#7th Century BCE

[romegreeceart]

Rhodian jug

* 7th / 6th century BCE

* British Museum

London, July 2022

[meganwhalenturner]

Interrupting our fan art parade to say: Ask me what I did today!

Alchemy. I’ve been doing alchemy.

[the-good-spartan]

Lakonian kylix featuring Prometheos and his friend, the Eagle.

The hair - facial and head - is so quintessentially Spartan, it’s not funny. And he has his braids in a braid, right? That’s what’s going on back there? Like a super-braid.

Saw this called a Spartan king somewhere along the way. Think that might be a bit of a push, but I do like the idea that some perioikic craftsman was like - ‘Y’know, if I could depict anyone having their liver pecked out on the daily, you know who I’d choose…’

Anyway - This is 7th Century Lakonianware (from before the great cultural shift).

[artschoolglasses]

Bronze hydria, Greek, late 7th - early 6th Century BCE

From the Met Museum

[panicinthestudio]

Silver Mirror, 7th century BC

Kelermess Barrow, Transkuban

Silver

Diameter: 17 cm

Collection of the Hermitage Museum

Mirror with Scythian mistress of the animals, Griffins, Sphinxes, animals, and Arimaspians 7th C. BCE. This may have association with the Scythian deity Artimpasa, as she could be associated with animals, though the Potnia Theron figure has usually been associated with Artemis, from what I've seen. From the Kelermess Barrow. Hermitage Museum.

"Among these, the Tauri have the following customs; all ship-wrecked men, and any Greeks whom they take in their sea‑raiding, they sacrifice to the Virgin Goddess (Artemis)​ as I will show: after the first rites of sacrifice, they smite the victim on the head with a club; according to some, they then throw down the body from the cliff whereon their temple stands, and impale the head; others agree with this as to the head, but say that the body is buried, not thrown down from the cliff. This deity to whom they sacrifice is said by the Tauri themselves to be Agamemnon's daughter Iphigenia. As for the enemies whom they overcome, each man cuts off his enemy's head and carries it away to his house, where he impales it on a tall pole and sets it standing high above the dwelling, above the smoke-vent for the most part. These heads, they say, are set aloft to guard the whole house. The Tauri live by plundering and war."

-Herodotus, The Histories, Book 4.103

[jackredfieldwasmyjacob]

What's your PhD about?

I haven't started it yet cause I'm looking for funding first so this might change (also I've altered the PhD propossal depending on the professor that would be my supervisor) but basically I want to study the Muses through the lens of Cultural Memory.

The ideal thing would be to study them and their evolution throughout ancient Greece, but that's impossible so for example my current PhD director suggested I should focus on the Archaic Era (also the Dark Ages, so around the 10th to 6th centuries BCE more or less). I am very interested in the relationship between identity, literacy, and religiosity, so the Muses are perfect for it, as they were used by the Greeks as a sort of fact-check for aoidoi and poets, which were the preservers of Cultural Memory.

Most stuff that's been written about the Muses has always been very philological and especially related to the 'invocation of the Muses' so prevalent in Greek literature. I want to open the scope to new angles, something never done before, and I have experience working with Cultural Memory from my Master's Thesis, so I thought it would be a cool approach :) It's gonna be much more theoretical than you would expect, but I love that sorta thing. Also it's impossible to separate the Muses from literacy so I'll be looking at written sources for sure, my good pal Hesiod (whom my Undergrad Thesis was about) will occupy a good chunk of the research I'm afraid.

So yeah, that's it. This won't happen if I don't get funding tho, so I could just never write this Ph.D. Who knows.

[anteroom-of-death]

I am experiencing some agonizing emotions and disillusionment but at least I'm pretty and my hair is very soft rn.

[labelma]

I keep seeing a post going around saying that people should stop using the “colonized” names for cities in Israel/Palestine and should instead use the Arabic names.

I need you guys to be so for real right now, Hebrew is quite literally the indigenous language of the area. Like believe what you want about Israel, but Hebrew objectively and factually originated in that land. The earliest record of written Hebrew is the Khirbet Qeiyafa inscription, found near Beit Shemesh which dates back to the 11th-10th century BCE.

