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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Inked Up – A brief History of Vikings and Tattoos by Rob Shackleford

Inked Up - A Brief History of Vikings and Tattoos by Rob Shackleford Did the Vikings have tattoos? There is some disagreement. The simple answer is, unless there is a discovery made of an intact Viking corpse, which includes their skin, we will never know one way or another. Let’s briefly look at the history of Tattoos. Tattoos and History The earliest evidence of tattoo art comes in the form of clay figurines that had their faces painted or engraved to represent tattoo marks. The oldest figures of this kind have been recovered from tombs in Japan dating to 5000 BCE…
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