For those who search for evidence that our European ancestor's tattooed themselves beside the sparse and sometimes confusing literary sources. Here is some skin from a mummified Scythian. The Scythians lived on the Steppes of Russia and Ukraine (as they are called now) between Europe and Asia. They were an ancient European tribe. Certainly one of the oldest tribes in Europe. The Greek historian Athenaeus, provided one possibility for the origins of tattooing among the Thracians. He wrote that the Scythians invaded Thrace and humiliated local women by marking their bodies with blue dots. After the Scythians left, these women covered their shameful markings with decorative designs (van Dinter 2005:30)
For those who continue to search ancient texts for evidence of tattoos remember that the word tattoo didn't exist back then. Instead, terms like 'painted skin', 'talking scars' etc were used.
For the Thracians (A European land north of Greece), a tattoo was a sign of noble birth. There are several Greek Vases that depict the death of Orpheus, murdered by Thracian women. The women on these vases are shown with tattoos. Both Aristophanes and Homer (Greek writers) described Thracian slaves and warriors as being tattooed. It was a kind of insult to the Greeks as they didn't like tattoos. A Thracian vase from the fifth century BC exhibited in the Louvre in Paris depicts a woman with deer tattoos The Dacians who lived near the Carpathian mountains were described by Pliny the Elder as being heavily tattooed. The Greeks themselves used tattoos in a limited way. they used it as a method to communicate among spies planted in foreign lands. Van Dinter writes that the Greeks used the word “stigma” for tattoo. The word’s original meaning referred to the markings of a snake but it soon came to signify a mark of shame, a meaning that endures today
Another example was called Otzi. Otzi was a frozen body found in the Austrian mountains. He was 5000 years old. Otzi had over 50 lines and crosses tattooed on his body. It's sad that we may never know what they meant. We have lost more of our history than we know. Eevidence of prehistoric tattooing dating from 12,000 years ago in the Upper Paleolithic. In particular, seven different tools were identified by archaeologists Saint-Just Péquart and Marthe Péquart as tattoo implements (Image 1). These tools included an ochre “‘pencil,’ ground into this shape and somewhat polished” (Green 2007), a lump of ochre, a bone “crusher,” a cotyloid (hip socket) bone
apparently used as a small cup, stained both with a blackish and reddish substance, a
somewhat polished bone with the cancellous (inner spongy). This suggests tattooing has happened all over northern Europe for thousands of years.
Caesar and other Romans wrote many a text describing Celts and Germanic peoples with painted skin. The Romans used tattoos themselves to mark criminals and slaves. As Caesar wrote in his account of the Gallic Wars, “All the Britons dye themselves with woad, which produces a blue colour, and makes their appearance in battle more terrible.” Such was the effect of their appearance that they became known throughout Europe as the Pretani, a Celtic word meaning the ‘painted’ or the ‘tattooed’ ones. From that, the name Britain was eventually derived.
In one Roman poem, composed in May or June of 402, Claudian refers to a great gathering of Roman troops by Stilicho, who was preparing for a battle against Gothic invaders in Italy. Among the assembled forces was a unit that had seen service in Britain: ‘there came the legion, shield of the frontier Britons, check of the grim Scot, whose men had watched the life leave the tattoos on the dying Pict.’ There is some spite in his words here because in Rome tattoos were mainly used for criminals and spies so had become very old fashioned. Such fashions had not got as far as the legions in Britain where they seemed copy local folks tattooing. Herodian a greek historian serving Rome wrote of the picts, “They ‘draw figures of animals or symbols on their skin by pressing hot iron onto their limbs, causing great pain, and over this they rub the sap of a plant’. The sap of the woad plant created the blue colour and stain that never goes away” (van Dinter 2005:33).
For those that think the blue woad was just painted onto the skin by the picts here some evidence that suggests otherwise; Around 600 AD, the Spanish Bishop Isidore of Seville wrote that the Picts derived their name from their practice of “decorating their bodies by rubbing the sap of local plants into pricked designs.” The word “Picts” is believed to be derived from the Latin pictus meaning “painted.” Isidore wrote that it was the Pict warrior elite that distinguished themselves from the rest of the population by their vivid, colorful tattoos and that the Scots also tattooed themselves (van Dinter 2005:36)
§ 22.12 {20} "For the most part, Britain is held by barbarians. Even from childhood, they are marked by local artists with various figures and images of animals. When a man’s body has been inscribed, the marks of the pigment increase with growth. The wild nations in this place consider nothing to be greater proof of patience than that through the unforgetful scars, their bodies may drink in the most dye."
POLYHISTOR written by SOLINUS
When Norwegian and Swedish men joined the crusades upon returning to their homeland and travelling through the remote countryside they were shocked to find a whole village with pagan '''demons''' tattooed on their skin. We will never know what that meant but as the people were slaughtered and a new church was built we can guess it definitely did not conform to the xtian ideas / rules.
One of the best sources is still from Ibn Fadlan (An Arab writer and traveller) who describes the tattoos of the Rus Vinkingr. They are described as having bodies tall as (date) palm-trees, with blond hair and ruddy skin. Each has his skin stained from "the tips of his toes to his neck" with dark blue or dark green "designs" and all men are armed with an axe, sword and long knife. The Norse wore a cape over a tunic. The cape covered one arm and was kept together by a broach on one shoulder. The arm which was covered was the one with tattoos which told of tribe, Gods, ancestors and designs of nature like trees and animals. They kept the tattoos covered so that when they met new people these newcomers wouldn't know which tribe they were from or if they were coopermen (traders) or Vikings (pirates). The cape would also cover a weapon held on their hip. Interestingly, this is where the custom of shaking hands came from. When offering your hand you would expose the tattoos on your arm and also show if you had a weapon at your waist.
