When Were Tattoos Invented?

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If you’re reading this, we can only imagine that you’re a tattoo geek just like us!

You probably already know that tattoos have become wildly popular in the past couple of decades, but have you ever wondered when the first tattoos were pricked into a human’s skin?

Well if you have, you’ve come to the right place, my tattoo-loving friend!

Below, we’re exploring the history of tattoos, when tattoos were invented, and so much more about the role tattoos have played in human history throughout time.

When Was Tattooing First Invented?

It’s practically impossible to trace tattoo art back to the exact first human to get a tattoo.

But researchers do know that the practice of tattooing has been around since the Neolithic period, which stretches back from about 10,000 to 2,000 BCE.

Although, some of the earliest evidence of tattoo practice, consisting of primitive tattoo tools found in Europe, dates back to the Upper Paleolithic period, which is a period between 50,000 and 12,000 years ago.

So it’s hard to know exactly when tattooing was first invented.

But we do know that the body art has been around for a long, long time.

Unfortunately, the hardest part about discovering when tattooing was first invented is that our skeletons outlast our skin.

Meaning that although we can find skeletons and bones from ancient times, finding evidence of ancient tattoos on human skin is a bit more challenging.

But we do have one stunning example of an ancient human body being tattoo almost from head to toe…

The World’s Oldest Tattooed Person – Ötzi the Iceman

One of the earliest known examples of a human being discovered with tattooed skin is Ötzi the Iceman, who’s body dates back to between 3,370 and 3,100 BCE.

Ötzi died in the Ötztal Alps, located near the Austrian-Italian border, and is known as Europe’s oldest known natural mummy.

While that’s pretty cool on its own, thanks to the freezing temperatures and arid climate where he died, Ötzi’s body, skin and bones, have remained more or less intact for the past 5,000 years.

And the coolest part about that is Ötzi was found with a total of 61 tattoos on his body, consisting of 19 distinct groups of black line tattoos.

From microscopic samples taken from his tattoos, researchers know that Ötzi’s ancient tattoos were pricked into his skin using a pigment made from ash and soot.

It’s believed that small cuts or incisions were made into his skin, and then the pigment was rubbed into the wound.

Although researchers don’t know for sure why Ötzi had tattoos, it’s believed that his tattoo designs were done as a form of pain relief therapy, similar to acupuncture.

And as you’ll see below, tattooing has been done for all sorts of different reasons, from pain relief to simple bodily adornment.

But why else did ancient humans use tattooing?

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Why Did Humans Invent Tattoos?

Across millennia, humans have been using simple tattoos to protect from evil spirits, to administer pain relief and alleviate joint pain, to signify social status or religious beliefs, for beauty and adornment, or to mark people as criminals, thieves, prostitutes, or outlaws.

And while we don’t know for certain who came up with the idea of the first tattoo, we do know one thing for sure:

Humans have been tattooing and marking their skin for thousands and thousands of years and unlike today, body art hasn’t always been a form of self expression.

We know that more artistic tattoos didn’t come around until more recently in human history, when tattoo artists gave up their stone-aged tattooing tools for electric tattoo guns, sterile tattoo parlors, and in our opinion, way, way cooler tattoos!

But before that, tattoos on the human body generally had more specific purposes.

For instance, in some ancient cultures, tattoos were used to mark criminals and often prostitutes wore tattoos to let people know they were open to business.

But in other cultures, as we’ll see below, a tattoo might represent a way to ward off evil or for other types of therapeutic purposes.

Now, let’s dive into to some ancient tattoo practices from around the world to learn about how and why people have used tattoos throughout the course of human history.

Ancient Egyptian Tattooing Practices

Tattooed mummies found in Egypt suggest that ancient Egyptian tattooing practices have taken place since at least since the year 2,000 BCE.

Some of the earliest known examples of tattoos in ancient Egypt were found on female mummies, namely those of a priestess named Amunet and two Hathoric dancers, dating to between 2150 and 1991 BCE.

It’s believed that the tattoos on these women were not ornamental, but instead, similar to Ötzi’s tattoos, they were done for therapeutic purposes.

Another interesting fact about tattoos in ancient Egypt is that tattoos were practiced almost exclusively on women, and never on men.

Tattoos In Rome And Ancient Greece

In Rome and Ancient Greece, tattoos have also been practiced for thousands of year.

Sometimes Roman soldiers would have their bodies marked with tattoos as a form of identification.

This was sometimes done voluntarily as a sign of membership to certain group or military unit. But other times, it was done forcibly as form of punishment for committing certain crimes.

According to the writings of Herodotus, the practice of tattooing criminals, slaves and prisoners initially spread to Greece and then to the Roman Empire from Persia and what’s known today as the Middle East.

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And rather than simply putting a tattoo mark on an outlaw, the Romans would sometimes tattoo words or sentences on criminals and murderers instead of simply marking their bodies with a basic tattoo pattern.

Some such inscriptions might spell out the names of the criminal’s victims or something like: “Stop me, I’m a criminal” but written in Latin, obviously.

That way, no matter who saw the tattoo, they would immediately know that the tattooed person was an outlaw.

That said, the Roman Empire eventually grew soft on these types of tattoo practices, and particularly on slaves.

In the year 316, Constantine I made a law making it illegal to tattoo the faces of slaves.

Southeast Asian And Samoan Culture Tattooing Practices

Tattoos have also been very common in all sorts of ancient cultures across Southeast Asia, from the Tagalog people in the Philippines to the Indonesian islands of Borneo, Java, Sumatra and even the Polynesian island Samoa.

