Medicolegal and Anthropological Investigations on Tattoo Marks in Korean.

Korean J Leg Med. 2003 Oct;27(2):31-38. Korean.

Department of Anatomy, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Korea. khhan@catholic.ac.kr

Cell Death Disease Research Center, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Korea.

Catholic Institute for Applied Anatomy, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Korea.

Department of Forensic Medicine, Southern District of National Institute of Scientific Investigation, Busan, Korea.

Tattoo involves puncturing the skin with a sharp instrument and inserting pigment through the epidermis into the dermis. People around the world have been tattooing their bodies for ages. As widely recognized, tattoo marks are found on Egyptian and Nubian mummies dating from about 2000 B.C. The culture of tattooing has had diverse meanings in different cultures. It may include cosmetic, religious and magical origins and identification of a social class. In Korea, there was a record of tattooing on forearm as a commitment to the thieves in Korea dynasty (918-1392). From a medicolegal perspective, tattoos are often used as identification markers in unknown human bodies, and have been associated with several risk factors for lethality from both suicide and accidental death. In this article, we investigated tattoo marks among the 665 autopsies performed in the Southern division of National Institute of Scientific Investigation between August 2001 and December 2002.

Key Words : Tattooing, Culture, Autopsy, Death