While tattoos and body piercings are generally categorized with low-class thugs and gang members, there are those who consider it an art form as well as religious and sentimental values and beliefs.

The word tattoo is believed to have had two derivations- one coming from the Polynesian word “ta” meaning strike something and the other from the Tahitian word “tatau” which means “to mark something. (http://www.designboom.com/history/tattoo_history.html) On December 8, 1891 the first electric tattoo machine was registered for patent by Samuel O’Reilly. Samuel’s machine was based on a machine invented by Thomas Edison in 1875 which was used to embroider fabric. But tattoos have been around longer than that. The first discovery of tattoos known to man came from a well preserved mummy nicknamed Otzi. Otzi was a man believed to be from around 3300 B.C. and was discovered in a glacier near the border between Austria and Italy. Otzi had 57 tattoos on his body,......

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Title: Tattoos
Approximate Word Count: 1181
Approximate Pages: 5 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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