The first record of the name Jerusalem is in the Egyptian Execration Texts which date back to the 20th century BCE.

Arabic was introduced to the land in the 7th century CE. The first recorded use of “Al-Quds” was in the 9th century CE.

I could do this for every single ancient city in the land. Bethlehem, Hebron, Jericho, Jaffa, Beer Sheva, Acre, and Ashkelon all existed prior to the Arab conquests in the 7th century CE and the introduction of Arabic to the land.

The fact that we use the Hebrew names of these cities isn’t some conspiracy to make them sound “more Jewish”, the modern Hebrew names are direct descendants of the ancient Canaanite words for these places. Hebrew is the only surviving Canaanite language.

Believe what you want about Israel, but claiming that the Hebrew names for these cities are “colonial” names is a disgusting erasure of Jewish history in the land.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Some Art Vocabulary

Abstract - Simplified, intended to capture an aspect or essence of an object or idea rather than to represent reality.

Amber - Tree resin that has become a fossil. It is semi-transparent and gem-like. Amber is used in jewelry today as it has been for thousands of years.

Amulet - Object, organic or inorganic, believed to provide protection and turn away bad luck. Amulets were often worn as jewelry in antiquity.

Anneal - To heat metal to make it soft and pliable.

Black-figure - Technique of vase painting developed in Greece in the 7th and 6th centuries BCE and adopted by the Etruscans. Figures are painted on a reddish clay vase in black silhouette and details are then cut away with a sharp point down to the red below. Sometimes artists added additional colors, especially purple-red and white.

Bronze Disease - Corrosion of a bronze object that cannot be permanently stabilized. Without special care, an object with bronze disease will continue to corrode.

Bust - Portrait of a person including the head and neck, and sometimes the shoulders and part of the chest.

Cameo Glass - Glass produced by layering two or more colors of glass. Generally, an upper layer of white stood out against a contrasting lower background, usually blue.

Cameo Stone - Hard stone, such as agate, naturally layered with bands of color. Artists took advantage of the layers to carve figures or decoration from an upper layer (or more than one), leaving a background layer of a different color.

Cast - To make in a mold from liquid metal. A cast object can be hollow or solid.

Chasing - Technique of adding definition and details to an image or design on metal from the front using blunt and sharp tools.

Conservator (of antiquities) - Professional responsible for preserving ancient objects and materials. Conservators usually have a general knowledge of chemistry and of ancient art-making practices and are often specialists in one material. Among many other responsibilities, they conduct technical and historical research and oversee preventive care such as climate control.

Contrapposto - (”opposite” in Italian) Pose of a standing figure with most of the weight on one leg and the other bent. This causes hips, shoulders, and head to shift in order to balance the body. One arm is often higher and one lower.

Emery - Hard, dense rock rich in corundum, found easily on the Cycladic Islands. A powerful abrasive for grinding and smoothing other stones.

Encaustic - Technique of painting using colored pigments mixed with wax. The waxy mixture was worked with a tiny spatula.

Gild - To apply a thin layer of gold foil or liquid gold (gilt) to create the look of solid gold.

Iconography - Study of and use in art of repeated images with symbolic meaning.

Incise - To press or cut into a surface (stone, metal, clay, wood) with a sharp tool to write text or create fine curving and linear details.

Inlay - To decorate an object by inserting a piece of another material into it so that it is even with the original surface.

Low Relief - Method of carving figures or designs into a surface so that they are raised slightly above a flat background.

Mosaic - Technique and type of artwork. The technique is to arrange cubes of stone, glass, and ceramic to form patterns and pictures in cement, usually on a floor. The artwork is the final story or decoration made of cubes.

Mummification - Process of preserving a body by drying it. The Egyptians removed internal organs and put natron, a natural mineral mixture, on and inside the body. This absorbed moisture and prevented decay.

Palmette - Stylized palm leaf used as decoration in ancient Greek and Roman art and architecture.

