Close-up of a small black anchor tattoo on a man's neck below his stubbled jaw, with a grey crew-neck top visible.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Small anchor tattoo on the neck

Neck · Black and grey · Photo

A small, solid black anchor with a straight shank, crossbar and curved flukes sits on the side of the neck below the jaw. The linework is bold and even, with flat black fill and no visible shading. The tight crop shows the lower face, neck and grey V-neck top, with the tattoo placed near the centre of the frame.

Neck Anchor

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The bell at Porthkerris had rung twice before Mabel Trewin found the anchor in the bottom of the lobster pots, its shank furred with weed and its flukes bright where the chain had rubbed. Nobody in the harbour office would claim it. Ted Gorran, who had hauled the Mary Ellen for thirty years, said it was older than the breakwater and older than his father, and that a thing that old ought to go back where it came from.

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So on the Thursday she rowed it out past the wall in the dinghy, with her brother's oilskins smelling of diesel and a sack of stale bread for the gulls. The water was flat as a plate. She lowered the anchor over the side and watched it fall through green light, turning slowly, until the dark took it and the chain ran out through her hands and burned the skin across her palms.

When she got home there was a letter on the mat from the council. The breakwater was to come down in spring, the harbour would be fenced off for the new marina, and the old lifeboat slip would be poured over with concrete. Mabel read it twice at the kitchen table, then fetched the tin of pencil stubs from the drawer and began to draw on the back of the notice the shape she had just let go of: a straight shank, a crossbar, two curved arms that wanted to hook onto something.

Her grandson came in with muddy boots and asked what she was doing. Marking the place, she said, and handed him the pencil. He pressed hard, the way children do, and made the lines black and sure, and the anchor sat there on the paper as if it had never once been lost.