Turtle Tattoos

The turtle tattoo may not seem so appealing to many people at first but when you look at its history, you may just change your mind. To some people, the turtle tattoo may be reminiscent of “Slow and steady wins the race” but historically it has much more meaning than that. Add in a little creative tattooing and it can become an incredible work of art for tattoo lovers and an even more expressive tattoo for those tattoo lovers that are more into the symbolic meaning behind the tattoos themselves.

In many of the Polynesian tattoos and Hawaiian tattoos, the turtle tattoo was representative of someone who took great pride in their work and went to great lengths to always see the job through. The turtle tattoo was also a very popular subject of the Maori tattoos and again, represented determination, if not pure strength. While there may be some slight variations, these were generally represented as a sea turtle tattoo and not just the tattoo of any old turtle. The sea turtles are much larger, much better traveled and live much longer than your average turtle does so in these cases, the turtle tattoo really was representative of something that was considered to be very special.

Like many tattoos these days though, the turtle tattoo has undergone many changes. Nowadays, turtle tattoos are often found as large tattoos that incorporate many smaller, more intricate tattoos within the larger tattoos. Among the popular versions of the turtle tattoos are ones that are very similar in nature to the works of M.C. Escher who was world-renowned for the optical illusions that he created. These Escher style tattoos are not restricted to turtles alone but the turtles were among some of his more famous works and as such, are worth mentioning here. The optical illusion tattoos are gaining in popularity as well and as they do relate to the regular turtle tattoo as described here, it does seem worthy of at least a notable mention.

Among many of the Native American Tattoos and the tattoos of some Southeastern Asian countries, the turtle tattoo represented long life, health and prosperity. Turtle jewelry was also considered to bring the same good fortunes to the people who wore it as well and both were very popular throughout the ages both in the seafaring regions as well as some of the inland regions along the major waterways in those nations. So the next time you do see a turtle tattoo, take a moment to look at what it offers instead of just summarily dismissing it as a passing phase or anything else of the sort.

For some tattoo lovers, it is all about the art, the ink and the canvas and for some people it is about the true symbolism of tattoos. No matter what your personal reasons are for loving tattoos, the turtle tattoo should be no less deserving of a little love or consideration. In fact, if you inspect some of the new turtle tattoos a little closer, you may even find one worth having yourself.