The History of Tattoos in Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire
Greek and Roman tattoo art in ancient Greece and the Roman Empire:
In the early days of Greek and Roman cultures, marking one’s body with dyes was considered barbaric. They usually only used the practice to mark slaves and criminals to make it more difficult for them to escape. The same practice was used to identify the hired military so that deserters could be easily identified. Sometimes tattooing was used as a punishment in both societies.
The Latin word for tattoo was “stigma”. This shows how deeply the negative connotations towards the practice went in both of these cultures. Because of the negative association with being inked, Greek and Roman physicians came up with techniques to remove the unwanted artwork.
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