Skull tattoo stencils

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Meaning and origin

• Skull romance and transience

Skulls and other bone parts have a long cultic tradition in human history. But a meaning of the skull developed especially in western culture. In the age of the pirates, its symbolism suddenly played a completely different role. The Jolly Roger stepped on the scene. The human skull was also used later as a military symbol, for example by the skull hussars of the German Empire or the SS skull associations in the Third Reich. When tattoos became more and more popular around the beginning of the 20th century, the typical tattoo motifs developed there, as they are still popular today. Including the skull. That was and is often worn on the hand, upper and lower arm and other parts of the body. In the 21st century it has long since arrived in pop culture and is often only viewed from an aesthetic point of view.

• Origin

The origin of this motif can be traced back to ancient times. The skull already appeared on Roman wall mosaics as a still life element. Certainly in the function of a vanitas motif. From the Western Middle Ages onwards, it has retained its significance as a symbol of transience and death. At the time of the Baroque era, the warning about transience took on new meaning. The 30th Years' War had devastated Central Europe and people lived from day to day knowing that they could die very soon. In other cultures, such as Mexican, the development was different. Christian cults were mixed with pagan cults and death there still has a rather positive meaning. Recognizable by the La Catrina or Sugar Skull motifs. These have their origin on the day of the dead, which is honored at this time with a great festival.

• Importance

In order to better grasp the meaning of the motif, it is important to understand the ambivalence of the meanings of death in the most diverse cultures in different epochs.

In Christianity, this worldly life was / is a place of constant temptation, of sin, full of diseases and plagues. The goal of a good Christian is to lead a virtuous and vice-free life as possible in order to escape hell and purgatory and to be allowed to enter the heavenly Jerusalem. The skull here is either an expression of mourning or a moral memorial of the transience of all earthly life. From this emerged the Vanitas symbolism (Latin for about "empty appearance, futility) and the Memento Mori (Latin for" Be aware of mortality) of the Baroque.

In Far Eastern and e.g. ancient Germanic cultures, death has no finality. The world is cyclical, everything returns and death is followed by life. The focus there is rather on the this-sidedness of life and life in the moment. In Buddhism and Daoism in particular, the momentary life and being present in the here and now are very important. This perspective on existence and the world crept into the meaning of the skull tattoos. And so different dualisms arose. The aforementioned duality of beauty and decay, good and evil, the duality of life and death or yin and yang.

A third level of meaning is added. The skull is also a symbol of danger. On the one hand in chemistry. On the other hand, the military continues to use skulls and crossbones to this day. The skull and crossbones of the Prussian army wore it on a fur hat. What was meant was that no mercy would be accepted by the enemy and that the hussar himself would be merciless with his opponents. The SS was an executive power in National Socialist Germany. Your skull association organized the Holocaust. The Black Jack (Jolly Roger) of the pirates of the 17th to 19th centuries used variations of this motif as a threat of a cruel death if the hijacked did not leave the pirates free. Today this flag is used by the British Navy as a symbol of triumph.

• The skull tattoo

is charged with meaning. There are countless templates for your own individual skull tattoo. The symbolic sense has already seen a whole human history behind it and with the establishment of the western tattoo cult in the modern age it quickly became a popular motif that is often worn on the arm. In our pop culture, the skull doesn't have to have a specific meaning, it can just look beautiful. Other people associate it with memories, warnings, pain or threats. Others see it as a good luck charm. The skull seldom stands alone. It is often combined with roses, snakes, fashion accessories, cigarettes, beautiful women and other signs and symbols, as well as writing.