The Painted Ones: Tattoos, Body-Paint, or Branding?

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Camelot Chat! I’m your hostess, Shannon Watson, and today’s episode is The Painted Ones: Tattoos, Body-Paint, or Branding?

Incidentally, this one’s for all you fans of Antoine Fuqua’s 2004 film, King Arthur! Because today, we will be talking tattoos… Pictish tattoos, that is.

Pictish people–certainly the warriors, but possibly also the women–were recorded by ancient writers as having been covered in some sort of strange designs. Blue and green and possibly multi-colored markings. A type of ancient inky graffiti that might, just possibly, have been… tattoos.

There was lots of ancient chatter about these odd patterns. But not all of it points to the same custom.

The Roman poet, Claudian, mentioned “the iron-wrought designs on the face of the dying Pict.” Claudian’s specification, “iron-wrought,” may be an indication that the Picts used powdered iron ore, or else, needles made of iron, to tattoo their faces.

 Tertullian, who thought tattooing was customary for both Britons and Picts, called Pictish tattoos stigmata Britonum. Wiktionary has stigmata as “brands, or burn-marks, especially on a slave.” Britonum means “of the Britons.” Taken together, the phrase renders “Brands of the Britons.” So, then, were these marks actually brands?

Don’t let the word, Britonum, or “of the Britons,” throw you off the scent. Tertullian likely meant “inhabitants of the British Isles.” Which, of course, included the Picts.

This brings us to another interesting speculation.

It is possible that the Picts and the Britons were once one and the same people, though by Queen Guinevere’s day, they had diverged. The fourth-century Greek explorer, Pytheas, called the people of Britain Pretanī, which may have derived from a native Proto-Brythonic word, pryd, “forms.” Modern etymologists believe pryd might have been the origin-point of the Roman name for the Picti: “People of the Forms,” “Painted Ones,” or “Tattooed Ones.”

Caesar–as in Julius–is the most popular of the bunch of ancient gossip columnists. He wrote that the Picts–or at least the Britons–colored themselves with glass. Caesar used a Latin word to describe the element employed. The word is vitro, and it depicts a bluish-green glass.

The Romans did a thriving industry in glassmaking, importing natron from Egypt and using a large quantity of beach sand in the process. In Julius Caesar’s day, the fashion was for emerald and cobalt blue glass: a rare, popular, and high-end glass that was much prized among the Romans.

Which brings us to another blue-green substance. Woad.

Everybody I’ve talked to loves the “Woads” in Antoine Fuqua’s King Arthur. I know I did. Fuqua, of course, intended the Woads to be the Picts of the piece. And I found his Woads to be the closest cinematic depiction of the Picts thus far to what we know of them historically.

But, while it is a clever suggestion, Woads cannot be the name by which the Picts called themselves. No one knows how they described themselves. Or what their name for their people was. Or whether the Picts even considered themselves a people, or just disparate groups of tribes who occasionally allied against a common enemy. No one can say for sure how they thought of themselves, let alone, what they called themselves.

But it is certain the Picts never called themselves Woads. Why not, you ask?

Because the Picts could not have successfully tattooed themselves with woad. Nor could they have stained or painted their skin with it. Numerous people have tried both procedures to no avail and have reported their findings online. It just doesn’t work.

There are, however, other options.

Lindow Man is a well-known “bog body.” In other words, the body of a man preserved in peat moss. He lived in the British Isles sometime between 2 BC and 119 AD.

When Lindow Man was exhumed from his murky bog, scientists found residues of both copper and iron remaining on his skin. Just as Julius Caesar described, either of these metals might leave traces of a greenish or bluish color. Traces of tattoos.

Is that possible, you ask? Did they even have tattoos so long ago?

The simple answer is “Yes. They did.”

The practice of tattooing goes back to Neolithic times. In fact, until recently, Otzi the Iceman, whose body dates to around 3253 BC–beating out Lindow Man by a cool 3,134 years–was the first known recipient of a tattoo.

In 2018, however, two Egyptian mummies outclassed Otzi in the Most Ancient Tattoo Category. These mummies dated mummies 3351 and 3017 BC. Their tattoos had been applied with metal awls or needles.

The main difference between them, though, is that Otzi’s tattoos, which might have been medicinal, were applied with charcoal and/or soot.

No one knows exactly what the Picts used to apply their tattoos, or if they were even tattoos, or perhaps some form of scarring, which seems indicated by Tertullian’s stigmata comment. They might have been both, with the scar or brand being first administered to the recipient and then impregnated with a powdered iron or copper, thus staining the skin blue or green along the scar-lines.

And with what mysterious symbols did the Picts imprint their bodies? Your guess is as good as mine… although mine might be better.

We have no further to look than the strange standing stones that dot the British Isles: solitary, grey sentinels in the Scottish mist. They are covered with peculiar Pictish cryptograms and animal art: odd little figures of birds and horses and hounds and… Picts.

Fighting and hunting and riding Picts. Pictish archers and warriors and cavalry. Maybe a chieftain or two. There are even a few women: set apart and obviously revered.

Then, there are the odd symbols that no one has ever been quite able to make out. Scholars have assigned names to them like Z-rod, Double-Discs, Arrows, the Tower. And the famous “Pictish Beast,” which looks like an elephant and a platypus had a baby. Though speculation is rife in the archaeological community, no one knows for sure what any of these were meant to represent, or what the Picts called them.

But my money is on those symbols, carved so many centuries ago into grey stone. If the Picts did in fact tattoo themselves–and we do not have a well-preserved Pictish bog body with which to confirm the practice–these strange, stony symbols, possible representatives of clans and tribes and families–and exalted individuals–are the likeliest culprits.

In next week’s episode, "Were the Picts Weirdos, or just... Special?", I explore some of the Picts' stranger qualities and customs.

Souterrains. Grudge-holding. And–here's one out of left field–hypoglycemia??? For more Dark Age rumormongering, tune in next week.

And, if you can’t wait till the next episode for more Arthurian lore, you will find my historical fiction novel, The Wanderer and the Wolves, told from Queen Guinevere’s perspective, on Amazon.com. The link is included below. And be sure to check out my author page at ShanavereStudios.com.

Until next week: People who read live in many worlds. Books are the surest portals to those worlds. So, keep living, keep reading, and keep dreaming... till we meet again.