In the 1870s, the Japanese government banned body modification among the Ainu, a small indigenous group who were once renowned for intricate face and arm tattoos. Philippe Dallais of the Museum of Ethnography in Neuchatel, Switzerland, believes they were the last practitioners of a tradition that stretched back thousands of years to the Jōmon people. Hunter-gatherers who eventually became sedentary, the Jōmon developed a complex culture that lasted from 12,000 to 300 B.C. Archaeologists excavating Jōmon houses often unearth humanoid earthenware figurines known as Dogu that sport engravings on their faces and bodies. “I believe these marks in many cases represent tattoos,” says Dallais. “You often find them on arms and around the mouth and eyebrows, just like the tattoos of the Ainu.” No obvious tattooing tools have been found at Jōmon sites, but Dallais says stone tools could have been used to make them. “You have obsidian everywhere in Japan, and it’s possible to take a piece and quickly make small, neat incisions for tattooing.”

Among cultures known to have practiced tattooing, the ancient Egyptians appear to be the only one in which tattoos may have been the sole province of women. There are several examples of actual tattooed women, including the mummy of Amunet, a priestess of the goddess Hathor, which was discovered in 1891. However, ceramic figurines and vessels depicting tattooed women offer much more evidence. In the Middle Kingdom, footless faience figurines sometimes known as “Brides of the Dead” were created with patterns of lines and diamonds, primarily on their abdomens, but sometimes on their thighs as well. Although likely not a portrait of any individual, this example (left top) is of a type of figurine often found in homes, temples, and tombs, functioning as household items, offerings to the gods, or accompaniments for the dead. In addition to the tattoos, which are seen as sexually suggestive, the figurines often wear belts made of cowry shells, a symbol of femininity, and would have had copious amounts of hair—which was considered especially erotic—attached through holes in the head. Thus, it’s likely that the tattoos were considered one element of a woman’s sexuality, and that they may have been included in the tombs to continue the deceased’s sex life. Because some figurines have been found in female tombs, it’s also possible that they functioned as images of ideal femininity, of which tattoos were an important part. In the New Kingdom a novel kind of tattoo was added to the Egyptians’ repertoire. Women, especially musicians and dancers (left bottom), were sometimes depicted with images of the dwarf god Bes on their thighs, in addition to the more traditional geometric patterns. The Egyptians worshipped Bes as a protector of women in labor, children, and the home.

Captain Cook was the first to use the verb “tattoo” in English in 1769, when he described the Tahitian art of tatau in his diary. Now people all around the world bear Polynesian-inspired tattoos, but the first to wear those famous designs were likely the Lapita, who lived from around 1500 to 500 B.C. and are the ancestors of many of today’s Pacific peoples. No direct evidence of Lapita tattooing exists, but University of California, Berkeley, archaeologist Patrick Kirch says that the intricate designs they incised on their pottery resemble tattoo motifs that are still used today and were made by the same toothlike implements that can still be used to create tattoos. “These vessels were being decorated the same way as the body and might represent ancestors,” says Kirch, who thinks these “tattooed pots,” which were thick and crudely made, were probably intended for display during ceremonial occasions. The Lapita used slender, undecorated pottery for utilitarian purposes, such as storing water. Kirch notes that in ethnographic accounts of Oceanic societies, women were responsible for making pottery and men were responsible for tattoos. “It’s possible the Lapita women were creating the skillfully made pottery that actually had to be used, and men were making terrible pottery and decorating it with tattoos.”