In the Philippines, both men and women were often tattooed in the pre-colonial era, but evidence suggests that tattooing practices in Southeast Asia stretch back thousands of years.

For instance, in certain archaeological cave sites in the Batanes Islands, 3,000 year old clay figurines were found with circle patterns marking their bodies, which researchers believe were meant to represent humans with tattooed bodies.

And in the Arku Cave site in Cagayan Province, bone tattoo instruments have been found dating back to at least 1,500 BCE.

In New Zealand, the Maori ta moko is a form of permanent marking made as facial tattoos or body tattoos traditionally worn by the indigenous peoples of the region.

Elsewhere in the South Pacific Ocean, Samoan tattoo artists have been inking themselves and others for at least 2,000 years.

In Samoan culture, men traditionally get a tattoo called pe’a.

A pe’a is dotted tattoo, consisting of lines, shapes, and arrows, covering the man front to back, and from his mid-back down to his knees.

The traditional female tattoo is called a malu, which covers the woman’s legs from just below her knee to just below her buttocks.

Unlike the pe’a, the malu is typically done with finer style and is more intricate in its overall shape and design.

Tattoo Practices In Western China And Japan

Tattooed mummies have been found all over Eastern and Western China, dating back from between 2,100 and about 550 BCE.

In ancient China, there was no such thing as cosmetic tattoos, and generally tattoos represented barbaric cultural practices, often associated with the Yue people.

Like other cultures, Chinese tattoos were often used as a way to mark slaves and to signify their ownership.

However, often, it was folk heroes, bandits, and outlaws that were donned with tattoos.

Elsewhere in Asia, Japanese tattoos served both decorative and spiritual purposes, and the practice of tattooing in Japan can be dated back as far back as the Jōmon period (14,000 to 300 BCE).

But it wasn’t until about the 17th century in Japan, that tattoos started being used as permanent marks on criminals, who were often tattooed with the Japanese character for “dog” placed directly on their foreheads.

Then in 1868, the Japanese Meiji government banned the practice of tattooing, stating that it had no place in any decent society.

Today, however, Japanese tattoo shops are filled with tattoo artists tattooing all sorts of people from local Japanese tattoo fanatics to tattooed tourists looking to add to their body art collections.

Tattoos In The Western World

While it’s often believed that tattoos in the western world only gained traction in the 19th century, this is mostly false.

The western world has been tattooed for nearly just as long as any other ancient culture.

But it was often only sailors with arm tattoos, pilgrims, tradesmen, and others that traveled extensively that collected tattoos on their bodies.

It is true, however, that modern tattoo machines only replaced ancient bone tattooing tools and other primitive methods in 1891, which is when more elaborate tattoos ideas and designs and skin decorations became more prominent in Europe and America.

In American culture specifically, tattoos definitely aren’t new either, but they have truly exploded in popularity since World War II.

And today, you don’t just see sailors or bikers with tattoos. Almost everyone has at least one or two tattoo on their bodies.

Other Forms Of Permanent Body Art Throughout The History Of Tattoos

As we’ve seen here today, tattoos have served all sorts of different purposes throughout history and around the world, ranging from a simple form of self expression to permanent marks on criminals, prostitutes, and tattooed soldiers.

However, facial design tattoos have also been used as a form of permanent makeup, particularly on younger women throughout history.

In modern American culture, for example, facial tattoos are often done to resemble eye liner, eye shadow, blush or even lipstick.

And similar to tattoos on slaves or criminals, gang members sometimes receive tattoos to show pure loyalty to their group, such as when biker tattoos are given to designate members as new initiates or recruits.

And a bit further back in history, during World War II, Nazi soldiers were sometimes tattooed with their blood types, which would also designate them as part of the SS.

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Frequently Asked Questions – When were tattoos invented?

From ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome through to more modern tattoo designs as a simple form of self expression, you can now say you’ve explored all of tattoo culture throughout history and around the glove.

But before we go, let’s take a quick look at some frequently asked questions we hear about the history of tattoos.

Where did the word tattoo come from?

It’s widely believe that the English word tattoo comes from the Samoan word “tatau.”

But because tattooing has been a popular cultural practice all around the world, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly where the term came from and different cultures have all sorts of words and terms for the practice of marking or tattooing one’s body.

Who invented the modern tattoo machine?

Today’s modern tattoo guns were invented by a man named Samuel O’Reilly, who based his invention off Thomas Edison’s Autographic Printing Pen.

O’Reilly patented his electric tattoo machine in 1891, and the same design is still being using in tattoo shops all around the world today.

How were tattoos done before modern tattoo machines?

Throughout the history of tattoos, ink has been pushed into people’s skin in all sort of innovative ways.

Some ancient cultures would cut slits or poke holes into the skin, and then rub pigments made from ash, soot, or other materials into the wound.

And other more modern, but still ancient tattooing practices involved using stone or bone tattooing tools with wooden handles to prick and mark the individual’s skin with some form of pigmentation.

The History Of Tattoos From Ancient Egypt To The 19th Century And To Today

While tattoos may be popular in modern cultures today, tattoos truly have been around for many, many centuries before us.

We now know that there’s an extremely interesting and varied history of tattoos throughout time and across cultures around the world.

And one thing is certain:

Tattoo designs, tattoos artists, and all those who love or wear tattoos on their body are part of an amazing culture that stretches back across thousands and thousands of years of humanity.

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