Angelina Jolie Pitt Adds a New Tattoo to Her Collection

Angelina Jolie-Pitt has done it again. The 40-year-old actress was spotted at the Cambodia International Film Festival on December 12, sporting a new tattoo on the inside of her left forearm. According to Anne Hansen, a religion professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, “the designs looks like a typical Cambodian Buddhist tattoo,” Hansen tells to Radar Online. Jolie-Pitt is no stranger to symbolic Cambodian tattoos, as she already had two tattoos dedicated to her son Maddox’s birthplace, the first being Buddhist incantation written in Khmer script which protects her eldest son Maddox and is located on her left shoulder blade and the second being a tiger which celebrates her Cambodian citizenship and is located on her lower back. Both tattoos were done Pathum Thani by traditional Thai artist, Noo ‘Sompong’ Kanhphaiin using a manual needle technique. Although Jolie-Pitt has not publicly announced who performed her latest tattoo, it is likely that she went to Kanhphaiin again.

Jolie-Pitt got each of her Cambodian tattoos, not only as a way to honor her appreciation for the culture but as a way to protect her family. In Cambodian culture, tattoos represent protection for the wearer and many men would ornament themselves with Buddhist incantation’s like Jolie-Pitt’s before going off to war. These mantras may differ depending on what the wearer is seeking spiritually and are meant to guide the individuals through troubled times. Buddhism is far from the only culture that incorporates tattoos with religion, but their tattoos are extremely popular in Western culture. After Jolie-Pitt got her first Buddhist back in 2003, many Americans followed suit in appropriating Eastern religion for designs on their own bodies and it is safe to say that Jolie-Pitt’s latest piece could inspire tattoo-enthusiasts stateside to turn to Buddhism for their next tattoo. We’ll just have to wait and see if the trend picks up again and learn for ourselves if there is a meaning behind the actress’s new tattoo.