Pentelic - From Mount Pentelicus, near Athens. An adjective that mostly refers to the beautiful white Greek marble marble in its quarries.

Portrait - Image of a person, usually the head and face. Some portraits include part of the chest or show the whole body. The image may closely resemble a person or emphasize, idealize, or invent characteristics.

Repoussé - Technique of raising the outline of a design on metal by repeatedly heating and softening the metal and pushing the desired shapes into it from the back with a blunt tool.

Sarcophagus/Sarcophagi (pl) - Stone coffin, often decorated on the sides with mythological scenes carved in relief, sometimes with the image of the deceased person or couple on the lid. Used in Imperial Roman times from the early 100s into the 400s CE.

Stele/Stelai (pl) - Upright stone or wooden slab or pillar used to honor a person or mark a place. Often an inscribed grave marker or a boundary stone. (Also called stela/stelae.)

Syncretism - Blending of elements of different cultures, often resulting in new imagery or new interpretations.

Tessera/tesserae (pl) - Pieces of stone or other hard materials cut into squares or cubes to make mosaic art.

More: Word Lists ⚜ pt. 2

[romegreeceart]

Vase detail

* Rhodes

* 7th / 6th century BCE

* British Museum

London, July 2022

[januarycitrus]

Odysseus to Poseidon, 8th-7th century BCE

[whencyclopedia]

Segesta

Segesta (or Egesta), located in the north-west corner of Sicily, was an important trading town from the 7th century BCE onwards. Situated on the strategically advantageous slopes of Mt. Barbaro, yet still close enough to the coast to support a trading port, Segesta established itself as the most important regional town of the Elymi people. Flourishing in the 5th century BCE, Segesta continued to hold important status as a trading centre into Hellenistic and Roman times. Today, the site has two of the best-preserved Classical monuments anywhere and they are impressive testimony of Segesta's one-time prosperity - a 5th century BCE Doric temple which, at least externally, is reasonably intact and an equally well-preserved 3rd-2nd century BCE theatre which provides its audience with a stunning view towards the nearby Gulf of Castellamare.

In Mythology

One of the symbols often associated with Segesta is a dog, which is seen, for example, on 4th century BCE coins. The animal may refer to the founding myth that describes a dog as the personification of the river god Crimisus. It was he who fell in love with a local nymph (Egesta), and their resulting offspring, Egesto, was credited with being the founder of the city. In the Roman mythology which sought to link Segesta with her ancient Roman origins, the Trojan hero Aeneas stopped off on Sicily during his long wanderings from Troy to his final destination Italy and the founding of Rome. Aeneas, then, according to Virgil, founds Acesta (later to become Segesta). Aeneas escaping Troy is portrayed on bronze coins from Segesta minted during the reign of Augustus.

In yet another version of the mythical events surrounding the founding of the city, the principal character is one Aegesto (or Aceste), who was born in Sicily to a Trojan mother. Aegesto returned to Troy when he was an adult, but following the sacking of the city in the Trojan War, he and a group of survivors returned to Sicily. First establishing themselves at Erice, Aegesto later relocated, setting up a new city at Segesta.

Continue reading...

[hailruth]

a judean seal, most likely belonging to a high-ranking archer, from the 7th century bce. the assyrian-influnced style of the seal is very apparent. the text reads "𐤓𐤂𐤇" (hagab), the name of its owner. the paleo-hebrew letters are mirrored.

[blueiscoool]

A Rare 2,800-Year-Old Scarab Amulet Found in Israel

Antiquities Authority says recent winter rains helped expose buried antiquities, urges public to be aware and to turn over finds.

A rare scarab amulet from the First Temple period was recently discovered by a hiker in the Nahal Tabor Nature Reserve in the Lower Galilee and turned over to the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA).

The scarab, made from reddish-brown carnelian stone, is estimated to be 2,800 years old and of Assyrian or Babylonian origin. The front is carved in the shape of a beetle, and the back has engravings that depict a griffon or a winged horse, a common motif of the Ancient Near East.

