Tattoos or Body Paint

[John Olinger]

We've gone over this before but we've had several new members on the board who are both very active and very knowledgeable. So let's hear some opinions...

Number One: Did Iron Age Britons tattoo themselves or was it body paint? Or maybe a combination?

Number Two: What were the designs used? Animal totems? Curvilinear? Or, again, a combination?
Or... did they paint all or sections of their bodies/faces solidly? i.e. Braveheart.
(yes, I know it's about a thousand years out of our time ;-)

Does anyone have any new opinions or evidence?

John

[Dru Durman]

I've been convinced (mainly by talking to Tim) that tattoos were definitely worn, but not universally. Kind of the same way they are today, some people had them, but not all. Patterns? I have no idea. Some of those images Tim posted are from what could be considered 'Celtic' areas (Halstatt and La Tene being Austria/Switzerland area), but they don't follow classic 'Celtic' patterns. Serious lack of swirly tendril like flow...

[Will Marshall-Hall]

I think there was a bit of both going on. I wonder if the best artist in the tribe had the worst artwork...cause someone else had to do his?

[John Olinger]

I've seen quite a few artistic and media renditions with the warriors being painted solid blue. Sort of like 6 foot smurfs! Any opinions on that take?

John

[Dru Durman]

Manda Scott's series on Boudica has the 'bear warriors' covering their bodies with woad and bear fat to give a bluey grey covering that keeps them warm, devotes them to the bear goddess and makes them difficult to spot in the morning mist. She has them as kind of stealth 'commando celts'. I don't know... Native Americans seemed to go for blocks of colour, as shown in the pics I've attached. Obviously a lot of these patterns are blown up and stereotyped by media, but presumably they're inspired by actual native american warpaint designs?

I'd say that if Caesar's quote about the Britons staining themselves blue with vitriol is taken as accurate, there's as much of an argument for solid blocks of colour as there is for swirly La Tene patterns. Most 'primitive' warrior cultures use body paint, from Africa to New Zealand to America (North and South). Why should 'Western Primitives', be they Celtic or Germanic, be any different? One of Jeff's posts on the News Feeds forums suggests Neanderthals were bodypainting...

I find it hard to believe that if war paint was worn by the Celts that they'd go for something as simple as solid blocks of one colour when the rest of their artwork employed complex patterns of intricate detail. I'm just thinking out loud here, the end result is I don't know, and none of us ever will. Do we roll with other cultures on the understanding that they're 'authentic warpaint designs' (and risk looking like a bunch of Native Americans in chequered wool) or do we use La Tene patterns on the understanding that they're 'in line with the Celtic artwork and culture we find elsewhere'? How do Native American warpaint designs compare to their other artwork, or African, or Maori... Is the body paintwork the same or different to their normal art? I think that's the best way we'll be able to get an educated guess at how Iron Age Celts would have decorated themselves...

[Jeff Scharp]

Dru, the part in Scott's book of the warriors smearing themselves with fat and woad may have more than a grain of truth. And to read on in the article below, perhaps we can have some reason to see that they did use patterns.

I'm sharing this article and some grabs from it. I think it adds valuable insight to what archaeological remains that the author was able to draw from in 2005.... I can't help but be a little skeptical about the use of woad; however the article here has ideas on how to produce the pigment and apply it using the pestle and various binding agents. Check it out:

The article:

woad%20tattoo%20Britain[1].pdf

Cosmetic grinders

Facial patterns from Gallic coins.

Change in use of the cosmetic grinder

[Dru Durman]

OK, thanks Jeff, you've finally given me some strong convincing evidence for warpaint! This is the sort of thing I wanted on the 'Dodgy Ground' thread... I've been avoiding it like the plague because I didn't want to fall into the whole 'I'm doing this because it's the traditional idea' rather than 'I'm doing this because there's evidence'. I've got some woad seeds, I'm gonna have to give the mix a shot n see how it works, though I'm dubious about purely woad being used, I'm sure other pigments would be just as likely...

[John Olinger]

Agreed, although I think #10 might be the cheek plate to a helmet!

[Dru Durman]

Yup, I'd roll with that! I've got an affinity for the Triskel, and there's a couple with those on their cheeks, so I'll probably work with variants of that.

[Becky Watkins Tien]

Dru, you have seeds? Don't you need the indigotin extracted from the leaves? Do you have info on using the seeds directly? I'm just not sure it's going to work like you want it to. You can find the processed indigotin powder online, like here: http://www.woad.org.uk/html/dye_and_seed.html

[Dru Durman]

Oh, I need to plant them and grow the leaves, I didn't mean I'd get the dye from the seeds... Meanwhile I suppose I should look into cheap sources of pre-powdered woad dye...

[Will Marshall-Hall]

I was wondering why the tattoo designs that are found on the bog bodies are not compatible with the la tene designs on jewellry......I'm wondering if its to do with the actual tattooing process. They may have been restricted to complexity of pattern for tattoo simply because of the method used. Obviously this doesn't stand up compared the Maori tattoo's which are complex and curving...but then the tool used may account for this. Just an idea.

[Alex Hovorka]

Speaking from experience, I really don't think that the complexity of patterns would have been an issue. I think that its just a separation of art styles. One type of art goes on scabbards and jewelry and one type goes on the body. I believe that their are recoveries of painted pottery vessels that had very distinct anthropomorphic images unlike any on horse equipment or jewelry as well.

[Dru Durman]

Certainly the pattern I've jsut tooled onto my belt is not classic La Tene, but is taken from the rim of a British pot, basically a series of 's' shapes creating a basic braid appearance.

