Historically Speaking: The Ancient Art of the Tattoo

Body ink has been used to elevate, humiliate and decorate people since the times of mummies.

The Wall Street Journal

August 25, 2022

Earlier this month the celebrity couple Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson announced that their nine-month relationship was over. Ms. Kardashian departed with her memories, but Mr. Davidson was left with something a little more tangible: the words “my girl is a lawyer” tattooed on his shoulder in (premature) homage to Ms. Kardashian’s legal aspirations. He has since been inundated on social media with suggestions on how to cover it up. In 1993, following his split with actress Winona Ryder, the actor Johnny Depp changed “Winona Forever” to “Wino Forever.”

Throughout history, humans have tattooed themselves—and others—for reasons spanning the gamut from religion to revenge. The earliest evidence for tattooing comes from a 5,300-year-old ice mummy nicknamed Otzi after its discovery in the Ötztal Alps in Europe. An analysis of Otzi’s remains revealed that he had been killed by an arrow. Even before his violent death, however, he appeared to have suffered from various painful ailments. Scientists found 61 tattoo marks across Otzi’s body, with many of them placed on known acupuncture points, prompting speculation that the world’s oldest tattoos were used as a health aid.

Similar purposes may have prompted the ancient Nubians to apply tattoos on some pregnant women. Tomb paintings and mummified remains of women in Egypt show that they also adopted the custom, possibly for the same reason.

PHOTO: THOMAS FUCHS

The indelible aspect of tattooing inspired diametrically opposed attitudes. Some ancient peoples, such as the Thracians and the Gauls, regarded tattoos as a mark of noble status and spiritual power. But the Persians, Greeks and Romans used them as a form of punishment or humiliation. Those who imported slaves to Rome from Asia paid duties and tattooed “tax paid” on the foreheads of those they enslaved.

In Polynesian cultures, tattoos were imbued with symbolism. The traditional tatau, which gave rise to the English word tattoo via Captain James Cook in the 18th century, covered the bodies of Samoan men from the waist to the knees. The ritual application took many weeks and entailed excruciating pain plus the danger of septicemia, but anyone who gave up brought shame upon his family for generations.

As a rule, Christian missionaries tried to stamp out the practice during the 19th century. But their disapproval was no match for royal enthusiasm. Fascinated by irezumi, the Japanese decorative art of tattooing inspired by woodblock printing, the future King George V of Britain and his brother Prince Albert Victor both had themselves inked in 1881 while on a royal visit. Noting its subsequent spread among the American upper classes, the New York Herald complained, “The Tattooing Fad has Reached New York Via London.”

In the 20th century, the practice retained a dark side as a symbol of criminality and oppression—most notably associated with the Nazis’ tattooing of inmates at Auschwitz. At the same time, however, so many returning U.S. servicemen had them that the Marlboro Man sported one on his hand in the advertisements of the day.

WSJ Historically Speaking: Undying Defeat: The Power of Failed Uprisings

From the Warsaw Ghetto to the Alamo, doomed rebels live on in culture

John Wayne said that he saw the Alamo as ‘a metaphor for America’. PHOTO: ALAMY

Earlier this month, Israel commemorated the 75th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of April 1943. The annual Remembrance Day of the Holocaust and Heroism, as it is called, reminds Israelis of the moral duty to fight to the last.

The Warsaw ghetto battle is one of many doomed uprisings across history that have cast their influence far beyond their failures, providing inspiration to a nation’s politics and culture.

Nearly 500,000 Polish Jews once lived in the ghetto. By January 1943, the Nazis had marked the surviving 55,000 for deportation. The Jewish Fighting Organization had just one machine gun and fewer than a hundred revolvers for a thousand or so sick and starving volunteer soldiers. The Jews started by blowing up some tanks and fought on until May 16. The Germans executed 7,000 survivors and deported the rest.

For many Jews, the rebellion offered a narrative of resistance, an alternative to the grim story of the fortress of Masada, where nearly 1,000 besieged fighters chose suicide over slavery during the First Jewish-Roman War (A.D. 66–73).
The story of the Warsaw ghetto uprising has also entered the wider culture. The title of Leon Uris’s 1961 novel “Mila 18” comes from the street address of the headquarters of the Jewish resistance in their hopeless fight. Four decades later, Roman Polanski made the uprising a crucial part of his 2002 Oscar-winning film, “The Pianist,” whose musician hero aids the effort.

Other doomed uprisings have also been preserved in art. The 48-hour Paris Uprising of 1832, fought by 3,000 insurrectionists against 30,000 regular troops, gained immortality through Victor Hugo, who made the revolt a major plot point in “Les Misérables” (1862). The novel was a hit on its debut and ever after—and gave its world-wide readership a set of martyrs to emulate.

Even a young country like the U.S. has its share of national myths, of desperate last stands serving as touchstones for American identity. One has been the Battle of the Alamo in 1836 during the War of Texas Independence. “Remember the Alamo” became the Texan war cry only weeks after roughly 200 ill-equipped rebels, among them the frontiersman Davy Crockett, were killed defending the Alamo mission in San Antonio against some 2,000 Mexican troops.

The Alamo’s imagery of patriotic sacrifice became popular in novels and paintings but really took off during the film era, beginning in 1915 with the D.W. Griffith production, “Martyrs of the Alamo.” Walt Disney got in on the act with his 1950s TV miniseries, “ Davy Crockett : King of the Wild Frontier.” John Wayne’s 1960 “The Alamo,” starring Wayne as Crockett, immortalized the character for a generation.

Wayne said that he saw the Alamo as “a metaphor of America” and its will for freedom. Others did too, even in very different contexts. During the Vietnam War, President Lyndon Johnson, whose hometown wasn’t far from San Antonio, once told the National Security Council why he believed U.S. troops needed to be fighting in Southeast Asia: “Hell,” he said, “Vietnam is just like the Alamo.”