When he discovered the artifact, Erez Avrahamov, 45, was on a two-day leave from IDF reserve duty, taking advantage of a sunny day after recent rains.

“I saw something shimmering on the ground. At first, I thought it was a bead or an orange stone. After I picked it up, I realized it had engravings resembling a beetle. I called and reported the amazing find to the Antiquities Authority,” Avrahamov said, according to a Wednesday IAA press release.

Abrahamov found the scarab near the bottom of Tel Rekhesh, associated with the city of Anaharath mentioned in the Book of Joshua.

During the 6th-7th centuries BCE, “a large citadel stood at the top of the mount, where bathing facilities, halls and ritual chambers were found from the period of Assyrian rule. This rule, as we know, was responsible for the destruction of the Kingdom of Israel” in the First Temple period, IAA archaeologist Dr. Yitzhak Paz explained.

The scarab is likely from this period of Assyrian control and “may indicate the presence of Assyrian (or perhaps Babylonian) officials at Tel Rekhesh during this period,” Paz added. If the scarab can be conclusively dated and this connection proven, it will be a discovery of “great significance,” he said.

Scarab seals of a similar type, fashioned into a dung-beetle shape from a wide variety of stones, originated from Pharaonic Egyptian culture but were widely used throughout the ancient world.

The orange color and material of the scarab found by Abrahamov are fairly rare, the IAA said, as most were made from a softer bluish stone and then covered in glaze, which in almost all cases has worn away with time.

The IAA said it’s likely that the recent rains uncovered the scarab. “As in every winter, when the rainy season arrives, antiquities start to ‘float’ and rise to the surface,” IAA Director Eli Escusido said.

“I am imploring the public to obey the Antiquities Law, and request that if you come across an archaeological find, report it to the Antiquities Authority while in the field. The exact location where an object is found is extremely important… The special scarab will be stored in the state archive, where we can research and learn more about it,” he said.

Under Israeli law, any found man-made object dating from before 1700 is to be turned over to the authorities. Abrahamov received a good citizenship certificate for doing so.

By GAVRIEL FISKE.

[metmuseum]

Gold spiral. 7th–6th century BCE. Credit line: Purchase by subscription, 1895 https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/245945

[irish-dress-history]

Did the ancient Celts really paint themselves blue?

Part 2: Irish tattoos

Clockwise from top left: Deirdre and Naoise from the Ulster Cycle by amylouioc, detail from The Marriage of Strongbow and Aoife by Daniel Maclise, a modern Celtic revival tattoo, Michael Flatley in a promotional image for the Irish step dance show 'Lord of the Dance'

This is my second post exploring the historical evidence for our modern belief that the ancient and medieval Insular Celts painted or tattooed themselves with blue pigment. In the first post, I discussed the fact that body paint seems to have been used by residents of Great Britain between approximately 50 BCE to 100 CE. In this post, I will examine the evidence for tattooing.

Once again, I am looking at sources pertaining to any ethnic group who lived in the British Isles, this time from the Roman Era to the early Middle Ages. The relevant text sources range from approximately 200 CE to 900 CE. I am including all British Isles cultures, because a) determining exactly which Insular culture various writers mean by terms like ‘Briton’, ‘Scot’, and ‘Pict’ is sometimes impossible and b) I don’t want to risk excluding any relevant evidence.

Continental Written Sources:

The earliest written source to mention tattoos in the British Isles is Herodian of Antioch’s History of the Roman Empire written circa 208 CE. In it, Herodian says of the Britons, "They tattoo their bodies with colored designs and drawings of all kinds of animals; for this reason they do not wear clothes, which would conceal the decorations on their bodies" (translation from MacQuarrie 1997). Herodian is probably reporting second-hand information given to him by soldiers who fought under Septimius Severus in Britain (MacQuarrie 1997) and shouldn't be considered a true primary source.

