Many of the texts of graffiti are the so-called work of gangs, who use graffiti as their bulletin board or their newspaper.

The Definition and History of Graffiti

Graffiti has existed since the beginning of humanity – it’s a term that has the Italian translation graffia, which means ‘scratch’. We see it in France in the cave paintings of Lascaix’ where our ancestors left us their testimony by marking walls with stones and bones. We see it in ancient Greece and the ruins of Pompeii, where texts have revealed election slogans, drawings, and numerous obscenities of the inhabitants of the day.

We also see it in the early 90s in Havana, at the time of the disappearance of the Soviet Union and the start of the economic crisis named by the government as ‘The Special Period,’ where certain points in the city were marked with a symbol of the Abakuá fraternity. This symbol meant ‘The Roads Are Closed’ - it consisted of a circle within which two rods were superimposed on a cross, having arrows at both ends.

Some prime examples of ancient Roman graffiti can be seen in the public bathhouses in Herculaneum and Pompeii and at the Coliseum, since they were well-preserved by the ash from Mt. Vesuvius’ eruption.

And so often we’ve seen texts and other symbols gaining ground in the urban environment, followed by the systematic attempt by government agencies to detect, erase, apprehend, prosecute and ultimately imprison the graffiti artists responsible. Today we’ve become quite accustomed to seeing these suggestive messages encoded in various parts of our cities.

Graffiti Tools

Today we see Sharpies and paint, particularly spray paint, as the more commonly used tools for graffiti. Generally, painting or marking property without the property owner’s consent is considered property defacement in most countries, and this is a punishable crime. But we’re also beginning to understand that graffiti are a method of expressing political and social messages, and even personal messages. In certain areas of the world, graffiti have been welcomed as a genre of artistic expression.

And just like ancient graffiti, today’s modern graffiti display phrases of political rhetoric, love, or simply thoughts, words, and messages of political and social ideals. Of course we’ve also seen graffiti include magic spells, Latin curses, political slogans, alphabets, and even famous literary quotes – which were very helpful in providing insight into ancient Roman street life.

So perhaps we’ll continue to see graffiti around embedded in the walls of our cities for many more years to come, and just maybe graffiti’s not as terrible as we first thought it to be – maybe there are messages there for all of us, but first we’ll have to learn how to translate them!