"Tattooing has been part of British culture for thousands of years, but it was the aristocracy who made it the popular statement of rebellion".
This is a very interesting article in which you will learn from what word comes the word "Britain" and how it is connected with tattoos!
Before reading you can check out this list of expressions and phrases that you will find in the original article.
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The first proven tattoos in history date back around 5,000 years to the marks on Otzi the Iceman, a mummy found in the Alps straddling Austria and Italy. But in Europe, it became the early Britons who made the art famous: when the Romans invaded in 55 BC, they found the natives to be resplendent in body art. As Caesar wrote in his account of the Gallic Wars, “All the Britons dye themselves with woad, which produces a blue colour, and makes their appearance in battle more terrible.”
Such was the effect of their appearance that they became known throughout Europe as the Pretani, a Celtic word meaning the ‘painted’ or the ‘tattooed’ ones. From that, the name Britain was eventually derived.
In 1881, the Queen's grandson and the future King George V, then just 16, received what’s been a rite of passage for many teenagers ever since: a tattoo of a blue and red dragon on his arm.
Wealthy European aristocrats began to return home bearing Japanese artwork on their bodies. Now, the news of the prince’s design established a fashionable industry of tattooing in Britain, France and even the US: it became a show of social status – and of the ability to afford such commodities.
“It became the done thing as a Western pilgrim to Jerusalem to return home with a tattoo – a mark of your pilgrimage,” Lodder says. “There aren't many drawings of these which survive, but they're pretty large, pictorial images. They basically look like footballer's sleeves.”
As well as giving tattooing its modern name, it was the British who commercialised it on a large scale for the first time in the Western world, stimulated by the explosion of interest in tourist tattoos in Japan.
The media frenzy introduced tattooing to a wider audience when some newspapers suggested that perhaps all children should be tattooed – just in case they went missing at sea.
The British aristocracy’s penchant for tattoos soon spread across the Atlantic: the New York Herald declared in 1897 “The Tattooing Fad Has Reached New York Via London”.
aristocracy - аристократия
rebellion - восстание, бунт
fascination - притягательность, увлеченность
a rite of passage - обряд (ритуал) посвящения
rumours - слухи
the fad of the age - причуда того времени
arrow - стрела
the royal seal of approval - королевская печать (знак) одобрения
artwork - произведение искусства
commodities [kəˈmɒdɪtɪz] - товары
a trendsetter - законодатель моды
ink - чернила, краска
barbarians - варвары, чужеземцы
the British fondness for tattoos - британская любовь к татуировкам
Inuit hostages - заложники-инуиты
descriptions of the ancient Britons - описания древних бриттов
ubiquitous [juːˈbɪkwɪtəs] - распространенный
a court case - судебное дело (процесс)
a rogue [rəʊg] - мошенник, негодяй
a ruffian [ˈrʌfɪən] - хулиган, бандит
initially - первоначально
a shipwreck - кораблекрушение
siblings - братья и сестры
the media frenzy - безумство (неистовство, помешательство) СМИ
a tattoo parlour - тату-салон
penchant - склонность, любовь
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