Today, tattooing is more popular and accepted than ever before in history. People who get tattoos usually see them as a way of expressing themselves. In America, more than one third of young adults have at least one tattoo. They are considered cool, acceptable and attractive. In this article we will take a quick look at the history of tattooing.

Tattoos go a long way back. The earliest evidence of tattooing was found on the mummy of Otzi the Iceman. Otzi was found in 1991 on an alpine glacier on the border between Austria and Italy. His body was covered with over 50 tattoos. He is the earliest known tattooed human being.

Tattoo art was also very widespread in ancient Egypt. Tattoos was found on mummies dating back as far as the third millennium BC. One of the most famous tattooed mummies is a priestess of the goddess Hathor that lived at Thebes some time between 2160 – 1994 BC.

Ancient Egypt is commonly considered as the cradle of tattoo art and from there it spread throughout the ancient world – to Roman, Greek, Persian, Chinese and Japanese regions. Tattoos were and remain especially important to Polynesian culture.

Polynesian tattooing has been around for thousands of years, long before the arrival of the Europeans. It was and still is an important part of Polynesian culture. When Captain Cook and other explorers of the Pacific visited them, they were astonished by the level of complexity and skillfulness of their body art.

The word tattoo is believed to originate from the Tahitian word “tatau” which means “to mark something”. Captain Cook was the first westerner to describe the art of tattooing with the word tatau. After his encounter with Polynesians in 1768 he mentioned it in his journal.

Explorers of the eighteenth century probably never imagined how quickly will tattoos spread. At the end of the 18th century they were already widely spread among sailors. Today, in the 21st century, they’re preferred form of body art for people of all ages, sizes and lifestyles.