Tattoos: the history of drawings on the skin

long ago me tattoos were typical of some categories of people (such as sailors or earlier convicts), however, is becoming a fashion that many people are involved in these days. But what few people know is that the drawings on the skin have origins dating back to prehistory.

In ancient times, tattoos had sacred and magical functions as well as telling the details of the person, such as identity, social status, and where they come from. So it was a real identity card drawn directly on the skin. Numbers and symbols referred to nationality, to one’s own clan or profession, details that can still be found in the native tribes where this practice continues.

The oldest mummy with about 60 tattoos is theSimilar man.

First, I realized that the spiral or zigzag traces on the famous prehistoric Venus, female figurines of mother goddesses, had been described too hastily as ornaments. In fact, the Venus of Hohle Fels, a 40,000-year-old ivory figurine found in Germany, and later Neolithic Venuses show signs of scarring.

This is the technique for which the skin was engraved with cuts, rather than points, from which the tattoo is derived. If the goddesses were depicted with scarifications, we can infer that the faithful, mainly women, subjected their bodies to these sacred carvings.

Michela Zucca, anthropologist

Tattoos were common among many peoples, while it was taboo for others, such as Greeks and Romans. In tribal populations, tattooing has always been widespread.