Tattoos have been around for thousands of years as a way of marking the human body for various purposes and with different meanings. Almost every ancient culture that has ever walked the earth was created and wear tattoos and body art as part of their symbolic way of life. Tattoo history spans more than 5,000 years, and as diverse as the people carrying them.
art of mehndi, temporary body art done in henna, also dates back about 5000 years. Mehndi is still used in ceremonies and rituals and religious ceremonies in India, but the earliest civilizations proven to have used henna Babylonians, Assyrians and the Sumerians. Many ancient cultures have used and tattoos, and mehndi for spiritual purposes.
permanent tattoo designs, sometimes simple, sometimes very elaborate, but always with a deep personal meaning, they were used as amulets, status symbols, signs of religious beliefs, expressions of love, ornaments, and even at the time as forms of punishment. There is the cultural significance of the tattoo that is timeless.
used to be the earliest known tattoos for a long time, Egypt, from about 2,000 BC. Many of the mummies, which appeared to be exclusively female, showed evidence of tattooed on their bodies, especially on the thighs. However, time is pushed back further with the discovery of the Iceman in 1991, carbon of about 5200 years old, in the field of Italian / Austrian border, which shows the tattoos on various body parts. His tattoos were examined and found to correspond to the stress-induced degeneration of the area, suggesting they May have been used to help relieve joint pain and, therefore, are therapeutic in nature.
It is believed that some Egyptian women practiced tattooing as suspicious, and that tattoos are a sign of a prostitute, but since it has been proven that female mummies found in the royal and elite burial areas, and at first considered the royal concubines, they now know at least one was a high priestess status. Thus, there is no indication that the tattooing is for "dancing girls" as they call them. Some believe that tattoos are not prostitutes or marks for defense against sexually transmitted diseases, but they are actually functioning as a constant therapeutic forms of amulets to help in pregnancy and childbirth, as is suggested by their patterns and spaces and the addition of God Bes, who was protector of women in the work of, among other things. This helps explain why the Egyptian tattooing was restricted solely to women's custom. Egyptian tattoos are usually dark or black pigment. Brighter colors, it seems, are widely used in other ancient cultures.
Inuits, Nubians, Pazyryk skit, an ancient British, Greek, Roman, pre-Columbian cultures of Peru and Chile, the Indians, the ancient Chinese and Japanese and Polynesians in the name of several ancient cultures that were baviliumjetnosti tattooing for various reasons. Among them, for similar reasons such as the Egyptian women, as a sign of nobility and high status (not that it is a statement of low birth, interesting is not it?), As a sign of belonging to a religious sect or owner, if a slave, or to designate as a criminal penalty it symbolizes devotion to the patron deity, the Roman soldiers to adopt Christianity spread with the belief that tattoos "that distorted the image of God." Tattoos are worn on any part of the body including the face, all with different meanings and significance.
Polynesians from Tahiti to us today the word "tattoo" from their islands of the term "tatatau" or "tattau", meaning to kick or strike. After James Cook on an expedition there, it became fashionable among Europeans that have tattoos, especially people at high risk occupations, in which case the tattoos carried an amulet as a symbol of protection.
Modern day tattoos are all over the world, spread across every culture yet, including Japanese, Africans and the Maori of New Zealand to name a few, and of course in the Western world as well. All symbolisms and thoughts arising from the similarity of the ancient cultures of the past, whether we are aware of knowing what and why we have worked for or not. May be some of the new reasonings and expression, but the foundation behind it has passed down for thousands of years and not so coincidentally, many of us get tattoos of the ancient symbols of ancient civilizations and cultures. Cross-cultural influences continue to play a significant role in how we express and live our lives, which includes a melding things together. It is interesting that all the cycling circle or spiral effect, connecting us all in the timeless experience.
