Royal Tattoos

The one person who really made tattooing popular amongst the upper class however was when the Prince of Wales visited Jerusalem in 1862 and had a tattoo done at the time to commemorate the visit. It was a tattoo of the Jerusalem Cross and he not only got the tattoo done, but his sons when they were older had the same tattoo done by the same tattoo artist. We know this because they wrote home about it at the time. Both of them, including the Duke of York who was later to be King George the V were said to have even more tattoos, as they also had tattoos done while they were in Japan. This is because their father instructed their tutor to take them to the master tattoo artist Hori Chiyo while they were there. The truth is, many royal houses in Europe embraced tattoos. For a look at just how many, be sure to read this reproduction of an article from a magazine published in 1898 that names just who in the many royal houses of Europe had tattoos. You may be surprised.

Tattoos and Crime

Another area where tattoos began to surface in Europe in the 19^th Century was for the identification of bodies. The most well known case was of a body found in Berlin in the 1850s that started a discussion of the use of tattoos to ID the dead. The publicity that surrounded this particular case created a storm of discussion on the use of tattoos for identification amongst the various law enforcement groups in Europe. Criminologists and forensic scientists soon were brought into the discussions with police officers and the talk continued throughout the century. A record of these discussions on why people got tattooed, what various tattoos could tell us about the person (such as their country of origin) and the various techniques employed for tattooing are still a valuable resource for tattoo historians today.

As you can see, the use of tattoos was much more widespread during the 19^th Century then our fuzzy concept of “Victorian Europe” could possibly comprehend. Royalty had numerous tattoos, the underclass used them as a source of pride and many police experts looked upon tattoos as an identification device for unidentified bodies. All in all, it seems that there may well have been a fairly vast underground world of tattoo art during the 19^th Century in Europe.

This conference looked at centuries of tattooing and how tattooing has become a part of the development in cultural groups to identify themselves. They traced this development from the tattooed brides of ancient Egypt to the First Crusaders who had cross tattoos branded to show their divine support all the way to today’s New Zealand All Black’s rugby team players who have Maori tattoos as part of their identity.

The conference is the first of its kind and was just a stone’s throw away, if you are a really good stone thrower, from St. Peter’s Cathedral at the Vatican’s Pontifical Urbaniana University. A scholarly study of the history of tattoo, it drew participants from such lofty places as Oxford University, University of Poitiers in France and the curator of the Pacific Culture Museum of New Zealand. The two day conference discussed historical tattoos, and even the current role of the commercialization of tattoos in present day pop culture.

Rotary Tattoo Machine

The art of tattooing maybe as old as man himself but the tools that one used for the coveted art, evolved rapidly as civilizations developed. The ancient peoples of the world have been found to use bone (yikes!), wood, teeth and brass implements to insert ink into the skin. Today (thankfully) we use more sophisticated tattoo machines for the process which are often referred to as “iron” in the professional circles and “gun” in the more casual, amateur circles.

It all began when Thomas Alva Edison (the man credited with inventions such as the phonograph and the motion picture camera) invented the electric pen in the year 1876. The electric pen, which was titled Stencil-Pen was more or less a by product of the research that he did for his telegraphy machine. When Edison noticed that his telegraph machine left an ink mark underneath the paper it punctured, it gave him the idea to use perforated sheets for making copies of documents.

Thus Edison went on to invent the electric pen (a puncturing device) which subsequently became the inspiration for Samuel O’Reilly’s first ever tattoo machine patent. In 1891 Samuel modified Edison’s invention to introduce ink into the human skin. At the same time, another inventor by the name Thomas Riley (in London, UK) filed a patent for his tattoo machine which was based on the model of a doorbell. While Samuel’s tattoo machine was based on Edison’s rotary technology, Thomas’ machine used the electromagnet technology, which is what modern machines use.

Two-Coil Tattoo Machine

However, Thomas’ machine used just a single coil while most machines today use the two coil configuration. This modified modern version was first patented by Alfred Charles South (also in London, UK.)

Thanks to modern technology that the process of getting a tattoo has become relatively pain free (if you don’t believe me try getting a tattoo from a jagged piece of bone!) Not only that, a great many hygiene related issues associated with ancient methods is also avoided, making the process relatively safe. With modern technology a tattoo artist can also control other factors such as depth (of the puncture), speed and force of application allowing tattoos to develop into a precise and predictable art form.

Here’s a brief description of the book from the publisher:
“Seven years, seven continents, and thirty countries, from the African savannah to the barrios of Los Angeles, from New Zealand to Egypt, and Brazil to Burkina Faso, Chris Rainier documented the traditions of tattooing, scarification, piercing, and other forms of body altering art, the origins of which date back to the dawn of humankind.

