Persia

Persia is the historical name closely associated with present-day Iran. Tattooing, known as khālkubi, appears in accounts of women's adornment, personal decoration and everyday life.

Flowers, birds, gazelles and small ornamental marks decorated faces and bodies. Beauty spots, dots between the eyebrows and patterns resembling bracelets placed permanent colour alongside jewellery and cosmetics.

Rumi tells of a man who asks for a lion to be tattooed on his shoulder, then objects to the pain. The story makes tattooing familiar and human: wanting an impressive design is one thing, enduring the needle is another.

Nineteenth-century visitors describe changing fashions. Some report a decline among urban elites while tattooing continued in villages and nomadic communities, especially in southern Persia. Those accounts reveal varied choices and customs, rather than a practice followed by everyone across the ancient empire.