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Articles on Tattoos

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A man takes a picture of a statue representing the 5,300-year-old mummy named Ötzi, discovered in the Italian Alps 30 years ago. Andrea Solero/AFP via Getty Images

What Ötzi the prehistoric iceman can teach us about the use of tattoos in ceremonial healing or religious rites

When the 5,300-year-old mummy of Ötzi the Iceman was found 30 years ago, researchers found 61 tattoos on it. A scholar explains how tattoos have been a sacred part of many cultures across the world.
The Picts, the indigenous people of what is today northern Scotland, were documented by Roman historians as having complex tattoos. Theodor de Bry, via Wikimedia Commons

Tattoos have a long history going back to the ancient world – and also to colonialism

The pandemic has made some people rush to get tattoos for different reasons. A tattoo historian explains why tattoos are often seen to be ‘trashy,’ a view likely influenced by colonialism.
In the not-too-distant future, tattoos could become medical diagnostic devices as well as body art. LightFieldStudios/iStock via Getty Images

Dynamic tattoos promise to warn wearers of health threats

Researchers are developing tattoo inks that do more than make pretty colors. Some can sense chemicals, temperature and UV radiation, setting the stage for tattoos that diagnose health problems.
Image from ‘Criminal man, according to the classification of Cesare Lombroso’ (1911). Internetarchivebookimages/Flickr

How tattoos became fashionable in Victorian England

We may think tattooing is a modern phenomenon, but the reasons for its popularity are not dissimilar to those seen in the prisons and convict ships of the Victorian era.
A schoolteacher in the midst of receiving a full pe'a, the traditional Samoan tattoo generally worn by males. Christopher Lynn

Untangling tattoos’ influence on immune response

An anthropologist works in American Samoa, taking advantage of the island’s longstanding tattoo culture to tease out the effects tattoos have on the body’s immune function.

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