[Jeff Scharp]

I was wondering why the tattoo designs that are found on the bog bodies are not compatible with the la tene designs on jewellry....

Will, what bog bodies have tattoos from Iron Age Europe?



From Jeffrey May in his Dragonby report where he discusses the evidence of woad at the site (page 211):

"Recently, the use of woad as the blue dye used by the Britons was questioned in an article by about the colour of the Lindow Man (Pryatt et al. 1991). In order to test whether the skin of the bog body contained any evidence of being painted, samples of skin from the thrid body found at Lindow Bog were examined, using electron probe X-ray micro-analysis. This ionic composition showed that fairly large amounts of aluminum , silica and copper were present, as well as traces of titanium and zinc. These were interpreted as residues of clay-based copper and other pigments applied to the body. This and the absence of any records for woad in this country, made the authors suggest that woad might not have been the origin of the blue woad suggested by Caesar."

At the time of this report, Dragonby had (and may still have) the earliest fragments of woad found in the country. Even a bone needle was found that had been dyed blue was found. Bone needle for tattoos?



Then, from the original Lindow Man report (Stead et al. 1986) there was a section called "Tests for Dyes" (page 41):

"Four samples of peat taken from the fingernails of the Lindow Man were received with a request for tests for woad and other dyes. The hope was that the dye originally on the skin might have migrated to the surrounding peat.

For dye analysis, the samples were treated as textiles, making allowances for the water in which two of the samples were dispersed. All tests for indigotin (the colorant in woad) were negative; the test itself is very sensitive.

It was possible to recover two of the four samples and subject them to tests for mordant dyes - any such dye that had migrated to the peat should have shown up in the indigotin test, but it was worth checking. Again, however, the results were negative.

Infra-red photographs were taken of the body, but there was no hint of tattoos."

[Dru Durman]

Tim Edwards has posted somewhere on this site (this thread, or under the Dodgy Ground thread perhaps?) details of tattoos discovered on bodies found in Austria/Switzerland area, though, granted, I believe they're late Bronze Age rather than Iron Age. Which in some ways may explain the patterns La Tene comes after Halstatt, and Halstatt is Early Iron Age, so while in the right sort of region, these bodies are too early to show La Tene artwork. However, if Tim (or someone else) could confirm the dates for those tattooed bodies I'd be much obliged.

I asked the British Museum about Lindow man as evidence for tattoos and was told that any copper/iron based pigmentation on his skin, while at first thought to be residue of tattoos, is now in fact known to be the effect of the peat around the body interacting with the skin, so Lindow man shows NO EVIDENCE for tattooing. Not to say it didn't happen, just that he shows no evidence. What is it they say about absence of evidence is not evidence of absence...

[Will Marshall-Hall]

Thanks Dru. I was always under the impression that Lindow man had residue suggesting religious painting before his death with clay based paint using metallic compounds from copper, such as green, yellow, brown, red etc... I have never thought he was tattooed either.

[Jeff Scharp]

I was wondering why the tattoo designs that are found on the bog bodies are not compatible with the la tene designs on jewellry....

Will, what bog bodies have tattoos from Iron Age Europe?

Tim Edwards has posted somewhere on this site ... details of tattoos discovered on bodies found in Austria/Switzerland area, though, granted, I believe they're late Bronze Age rather than Iron Age.

Thanks, found it here: viewtopic.php?f=17&t=306&p=6997&#p6874

[Tyson Colleton]

This is may boar I had designed years ago. Its not based of any bog find, but uses some authentic symbolism. IE the trinity.

[Dru Durman]

My only criticism is that it's reminiscent of the 'Dal Riatan' boar found on a Pictish standing stone, I've got similar on my oval shield, and it's really a bit late for La Tene, more Late Roman/Post Roman. Looks good though, and beautifully rendered!

[Tyson Colleton]

It has a Celtic influence, but I'm Norse Irish and its really just the first stage.

[Garrett Edgar Quast]

Ya it seems a bit too late for my prefered period, but I do 8-11th Century Norse/Irish and it sort of suits all to some degree. Its probably meant to be more Viking if anything. I do really like the Picts though.

[Patrick Chandler]

From all the research I've done in attempting to find an artist (of which it is extremely rare) that will do a Woad tattoo, I've found that Woad is actually an aseptic type of material. It actually pushes back through the tattoo needle hole and heals the wound over. A few people have speculated that this was what it was used for way back when. From what I've gathered from those same resources (I wish I had backed all this up before I reformatted the hard drive) the Picts figured out a way to tattoo with Woad using a similar technique to traditional Asian tattooing, a sort of push rod or stick tapping method.

[Patrick Chandler]

I just read an interesting article...and possibly stand corrected on this issue;

http://www.cyberpict.net/sgathan/essays/woad.htm

Apparently it may have been COPPER or IRON based paints that were used. According to the author, Copper based body paint, although toxic, produces the same bright blue pigments Ceaser described. But Woad, smears and is not very useful as a body paint.

[Nick Kendrick]

Is it possible then that woad was used in conjunction with other materials to form the colour? If it wasn't woad alone that was used.

Also I did read an article many years ago which I wish I could source for you that said when painting their bodies an all over solid colour or blocks were used for stealth, because in low light conditions, dawn and dusk that the blue/indigo colour was extremely difficult to see.

It also went on to say that any patterned body painting would have been ceremonial or for warpaint etc

If I manage to find said article I will post it.