Also in the early 3rd century, Gaius Julius Solinus says in Collectanea Rerum Memorabilium 22.12, "regionem [Brittaniae] partim tenent barbari, quibus per artifices plagarum figuras iam inde a pueris variae animalium effigies incorporantur, inscriptisque visceribus hominis incremento pigmenti notae crescunt: nec quicquam mage patientiae loco nationes ferae ducunt, quam ut per memores cicatrices plurimum fuci artus bibant."

Translation: "The area [of Britain] is partly occupied by barbarians on whose bodies, from their childhood upwards, various forms of living creatures are represented by means of cunningly wrought marks: and when the flesh of the person has been deeply branded, then the marks of the pigment get larger as the man grows, and the barbaric nations regard it as the highest pitch of endurance to allow their limbs to drink in as much of the dye as possible through the scars which record this" (from MacQuarrie 1997).

This passage, like Herodian's, is clearly a description of tattooing, not body staining or painting. That said, I have no idea of tattoos actually work like this. I would think this would result in the adult having a faded, indistinct tattoo, but if anyone knows otherwise, please tell me.

The poet Claudian, writing in the early 5th c., is the first to specifically mention the Picts having tattoos (MacQuarrie 1997). In De Bello Gothico he says, "Venit & extremis legio praetenta Britannis,/ Quæ Scoto dat frena truci, ferroque notatas/ Perlegit exanimes Picto moriente figuras."

Translation: "The legion comes to make a trial of the most remote parts of Britain where it subdues the wild Scot and gazes on the iron-wrought figures on the face of the dying Pict" (from MacQuarrie 1997).

Last, and possibly least, of our Mediterranean sources is Isidore of Seville. In the early 7th c. he writes, "the Pictish race, their name derived from their body, which the efficient needle, with minute punctures, rubs in the juices squeezed from native plants so that it may bring these scars to its own fashion [. . .] The Scotti have their name from their own language by reason of [their] painted body, because they are marked by iron needles with dark coloring in the form of a marking of varying shapes." (translation from MacQuarrie 1997)

Isidore is the earliest writer to explicitly link the name 'Pict' to their 'painted' (Latin: pictus) i.e. tattooed bodies. Isidore probably borrowed information for his description from earlier writers like Claudian (MacQuarrie 1997).

In the 8th century, we have a source that definitely isn't Romans recycling old hearsay. In 786, a pair of papal legates visited the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria (Story 1995). In their report to Pope Hadrian, the legates condemn pagans who have "superimposed most hideous cicatrices" (i.e gotten tattoos), likening the pagan practice to coloring oneself "with dirty spots". The location of the visit indicates that these are Anglo-Saxon tattoos rather than Celtic, but some scholars have suggested that the Anglo-Saxons might have adopted the practice from the Brittonic Celts (MacQuarrie 1997).

A gloss in the margin of the late 9th c. German manuscript Fulda Aa 2 defines Stingmata [sic] as "put pictures on the bodies as the Irish (Scotti) do." (translation from MacQuarrie 1997).

Fulda Aa 2 folio 43r The gloss is on the left underlined in white.

Irish Written Sources:

Irish texts that mention tattoos date to approximately 700-900 CE, although some of them have glosses that may be slightly later, and some of them cannot be precisely dated.

The first text source is a poem known in English as "The Caldron of Poesy," written in the early 8th c. (Breatnach 1981). The poem is purportedly the work of Amairgen, ollamh of the legendary Milesian kings. In the first stanza of the poem, he introduces himself saying, "I being white-kneed, blue-shanked, grey-bearded Amairgen." (translation from Breatnach 1981)

The text of the poem with interline glosses from Trinity College Dublin MS 1337/1

The word garrglas (blue-shanked) has a Middle Irish (c. 900-1200) gloss added by a later scribe, defining garrglas as: "a tattooed shank, or who has the blue tattooed shank" (Breatnach 1981).

Although Amairgen was a mythical figure, the position ollamh was not. An ollamh was the highest rank of poet in medieval Ireland, considered worthy of the same honor-price as a king (Carey 1997, Breatnach 1981). The fact that a man of such esteemed status introduces himself with the descriptor 'blue-shanked' suggests that tattoos were a respectable thing to have in early medieval Ireland.

