George Constentenus, The Tattooed Prince
Quite where George Constentenus was from, and how he got so many tattoos, has never been firmly established. This is largely thanks to George himself. He was born in modern-day Greece or Albania in 1833 and, as a teenager started making a name for himself as a traveling circus attraction. According to the tale George told, he had worked as a pirate and adventurer. One day, he was taken hostage. His crewmates were killed but he was punished by having almost every part of his body tattooed.
Whatever the truth of the story – though most experts of the time did agree that he was decorated in traditional Burmese tattoos – he ended up in Paris in 1874. Here, he exhibited himself for several months before heading to America in 1876. After wowing the crowds at the Centennial Exposition, he joined with P.T. Barnum and toured with his Greatest Show on Earth for two years. After a short break, he toured with Barnum again. By all accounts, he was earning $100 a day at the height of his popularity.
It’s believed that ‘Captain George Constentenus’ as Barnum called him had 387 individual tattoos. Only the soles of his feet and small sections of his ears were free from ink. His tattoos included foreign writing, animal pictures and obscure designs. However, his career in America was relatively short-lived. He gained citizenship in 1883 but by 1890, he left for Europe. After that, his fate is completely unknown to historians.