About the Author: Henry Maundrell was an academic and later ordained in the Church of England. In 1697 he found himself in Jerusalem, and kept a record in a diary which he published in England about five years later. As noted, the custom that pilgrims received a tattoo was alive and well even then, using methods similar to what is customary for pilgrims today.
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March 27 (1697)
The next morning nothing extraordinary pass’d, which gave many of the Pilgrims leisure to have their Arms mark’d with the usual ensigns of Jerusalem. The Artists who undertake the operation do it in this manner. They have stamps in wood of any figure that you desire; which they first print off upon your Arm with powder of Charcoal; then taking two very fine Needles, ty’d close together, and dipping them often, like a pen in certain Ink, compounded as I was inform’d of Gunpowder, and Ox Gall, they make with them small punctures all along the lines of the figure which they have printed, and then washing the part in Wine conclude the work. These punctures they make with great quickness and dexterity, and with scarce any smart, seldom piercing so deep as to draw blood.
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