The leg tattoos are also mentioned c. 900 CE in Cormac’s Glossary. It defines feirenn as "a thong which is about the calf of a man whence ‘a tattooed thong is tattooed about [the] calf’" (translation from MacQuarrie 1997)

The Irish legal text Uraicecht Becc, dated to the 9th or early 10th c., includes the word creccoire on a list of low-status occupations (Szacillo 2012, MacNeill 1924). A gloss defines it as: crechad glass ar na roscaib, a phrase which Szacillo interprets as meaning "making grey-blue sore (tattooing) on the eyes" (2012). This sounds rather strange, but another early Irish text clarifies it.

The Vita sancti Colmani abbatis de Land Elo written around the 8th-9th centuries (Szacillo 2012) contains the following episode:

On another time, St Colmán, looking upon his brother, who was the son of Beugne, saw that the lids of his eyes had been secretly painted with the hyacinth colour, as it was in the custom; and it was a great offence at St Colmán’s. He said to his brother: ‘May your eyes not see the light in your life (any more). And from that hour he was blind, seeing nothing until (his) death. (translation from Szacillo 2012).

The original Latin phrase describing what so offended St Colmán "palpebre oculorum illius latenter iacinto colore" does not contain the verb paint (pingo). It just says his eyelids were hyacinth (blue) colored. This passage together with the gloss from the Uraicecht Becc implies that there was a custom of tattooing people's eyelids blue in early medieval Ireland. A creccoire* was therefore a professional eyelid tattooer or a tattoo artist.

A possible third reference to tattooing the area around the eye is found in a list of Old Irish kennings. The kenning for the letter 'B' translates as 'Beauty of the eyebrow.' This kenning is glossed with the word crecad/creccad (McManus 1988). Crecad could be translated as cauterizing, branding, or tattooing (eDIL). McManus suggests "adornment (by tattooing) of the eyebrow" as a plausible interpretation of how crecad relates to the beauty of the eyebrow (1988). The precise date of this text is not known (McManus 1988), but Old Irish was used c. 600-900 CE, meaning this text is of a similar date to the other Irish references to tattoos.

Kenning of the letter 'b' with gloss from TCD MS 1337/1

There is a sharp contrast between the association of tattoos with a venerated figure in 'The Caldron of Poesy', and their association with low-status work and divine punishment in the Uraicecht Becc and the Vita. This indicates that there was a shift in the cultural attitude towards tattoos in Ireland during the 7th-9th centuries. The fact that a Christian saint considered getting tattoos a big enough offense to punish his own brother with blindness suggests that tattooing might have been a pagan practice which gradually got pushed out by the Catholic Church. This timeline is consistent with the 786 CE report of the papal legates condemning the pagan practice of tattooing in Great Britain (MacQuarrie 1997).

There are some mentions of tattooing in Lebor Gabála Érenn, but the information largely appears to be borrowed from Isidore of Seville (MacQuarrie 1997). The fact that the writers of LGE just regurgitated Isidore's meager descriptions of Pictish and Scottish (ie Irish) tattooing without adding any details, such as the designs used or which parts of the body were tattooed, makes me think that Insular tattooing practices had passed out of living memory by the time the book was written in the 11th century.

*There is some etymological controversy over this term. Some have suggested that the Old Irish word for eyelid-tattooer should actually be crechaire. more info Even if this hypothesis is correct, and the scribe who wrote the gloss on creccoire mistook it for crechaire, this doesn't contradict my argument. The scribe clearly believed that eyelid-tattooer belonged on a list of low-status occupations.

Discussion:

Like Julius Cesar in the last post, Herodian of Antioch c. 208 CE makes some dubious claims of Celtic barbarism, stating that the Britons were: "Strangers to clothing, the Britons wear ornaments of iron at their waists and throats; considering iron a symbol of wealth, they value this metal as other barbarians value gold" (translation from MacQuarrie 1997). If the Britons wore nothing but iron jewelry, then why did they have brass torcs and 5,000 objects that look like they're meant to attach to fabric, Herodian?

