Some Tattoo History

Tattoos have been cited in many different ancient cultures used as symbols and forms of art. The earliest being the Egyptians around 4000 b.c. along with the Chinese who first started the art form tattooing in 500 b.c. It would have been cool to be around back then and see ancient tattoos compared to the tattoo artists in current times. talking about the united states specifically, tattoos weren't really around using a machine till the late 1800's. Getting even more specific, the first man to have an electric tattoo machine issued to him by the US patent office was an Irishman by the name of Samuel O' Reilly. Again I wonder if Mr. O' Reilly actually had an skills behind the tattoo machine in comparison to the artists around these days. And although Samuel O' Reilly was the first to have an actual machine, he was far from the first tattoo observer that had passed through the United States. Dating back to 1769 a captain by the name of James Cook sailed his vessel to Tahiti and had seen the natives there going through the ritual of marking each others bodies. It's interesting to think of how many hundreds of years tattooing has been around and how it started with tribes tattooing each other. Nowadays you see all people from many different backgrounds and ethnicities getting tattoos.