I thought this story of a black market in medieval tattoos was fascinating, particularly the idea of treating the body as a text (though that seems more like fodder for the In the Middle folks), so I posted a bleg asking for images of tattoos. I received none.
Until this weekend, that is. Now Shaun from near York, England, has sent me an image of his Templar. He's also planning to have a huge Templar battle scene across his back, which he estimates will take 40 hours to do.
Shaun, if you're interested, I invite you to comment on your choice. Why this knight? How long did it take? Etc?
If you're looking for medieval themed tattoos, I have a good one:
ReplyDeleteHwæt
as it appears in the Beowulf MS. I'd be glad to send you a pic if you're interested.
Yes, please!
ReplyDeleteAs soon as I can I will take a picture and send it. Bottom line:
ReplyDeleteI made a high-quality color print of the first folio of the Beowulf MS (to scale), and brought it to the tattoo artist. She drew it up, and stitched it on with as close as we could get in the color reproduction. In fact she liked my story about it so much that she discounted the tattoo. 65%.
While sitting in the chair that day, I made a vow, dork that I am, to never tattoo myself again with an image not taken directly from a MS.
If you ever don't like an MS design and have to tattoo over it, then you can make the claim that your body is a palimpsest!
ReplyDeleteI have a horn triskelion and a hannunvaakuna -- they may be older than medieval, though, I suppose.
ReplyDeleteHi, I have templar tattoo to. Right choose brother! Enjoy!
ReplyDeleteI am looking for a templar knight tattoo design. If you can email me that'd be great?
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