Brass torc from Lochar Moss, Scotland c. 50-200 CE. Romano-British trumpet brooch from Cumbria c. 75-175 CE. image from the Portable Antiquities Scheme.

Trumpet brooches are a Roman Era artifact invented in Britain, that were probably pinned to people's clothing. more info

Although Herodian and Solinus both make dubious claims, there are enough differences between them to indicate that they had 2 separate sources of information, and one was not just parroting the other. This combined with the fact that we have more-reliable sources from later centuries confirming the existence of tattoos in the British Isles makes it probable that there was at least a grain of truth to their claims of tattooing.

There is a common belief that the name Pict originated from the Latin pictus (painted), because the Picts had 'painted' or tattooed bodies. The Romans first used the name Pict to refer to inhabitants of Britain in 297 CE (Ware 2021), but the first mention of Pictish tattoos came in 402 CE (Carr 2005), and the first explicit statement that the name Pict was derived from the Picts' tattooed bodies came from Isidore of Seville c. 600 CE (MacQuarrie 1997). Unless someone can find an earlier source for this alleged etymology than Isidore, I am extremely skeptical of it.

Summary of the written evidence:

Some time between c. 79 CE (Pliny the Elder) and c. 208 CE (Herodian of Antioch) the practice of body art in Great Britain changed from staining or painting the skin to tattooing. Third century Celtic Briton tattoo designs depicted animals. Pictish tattoos are first mentioned in the 5th century.

The earliest mention of Irish tattoos comes from Isidore of Seville in the early 6th c., but since it seems to have been a pre-Christian practice, it likely started earlier. Irish tattoos of the 8-9th centuries were placed on the area around the eye and on the legs. They were a bluish color. The 8th c. Anglo-Saxons also had tattoos.

Tattooing in Ireland probably ended by the early 10th c., possibly because of Christian condemnation. Exactly when tattooing ended in Great Britain is unclear, but in the 12th c., William of Malmesbury describes it as a thing of the past (MacQuarrie 1997). None of these sources give much detail as to what the tattoos looked like.

The Archaeology of Insular Ink:

In spite of the fact that tattooing was a longer-lasting, more wide-spread practice in the British Isles than body painting, there is less archaeological evidence for it. This may be because the common tools used for tattooing, needles or blades for puncturing the skin, pigments to make the ink, and dishes to hold the ink, all had other common uses in the Middle Ages that could make an archaeologist overlook their use in tattooing. The same needle that was used to sew a tunic could also have been used to tattoo a leg (Carr 2005). A group of small, toothed bronze plates from a Romano-British site at Chalton, Hampshire might have been tattoo chisels (Carr 2005) or they might have been used to make stitching holes in leather (Cunliffe 1977).

Although the pigment used to make tattoos may be difficult to identify at archaeological sites, other lines of evidence might give us an idea of what it was. Although the written sources tell us that Irish tattoos were blue, the popular modern belief that woad was the source of the tattoo pigment is, in my opinion, extremely unlikely for a couple of reasons:

1) Blue pigment from woad doesn't seem to work as tattoo ink. The modern tattoo artists who have tried to use it have found that it burns out of the person's skin, leaving a scar with no trace of blue in it (Lambert 2004).

2) None of the historical sources actually mention tattooing with woad. Julius Cesar and Pliny the Elder mention something that might have been woad, but they were talking about body paint, not tattoos. (see previous post) Isidore of Seville claimed that the Picts were tattooing themselves with "juices squeezed from native plants", but even assuming that Isidore is a reliable source, you can't get blue from woad by just squeezing the juice out of it. In order to get blue out of woad, you have to first steep the leaves, then discard the leaves and add a base like ammonia to the vat (Carr 2005). The resulting dye vat is not something any knowledgeable person would describe as plant juice, so either Isidore had no idea what he was talking about, or he is talking about something other than blue pigment from woad.

