From ancient rituals to modern celebrity ink, these ten tantalizing tales of tattoos reveal how body art has shaped cultures, punishments, and personal legends.
According to a poll by The New York Times, 21 percent of Americans had tattoos in 1999. Today, that number has increased dramatically as 40 percent now sport some sort of body ink.
10 Otzi The Iceman
Tantalizing Tales of Healing in the Ice
In 1991, two German hikers stumbled upon a frozen corpse high in the Alps. Initially thought to be a tragic mountaineering accident, later analysis proved the man had been murdered around 3500 BC, making the discovery the oldest intact human body ever found, nicknamed “Otzi the Iceman.”
Otzi’s remains have illuminated his diet, lifestyle, and violent death—shot with an arrow and bludgeoned. Remarkably, scientists identified sixty‑one tiny tattoos on his skin, most invisible to the naked eye after millennia beneath the ice.
The majority of those markings consist of simple lines or X‑shapes, applied by cutting the skin and rubbing charcoal into the wounds. They cluster around joints and ligaments, leading researchers to suspect a therapeutic purpose—perhaps an ancient form of acupuncture intended to ease joint pain.
9 Mark Of Nobility
For roughly 2,500 years a Ukok princess lay buried beneath Siberian ice alongside two warriors, likely her bodyguards in both this world and the next. She belonged to the Pazyryk culture and bore intricate tattoos on her left shoulder.
Among the Pazyryks, tattoos were a badge of rank and wisdom. The more ink one displayed, the higher the status and the richer the life experience. Tattoos were typically placed on the shoulders, where they could be seen by all, both in daily life and in the afterlife.
Families often shared matching designs to help locate one another beyond death—think of them as ancient family shirts for the afterworld.
8 Form Of Punishment
Herodotus recorded that fifth‑century Greeks regarded tattoos with contempt, reserving the practice for slaves and criminals. Thieves and murderers were permanently marked with their crimes as a warning to all.
Thracian women who chose to tattoo themselves were labeled “Mad Women” or “Raving Ones.” The only tattoos not scorned were covert spy codes used to smuggle information across enemy lines.
Runaway slaves were frequently branded for their attempts at freedom. One tale tells of Emperor Theophilus ordering two monks who criticized him to be inked with eleven verses of vulgar iambic pentameter across their foreheads and faces.
7 The Tattooing Family Of The Crusaders
In the old city of Jerusalem, the Razzouk family has been handing down the tattoo trade from father to son for about 700 years. They still employ woodblocks dating back to the 1700s to trace their designs.
Cruaders and pilgrims would commission ink to commemorate their holy journeys. Even royalty—King Edward VII of England and King Frederik IX of Denmark—received tattoos from the family.
In a region where religion could be perilous, Coptic Christians often tattooed the Jerusalem cross on their arms to prove their faith and gain entry to churches, sometimes as young as toddlers.
6 Maori
Today, the tribal tattoo is among the most recognizable styles, with black waves and lines tracing back to the Maori of Oceania. Each tattoo told a rich, complex story.
A Maori’s facial tattoos are as unique as a fingerprint, revealing status, family history, and more. Central forehead designs denote rank, temple markings indicate marital status, cheek patterns signify profession, and the area under the nose served as a signature in tribal transactions.
Traditional creation involved cutting the skin with a knife, then using a chisel dipped in pigment and a mallet to tap deep into the cuts, leaving a raised tattoo. The process was painful—practitioners could not speak or eat with their hands, and showing pain was considered dishonorable. Modern artists have largely abandoned the method, though some still practice it.
5 Sailors
The striking tattoos of Pacific Island tribes such as the Maori helped popularize body art worldwide. As Western sailors ventured east, they adopted and adapted these designs.
The word “tattoo” stems from the Tahitian “tattau,” meaning “to mark.” In the 17th and 18th centuries, sailors used simple symbols to set themselves apart from land‑lubbers. The process involved needles bound together, dipped in a mixture of ink and gunpowder, often performed on a rocking ship.
Symbols acted as milestones: an anchor signified crossing the Atlantic, a dragon indicated a voyage to China, and a turtle marked crossing the equator. Superstitious sailors also bore talismans—such as a pig and rooster on opposite feet—to ward off drowning, hoping the symbols would guide them back to shore if cast overboard.
4 Olive Oatman
Fourteen‑year‑old Olive Oatman trekked across Arizona with her family in 1851 when the Yavapai tribe ambushed them, killing four siblings and both parents. Olive and her sister were taken captive.
Unbeknownst to the sisters, their brother survived the attack and spent four years searching for them. In 1856, rumors of a white woman living with the Mojave tribe led to a ransom negotiation; Olive was returned to Fort Yuma, her sister having died of starvation.
Upon her return, Olive bore five blue lines tattooed across her chin with cactus ink—a mark the Mojave traditionally gave married women for protection in the afterlife. She later authored a bestseller and lectured about her experiences, claiming the tattoos were slave marks for identification, though she insisted she was never mistreated.
Over time, Olive’s narrative grew more critical of the Mojave, leaving historians to wonder whether her shift reflected Stockholm syndrome or fear of white‑society ostracism.
3 Presidential Tattoos
Despite the gravitas of the Oval Office, a few U.S. presidents have concealed ink beneath their formal attire. Andrew Jackson, nicknamed “Old Hickory,” is rumored to have sported a Native American tomahawk tattoo on his inner thigh—a stark irony given his role in Native American removal.
James K. Polk reportedly bore the Chinese character for “eager” on his skin, a design that would look at home in 2017. Teddy Roosevelt is said to have displayed a large Roosevelt family crest across his chest, a motif his nephew FDR allegedly shared as well.
2 Scarification
While not technically tattooing, scarification earned an honorable mention for serving a similar purpose in many cultures, especially across West Africa where darker skin made conventional tattoos less visible.
The practice involved creating incisions—often on the face—with knives, glass, stone, or coconut shells. After forming a pattern, the fresh wounds were coated with charcoal or acidic plant juice to impede proper healing, resulting in raised scar tissue.
Enduring the pain without outward complaint was a badge of honor, as the final scars signified rank, wealth, marital status, and even the number of children. In many societies, a woman with numerous scars was considered both beautiful and strong.
1 Od
While electric needles dominate modern tattoo studios, centenarian Apo Whang‑Od proves the ancient ways still thrive. At 100 years old in 2017, she remains the last living master of the 1,000‑year‑old “batok” technique, which involves tapping an ink‑dipped thorn into the skin up to 100 times a minute.
Every village in the Kalinga region of the Philippines once had its own tattoo master to record milestones—marriages, births, and other significant events—on the skin. Tradition holds that the art can only be passed from mother to daughter.
As the practice waned over the past century, Whang‑Od began training her 10‑year‑old grandniece to ensure the legacy endures. She once said, “Tattoos are one of our greatest treasures; unlike material things, no one can take them away from us when we die.” In 2015, she was honored as a national living treasure.