Tattoo

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The tattoo is a permanent drawing on skin.

Modern tattoos are made in specialized studios by professionals using a special mechanized needle that injects minimal amounts of ink under the skin. The most commonly used color for tattooing is black, but lately more and more different colors are used.

The size of the tattoo varies. It can be just a point, it can also be a large-scale drawing lying on the whole body. People have been tattooed since ancient times for all sorts of reasons. In the past, for religious, cultural and social reasons, nowadays . . due to fashion infatuation or as a sign of group identity. Etymology is in one of the Polynesian languages, and it means literally hurting.

Medicine warns that tattoos often carry viruses of various diseases, most often hepatitis and possible inflammations of the skin that sometimes lead to cancer.

History
In the Old Testament of the Bible tattooing is expressly forbidden because it is inherent in the cult of the dead of the pagan peoples: In the life of his sister, Makrina, St. Gregory of Nissian, describes how after her death in 379 he discovered over her breast a sign as if it were pierced by God with needles. However, this is not a ritual tattoo, but a trace of miraculous healing of skin cancer.

According to St Epifanius, the Cypriot montanists, who were Orthodox divisions in Asia Minor in the second century C.E., were stabbing young children with needles to drain their blood. If the baby dies after such an operation, it is declared a martyr. If he lives, he's believed to be a great priest. This strange ritual is probably marking or tattooing God's name after baptism, which has long been not practiced in the Church.

In Celtic paganism there is also a sacred tattoo that is described by Julius Caesar in King V of the Galic Wars. This custom was preserved and reconsidered in the early Christian era. After the romance of the Celtic Church in Ireland he was banned as signa diabolica and stagmatibus malignis. Copts in Egypt and Croats Catholics in Bosnia and Herzegovina at baptism tattoo a cross on their children's arms and breasts to recognize each other and demonstrate their religious identity in a predominantly Islamic environment.

Bibliography
MacQuarie, C. W. Instant Celtic Tattooing: History, Myth, and Metafor.
Gustafson, M. Tattoo in the Later Roman Empire and Beyond. In: Written on the Body: The Tattoo in European and American History. Ed. by J. Caplan. Cambridge (MA), 2000, p. 29.
Burrus, V. Macrina's Tattoo. Eds. D. B. Martin and P. Cox Miller. Durham (NC), 2005, 103-116.
Rush, J. A. Spiritual Tattoo: A Cultural History of Tattooing, Piercing, Scarification, Branding, and Implants. Berkel