In my opinion, the most likely pigment for early Irish and British tattoos is charcoal. Early tattoos found on mummies from Europe and Siberia all contain charcoal and no other colored pigment. These tattoos range in date from c. 3300 BCE (Ötzi the Iceman) to c. 300 CE (Oglakhty grave 4) (Samadelli et al 2015, Pankova 2013).

Despite the fact that charcoal is black, it tends to look blueish when used in tattoos (Pankova 2013). Even modern black ink tattoos that use carbon black pigment (which is effectively a purer form of charcoal) tend to look increasingly blue as they age.

A 17-year-old tattoo in carbon black ink photographed with a swatch of black Sharpie on white printer paper.

The fact that charcoal-based tattoo inks continue to be used today, more than 5,000 years after the first charcoal tattoo was given, shows that charcoal is an effective, relatively safe tattoo pigment, unlike woad. Additionally, charcoal can be easily produced with wood fires, meaning it would have been a readily available material for tattoo artists in the early medieval British Isles. We would need more direct evidence, like a tattooed body from the British Isles, to confirm its use though.

As of June 2024, there have been at least 279 bog bodies* found in the British Isles (Ó Floinn 1995, Turner 1995, Cowie, Picken, Wallace 2011, Giles 2020, BBC 2024), a handful of which have made it into modern museum collections. Unfortunately, tattoos have not been found on any of them. (We don't have a full scientific analysis for the 2023 Bellaghy find yet though.)

*This number includes some finds from fens. It does not include the Cladh Hallan composite mummies.

Tattoos in period art?

It has been suggested that the man fight a beast on Book of Kells f. 130r may be naked and covered in tattoos (MacQuarrie 1997). However, Dress in Ireland author Mairead Dunlevy interprets this illustration as a man wearing a jacket and trews (Dunlevy 1989). Looking at some of the other figures in the Book of Kells, I agree with Dunlevy. F. 97v shows the same long, fitted sleeves and round neckline. F. 292r has long, fitted leg coverings, presumably trews, and also long sleeves. The interlace and dot motifs on f. 130r's legs may be embroidery. Embroidered garments were a status symbol in early medieval Ireland (Dunlevy 1989).

Left to right: Book of Kells folios 130r, 97v, 292r

A couple of sculptures in County Fermanagh might sport depictions of Irish tattoos. The first, known as the Bishop stone, is in the Killadeas cemetery. It features a carved head with 2 marks on the left side of the face, a double line beside the mouth and a single line below the eye. These lines may represent tattoos.

The second sculpture is the Janus figure on Boa Island. (So named because it has 2 faces; it's not Roman.) It has marks under the right eye and extending from the corner of the left eye that may be tattoos.

I cannot find a definitive date for the Bishop stone head, but it bears a strong resemblance to the nearby White Island church figures. The White Island figures are stylistically dated to the 9th-10th centuries and may come from a church that was destroyed by Vikings in 837 CE (Halpin and Newman 2006, Lowry-Corry 1959). The Janus figure is believed to be Iron Age or early medieval (Halpin and Newman 2006).

Conclusions:

Despite the fact that tattooing as a custom in the British Isles lasted for more than 500 years and was practiced by at least 3 different cultures, written sources remain our only solid evidence for it. With only a dozen sources, some of which probably copied each other, to cover this time span, there are huge gaps in our knowledge. The 4th century Picts may not have had the same tattoo designs, placements or reasons for getting tattooed as the 8th c. Irish or Anglo-Saxons. These sources only give us fragments of information on who got tattooed, where the tattoos were placed, what they looked like, how the tattoos were done, and why people got tattooed. Further complicating our limited information is the fact that most of the text sources come from foreigners and/or people who were prejudiced against tattooing, which calls their accuracy into question.

'The Cauldron of Posey' is one source that provides some detail while not showing prejudice against tattoos. The author of the poem was probably Christian, but the poem appears to have been written at a time when Pagan practices were still tolerated in Ireland. I have a complete translation of the poem along with a longer discussion of religious elements here.

Leave me a tip?

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