Egypt of the third and fourth dynasties-when the great pyramids of Gizeh were built between 2800 and 2600 B.C.-was in communication with Crete, Greece, Persia, and Arabia. By 2000 B.C. the art had spread across Southern Asia as far as that part of China which lies south of the Yangtze Kiang. The Ainu people, a migrant race from Western Asia, must have adopted it very early, because when they crossed the sea to Japan tattooing was highly developed among them and considered a divine gift. The Shans acquired the craft in their original home in Southern China and brought it to the Burmese, who later were to evolve a most elaborate technique of tattooing, making it until the present day part of their magical and religious belief. Similarly, the tattooing introduced to Japan by the Ainu people, it's ancient inhabitants, gained a great importance, though the Japanese only adopted it as an ornamental art, rejecting the magical beliefs attached to it by the Ainu. Nowhere in the world was the technique and style of the Japanese tattooists-the Horis - surpassed by beauty of designs, color, expression of movement and the use of shade and light which made the tattoo marks appear almost three-dimensional. .
During the last ten years, according to U.S. News & World Report, tattooing has become one of America's fastest growing categories of retail business. There are now estimated 15,000 tattoo studios in operation as the once-taboo practice of body marking continues to gain broader acceptance and popularity throughout mainstream society. .
As part of this cultural change, growing numbers of professional tattoo artists are opening -- and attempting to open -- studios in middle-class cities and towns that have never had such establishments in their business districts. .
As tattooing and other types of body art - piercing, scarification, branding - become more mainstream and more popular, officials in states and cities across the US are scrutinizing shops that perform such services.
