergence of Christianity. They were banned by the Emperor Constantine (306-373 CE) when tattoos were felt to "disfigure that made in God's image."
The Shot
The Tattoo Festival is the best place for an introverted photographer like me to take portraits. Only one of the approximately 75 people I asked declined my request. And everyone was extremely friendly and gracious.
Thanks for looking,
Chuck Derus