Brock Press

Issue date: 3/27/07 Section: Focus

Media Credit: Joseph Gottli

Media Credit: Joseph Gottli

Media Credit: Joseph Gottli

[From www.nmm.au.uk]

• Tattooing has been used as a way of smuggling secret messages across enemy lines in times of war.

• The world's most tattooed person is Tom Leppard from the Isle of Skye, Scotland, who has 99.9 per cent of his body covered with a leopard-skin design. Guinness World Records states that the only parts of Tom's body that are not tattooed are the skin between his toes and the insides of his ears.

• The title for the world's most tattooed woman is claimed to be shared between Canadian Krystyne Kolorful and American Julia Gnuse. Both have 95 per cent of their bodies tattooed. Julia began to tattoo her body in order to disguise the effects of porphyria, a disease which can leave skin permanently scarred.

• The oldest known tattoo was found in October 1991, when the 5,000-year-old frozen body of a Bronze Age hunter was found between Austria and Italy. His body bore several tattoos. The body, nicknamed Ozti the iceman, was found in a glacier and was so well preserved that scientists were able to make out a number of tattoos. These included a cross on the inside of the left knee, six straight lines 15cm above the kidneys and a series of parallel lines on the ankles.

• King Harold II of England had a number of tattoos. After his death at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, his tattoos were used to identify his body.

• American George C. Reiger Jr. boasts over 1,000 tattoos based on Disney characters, including all 101 Dalmatians. Because the characters are copyrighted, Reiger has had to seek permission from Disney and now claims to be the only person in the world with such authorization. He says he received it on the condition that he's not allowed to go to a tattoo parlor, appear in a tattooing magazine or make money from his tattoos.

• Urine was sometimes used to mix the colouring matter of early tattoos.

• The tattooing machine is based on the design of the doorbell.

• It became fashionable in the late 19th and early 20th centuries for aristocrats, including women, to be tattooed. At the time, tattooing was very expensive and people paid large sums for their designs. Later, as the costs were reduced, tattooing was adopted by the lower classes and the practice fell out of favour with the social elite.

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools