Historic tattoos

Travel narratives about Holy-Land pilgrimage tattoos are one of my go-to evidence banks for demonstrating the significant presence and visibility of tattooing in the early modern period (defined as…

1000 Tattoos explores the art of tattoos, past and present, and from all around the world. BuzzFeed takes a peek inside the re-release.

SPQR Roman Legion tattoo, with "Legio IX Britannia" below it. Yes, I do realize the actual historical name of the Roman Legion that fought in Britiain was "Legio IX Hispana". However, I wanted to be creative about, and as a sign of respect to both sides who fought and died in Britian during that time period, to rename it to what the Romans called the island, "Britannia".

The origins of ink.

Sutherland MacDonald, widely regarded as one of the greatest tattoo artists of his day, opened a shop in the St James's' area of Westminster, London, in 1894.

As much as we love fighting boredom, we are all for combating the stigma. Mental health topics might not be something we often delve into, but these are nevertheless important to address. However, we are no mental health experts. Hence, we'll tackle the subject from an angle we're most familiar with: tattoos representing mental health.

Victorian pictures always show stern-looking faces with people covering their bodies from head to toe in long clothes. But vintage images have revealed how some people living in 19th century Britain had a love of huge tattoos covering their entire chests and arms. And all of the pictures from the Victorian era show the inkings carried out by one of the first ever tattoo artists – Sutherland Macdonald. Sutherland Macdonald was considered by many to be one of the greatest artists in the…