Ancient Marks reveals not only the haunting beauty of these often mystical forms, but also connects them to humanity’s enduring efforts to tell stories, forge identity, and create links to the divine. “The human form became, through the brillance of inspired artistry, a sacred geography of the soul, a map of culture and myth expressed by forms painted, carved, or incised upon the canvas of the body” — Wade Davis.”

Here’s what Wade Davis – An anthropologist, photographer and author of the 1985 best-selling book titled ‘The Serpent and the Rainbow’ – says about the book. (This excerpt is from the book’s foreword):
“If the skin of the average human body was laid flat as a map, a sheet of parchment, it would spread over twenty square feet.

But throughout history and for the vast majority of the artists of the world the body has always been the template of the spirit, the palette upon which all dreams and possibilities may be realized and expressed.

The human form, whether isolated in the forests of the Amazon, swept clean by the bitter winds of the Arctic, or soothed by sunset rains of Polynesia became through the brilliance of inspired artistry a map of culture and myth, a sacred geography of the soul, all expressed by the simplicity of forms painted, carved, incised, or etched upon the canvas of the body.

To contemplate the images in this book, whether the living faces of Polynesia, the raised flesh of Africa, or the erotic tensions of reinvention celebrated at Burning Man, the millenarian gathering that blossoms each year from the deserts of Nevada, is to remember why all peoples through all time have in the end found ways, whatever the impediments, to seek and celebrate a transformation of the spirit.”

Subsequently, in the year 1891, Samuel O’Reilly found out that Edison’s electric pen (with a few modifications) can also be used to insert ink into the skin. He later introduced a system to provide an ink reservoir by adding a tube and a needle and thus the very first patent for a tattoo machine was born.

Today’s modern tattoo machine however is vastly different from O’Reilly’s machine which used Edison’s rotary technology. Contemporary machines use electromagnets – A type of magnet in which a magnetic field is produced by the flow of electric current. This type of machine was first patented by Thomas Riley and it so happened, that Thomas filed the patent for his machine just twenty days after Samuel O’ Reilly had filed his patent.

Thomas Riley’s inspiration for the tattoo machine however came from elsewhere. For Thomas, his idea surprisingly enough, came from a door bell! He used Danish Inventor Hans Christian Ørsted’s discovery of electromagnetism and placed a modified assembly of a door bell inside a box made of brass. This mechanism is the basis for today’s tattoo machines.

Thomas’ machine however only used a single coil to produce electromagnetic fields, unlike contemporary machines. Alfred Charles South later added another coil to the machine and that became the first patent for our modern two coil machine. However, there are still some machines today that use the Edison’s Rotary technology.

There are many different types of tattoo machines in use now – Linear, Shader and Color are some of the most commonly used types. Each of these is used for a different purpose as is evident from their names. Linear machines are used to lay the ink in one single pass, in order to create a prominent line. The Shader machine is used to shade black (or various shades of black) in order to add depth to the tattoo. And the Color machine is used to blend or add colors to the tattoo.

As Civilizations advanced, tattoos came to be used more for permanently making an individual (like outlaws and traitors) which was a manner of disgracing them in public. And thus tattoos slowly became associated with criminal behaviour and immoral living. Incidentally, Japan is one of the last countries to actually abolish the practice of disciplinary tattooing.

It is said that this tattooed clique later resorted to full body tattooing in an effort to hide their indignity. As a result, tattoo artists derived a wide range of attractive designs for the whole body. Over a period of time, these full body tattoos began attracting public attention and especially during the Tokugawa period.

The Tokugawa period (dated between 1603 and 1868) witnessed some of the strictest sumptuary laws and the people resorted to full body tattoos as a sign of rebellion. Even though the practice was severely condemned by the Japanese authorities, it continued to rise in popularity! Public display of one’s tattoos in Japan is prohibited by law even today.

The practice of full body tattooing in Japan is most commonly associated with the Yakuza – the Japanese mafia. The Yakuza is said to have formed as a result of the dissolution that the once greatly regulated society experienced. The practice is also said to have many influences – from the Samurai, the Bushido, the sinister side of the Tokugawa regime and even gambling! The higher classes of Japanese society, even today, consider the practice as a barbaric tradition.

For these reasons and many more (not to mention they cost a bomb and aren’t particularly pain free!) the practice is again on a downward spiral. The number of people learning the art has also sharply declined. By the looks of it, this spectacular body art will soon be an extinct art form.