Tattoo History - Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands
The Solomon Islands are two island groups in the pacific and were first discovered by the Spaniard Alvaro de Mendana who was on a voyage to the south land Ophir. According to the bible Ophir was the country of origin of the gold for King Solomons temple. Even though this was just a legend the Spaniard gave the island group King Solomons name after all.
The Solomon Islands belong to pacific Melanesia, the island row north east of Australia, from where the people of the so called Lapita culture emigrated to the eastern pacific, to Polynesia, around 1.500 before Christ. The Lapita culture was acquainted with fine worked pottery decorated with geometric patterns which again are very similar to the dashed and dotted shapes of the Polynesians. Therefore it is assumed that tattooing was also known on the Solomon Islands.
Know your history better than we do? Then let us know and e-mail us any additions you might have. If you know about an important event or a person influencing tattoo history that we missed out on... we wanna know about it too!
