Malta— Tattoo scenes & cities

In Malta, tattooing remains associated with the world of the port. Heritage Malta's REL•INK project gathers designs and stories from men aged 75 and over who worked on ships or on the waterfront: dockers, fishermen, sailors, stokers. It focuses mainly on designs made before the 1950s; an exhibition was announced at the Malta Maritime Museum in Vittoriosa for October 2017.

Heritage Malta notes that in the Western world tattooing was long taboo, associated with unruly sailors, waterfront workers, prisoners and the criminal underworld. Malta's National Archive shows that tattoos were recorded in passports as visible distinguishing marks. In 1917, according to the Sunday Times of Malta, one man was described by a Holy Trinity on his chest and Saint John and the Virgin on his arm.