Inked Up – A brief history of Vikings and Tattoos Part 2 by Rob Shackleford

Were Vikings Inked? - Vikings and Tattoos Part 2 by Rob Shackleford Did Vikings have tattoos? Nobody really knows. Now, with popular media we want Vikings to have had tattoos, but did they really? Unfortunately, except in unique circumstances, human skin does not survive centuries of burial. Add to that, few Viking literary works survive, so we are forced to rely on outside accounts. Many come from Arab statesmen who carried on extensive trade and cultural exchange with Norsemen in the ninth and tenth centuries. One Arab traveler, Ahmad Ibn Fadlan, a scholar of Baghdad, was sent by the Abbasid…
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