But while George was perceived at the time as a trendsetter, he was continuing a pattern which had existed for centuries. Since the time of Julius Caesar, the British had repeatedly helped popularise the art of tattooing around the world. The Picts are known as Celtic peoples because of their tribal affiliations with Celtic people living in Scotland’s east and north. According to Roman historians, the Picts are descended from the Caledonii peoples and other Celtic tribes. According to World History Encyclopedia, the early Picts were tribal peoples who lived in small, tightly knit communities consisting of families belonging to a single clan. Each clan may have had a chieftain, or multiple chieftains, and was likely relatively politically autonomous from other clans. "These tribes probably didn't have single kings," Woolf said. "What the Roman sources seem to suggest is that in times of trouble, one of multiple chiefs in each tribe would be elected as a war leader."

Later, the Roman soldier and historian Ammianus Marcellinus, who wrote in the fourth century, described the Picts as being divided into two tribes called Dicalydones and Verturiones. He described the Picts during this period as warlike, "roving at large and causing great devastation." Inspired by family folklore, he developed a passion for understanding what tattoos tell us about the world we live in from an early age. In 1881, a writer in the Saturday Review called tattooing 'an art without a history'. 'No-one', it went on, 'has made it the business of his life to study the development of tattooing.' Until now. The majority of tattoo artists begin by doing simple script or line work. The reason for this is that it’s difficult to get this type of tattoo wrong. Anything can happen when working with skin, of course, and there’s still the importance of applying the correct pressure, having a steady enough hand to trace the lines, and ensuring that all of the standard tattooing guidelines are followed, including applying the stencil or hand drawing, use of proper equipment, etc. It’s a fact that the simpler the design, the easier it is to achieve tattoo art that looks good.

An Undefeatable Opponent

The British fascination with the Orient was a big part of this,” Lodder says, and Macdonald’s ownership of the hammam was a fortunate twist: “Not only are Japanese goods the hottest property in Europe, but you've got this ‘orientalist’ setting with a ready-made clientele of rich men walking around without their clothes.” Written by David Greig and directed by Elizabeth Newman, Adventures with the Painted People is a love story set 2,000 years ago. Lucius is a Roman officer who has been captured by the Picts. Eithne is the head witch in the community and she has Lucius held prisoner by both rope and an ancestral spell. Casey also enjoys anything sci-fi (feel free to get him started on Star Wars or Star Trek), documentaries and drawing in his spare time. Equally mysterious is the headless torso of an Egyptian woman, suspected to have been thirty years old when she died three thousand years ago, discovered by archaeologists in Deir el-Medina. Her tattoos feature hieroglyphs, cows and cobras, connecting her to the cult of Hathor, a nurturing mother goddess. Lodder imagines her as a temple performer, channelling the goddess’s spirit in her ritual activities.

The story about Freud is just one of many in Matt Lodder’s intriguing and thoughtful Painted People. It comes towards the end of the book, which is organised chronologically, moving from the ancient world to the millennium. But the book is not merely a straightforward cultural history. It is more ambitious and conceptual than that. Lodder, a senior lecturer in art history and art theory at the University of Essex, begins by mulling over the differences between a work like the Mona Lisa hanging in the Louvre and the markings we might find on the skin of millions of people. If the purpose of what we call ‘art’ is to better understand ourselves and others, tattooing, he believes, is a form of image-making that brings us closer to both our ‘inner and communal lives’. Fortriu became the dominant kingdom in the late seventh century," Woolf said. "The idea of a unified Pictish kingdom was probably the result of the kings of Fortriu extending their rule over other people." Pictish society So I gradually started getting tattoos, which in 2008 were still causing a light sense of bewilderment among "older" people, including my grandmother and my teachers, reminding me that "they are permanent you know" to which I have always replied "no they are not", because they only last for some years after I die.Mark, J., (2015) "Tacitus' Account of the Battle of Mons Graupius." World History Encyclopedia https://www.worldhistory.org/article/776/tacitus-account-of-the-battle-of-mons-graupius/#google_vignette Considering the many different tattoo styles available, many artists still embrace the traditional tattooing style and appreciate it for a true staple that made tattoos as popular as they are with today’s millennial generation. As a tattoo artist, she enjoys different types of styles though her favourite is abstract especially when it’s a fusion of different cultures. She loves doing custom work most especially when the client is open to a collaborative rapport. She’s here not just to put ink onto your skin but to help you express yourself in various ways that are unique to your worldviews, personalities, and experiences. She feels privileged in being able to be part of an anthropological alchemy that has started since the dawn of time; if we look at the grander scheme of the process, the alchemy really comes into play when clients come to us with very personal matters that they want to express through their tattoo(s).