30 Amazing and Interesting Facts about Tattoos | Amazing Facts 4U
- The first-ever tattoo to be found on a human being is believed to be found on a mummified iceman in 3300 BC. He had 58 tattoos on his body which contained lines and dots.
- The oldest physical body in existence, the Iceman (3300-3200 B.C.) has the oldest tattoos that have ever been preserved. When scientists X-rayed his body, they discovered joint disease under each tattoo, which suggests the tattoos were meant to relieve pain.
- The Greeks learned tattooing from the Persians and used tattoos to mark slaves and criminals so they could be identified if they tried to escape. The Romans learned it from the Greeks and would tattoo “fug” on the foreheads of slaves for “fugitive.”
- In A.D. 787, Pope Hadrian I banned tattooing of any kind, even on criminals or gladiators. From then on, tattooing was virtually unknown in the Christian world until the 19th century. Judaism and Islam also discouraged tattooing.
- The oldest known description of tattoo technique with a formula for tattoo ink is found in Medicare artis principles (1567). The formula for ink included Egyptian pine wood (especially the bark), corroded bronze, vitriol, vinegar, and leek juice.
- The word “tattoo” derives from the Polynesian word “ta” (“to strike”), which describes the sound of a tattooing spike being knocked on skin.
- Samuel F. O’Reilly patented the first tattoo machine in 1891. It was actually a modification of a machine designed for autographic printing, first patented by Thomas Alva Edison in 1876.
- A tattoo machine has four parts: 1) the needle, 2) the tube that holds the ink, 3) an electric motor, and 4) a foot pedal to control the movement
- Most people believe that tattoos are done with vegetable colors, which isn’t true. In fact, tattoos contain permanent color particles with metal salts, plastic, and several other chemicals that aren’t natural at all.
- Modern ink may contain pigments from ground plastics, such as Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), which creates extremely vivid tattooing with clearer, longer-lasting lines that are resistant to the fading and blurring of traditional inks.
- UV tattoos are created with ink that is completely invisible in normal daylight but glows brightly under ultraviolet light.
- People in many traditions get their children tattooed to protect them from evil spirits and energies.
- Women love to get tattooed more than men as tattoos are an easy way for women to attract attention to themselves and their beauty. It is popularly done on lower backs and breasts.
- Survey reveals that 36% of those ages 18-25 and 40% of those ages 26-40 have at least one tattoo.
- Not all skin on the body is the same and, therefore, will not take tattoo pigment uniformly. In fact, tattoos on elbows, knuckles, knees, and feet are notorious for fading.
- The top 10 most popular spots for tattoos are 1) lower back, 2) wrist, 3) foot, 4) ankle, 5) armband, 6) back 7) arm, 8) chest, 9) breast, and 10) neck.
- To get a tattoo, the skin is pierced between 50 and 3,000 times a minute by a tattoo machine.
- A tattoo is actually in the dermis, which is the second layer of skin. The cells of the dermis are significantly more stable than the cells in the epidermis, with minor fading and dispersion for a person’s entire life.
- There are over 20,000 tattoo parlors in the United States alone. A new establishment is being added in the country every day.
- In fact, between 1961 and 1997, it was illegal to get a tattoo in New York City following the outbreak of hepatitis B.
- The existing tattoo designs displayed in a tattoo shop are known as “flash.” Clients can choose from flash or request a customized design.
- Generally, the most painful areas to tattoo are over the bone such as the ankle, collarbone, chest, ribs, and spine.
- Getting a tattoo was illegal in Oklahoma until 2006. In Massachusetts, tattooing was illegal until 2000.
- The most tattooed man in the world is Gregory Paul McLaren (1971), also known as Lucky Diamond Rich. He is 100% tattooed, including the inside of his foreskin, mouth, and ears.
- The second most tattooed person in the world is Tom Leppard (1934) from the Isle of Sky, Scotland. Also known as the “Leopard Man,” his body is 99.9% covered in tattoos. The only parts of his body not tattooed are between his toes and the insides of his ears.
- Robbie Koch recently made a world record by inking 577 tattoos under 24 hours.
- Laser surgery is the most effective way to remove a tattoo. The laser penetrates the skin and breaks up the tattoo pigments so that they can be carried away naturally by the body’s immune system. Black is the easiest color to remove because it absorbs more laser waves. Green and yellow are more difficult to remove.
- Other methods of tattoo removal include dermabrasion (sanding the skin), cryosurgery (freezing the skin), and excision (cutting away the tattoo with a scalpel and stitching up the wound.
- Winston Churchill’s mother, Lady Randolph Churchill, had a tattoo of a snake around her wrists, which she covered with a diamond bracelet at formal occasions. Churchill himself had an anchor on his foreman.
- Rocker Tommy Lee was entered in the 2007 Guinness Book of Records when he became the first man to be tattooed in mid-air during a private flight to Miami.
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