A report from Theophylact to Pope Adrian I that dates from 786 details the continuation of pagan practices among the Anglo-Saxons. The legates were appalled that such customs, which seem to have included tattooing or scarification as well the body modification of their horses, were continuing among the Anglo-Saxons despite their conversion. Both the Frankish and Anglo Saxon law books that have survived talk of outlawing tattooing as it encouraged paganism. This must mean our ancestor's tattooed symbols of the Gods on their skin. It may also mean tattoos that referred to our ancestors were popular as any kind of ancestor veneration was strictly outlawed by the new xtian ideas.
cleric William of Malmesbury, author of The Deeds of the Kings of England. Writing in the first half of the twelfth century, William, himself of mixed Saxon and Norman ancestry, wrote that“the Angli wore the tunic halfway to the knee so as to be unimpeded; the hair shorn, the chin shaven, arms laden with gold bracelets, skin distinguished with coloured punctured designs” He also describes the Anglo-Saxons as having painted skin upon the arrival of the Normans, much to the Normans distaste as such practices in Frankia often resulted in death for the tattooed person.
One famous story described the tattoos of King Harold II of England, who was the last Saxon king, defeated by William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 AD. Stripped of his clothing and royal regalia and his face badly mutilated, Harold II was finally identified by the tattoos of the names of his wife and country on his chest. This may have been a continuation of the tradition of elite tattooing of the Picts of the British Isles, or it may have been a common practice passed down from the Scandinavian origins of the Saxons.
The nobles of the Northumbrians and West Saxons in England had tattooing practices. The practice of "scarring and dyeing" of the face or body, usually to mark the death of a loved one is recorded in several sources including; Poen Hubertense (8th century) 53, CCSL 156: 114, Poen Floriacense (8th century) 48, ibid., 101and Poen Merseburgense a 131, CCSL 156: 162.
"Some half dozen continental penitentials from the late 8th to the late 9th century testify to self-mutilation by mourning kinfolk. Under the heading of "Lamentation for the Dead," two prescribed penance for a mourner who "lacerates himself with his nails or sword over his dead or pulls his hair out or rends his garments." In the others, the mourner cuts his hair and tears at his face with his nails or sword because of, or after, the death of parents or sons. These records are not from England, but during their visit there in 787, Pope Hadrian's legates noted the "frightful scars" and dyes (tattoos?) sported by some of the Northumbrian and West Saxon gentry; these may have been the result of ritual self-laceration of the same sort." Legatine Synods - Report of the Legates George and Theophylact of their proceedings in England 19, Haddan and Stubbs
Here are some translations of the original Latin church texts:
"if any thing remained of the rite of the pagans, it is torn away, despised, and cast away. For God formed a beautiful man in beauty and appearance; but the pagans, by a diabolical instinct, brought upon them terrible scars, as Prudence says; "dyed and harmless paltry dirt." For he seems to do wrong to the Lord, who dishonors and disgraces his creature."
"Certainly, if someone for the sake of God would suffer this injury to be dyed, he would receive a great recompense from it. But whosoever does it from the superstition of the Gentiles, does not profit him to salvation, even as to the Jews the circumcision of the body without credulity of heart."
The practice persisted among Christians and was hated for its association with Gentiles (pagans).
"You also put on your garments, after the manner of the Gentiles, whom, by God's help, your fathers were expelled from the world by arms, you put on: a marvelous and exceedingly astonishing thing; so that you may imitate the example of those whose lives you have always hated."
So basically tattooing was part of some rite to the dead, and it was banned by the church because of Jewish beliefs. Aversion to tattooing is explicitly connected to Judaism in these early references.
in 7th century England Bede writes of painted men in Anglo Saxon England and how their demons were expelled and they were 'saved'....... In other instances where Bede has said people were 'saved' they were executed before going to 'heaven' so we can guess what happened to them!!
Xtianity marked the end of tattooing in Europe for many centuries. Especially in the north as we tended to make tattoos that referred to Gods and ancestors which was strictly forbidden and taboo.
References: *****Salian Frankish civil law code 501 AD written by the Merovingian King Clovis - there are many translations online. *****Bede History of the English People *****Sources for Otzi are many so just search 'Otzi iceman' ***** Thracian tattoos and greek vases that depict them -https://www.academia.edu/15080736/Thracian_Tattoos *****As much as I hate the Guardian here is an article ref the Schyvian tattoo at the British Museum. https://www.theguardian.com/…/british-museum-skin-scythian-… *****For modern English translations of Anglo Saxon law look up the Avalon project *****https://www.academia.edu/…/The_Ethnography_of_Gauls_Celts_a… (A free book) *****A BBC article -- http://www.bbc.com/…/20161110-the-name-for-britain-comes-fr… ****Roman author - Apollinaris Sidonius (c. 430–c. 480 CE) **** tacitus - Germania *****William of Malmesbury, author of The Deeds of the Kings of England. *****https://www.amazon.com/Crusades-Authoritative-…/…/0060787295
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