Self-examination begins with history - The Picts and the secret of their tattooing
Picts, the ancestors of the modern Scots, who were described by the Romans in history as very warlike warriors who are depicted naked in drawings. Herod wrote, "The Picts carve on their bodies colorful images of animals, of which they are very proud." What caught my attention was the combination of the words carved in, further than everything consecutive.
“As tall as palm trees, pale and reddish, they wear neither tunics nor caftans. Each man wears a cloak that covers half of his body, leaving one arm uncovered. They carry axes, swords and daggers, and they are always close at hand. They use Frankish swords with broad, grooved blades. They are darkly marked from the fingertips to the neck—trees, pictures of animals, and the like”.
Pictish blue, wavy lines warriors had drawn all over their bodies, both to intimidate and to protect. They mixed this blue pigment from the plants growing on the island. In historical circles is much debate as to whether the Picts had tattoos or whether it was a semi-permanent colour that we know today as bodyart. The Picts got their colour from the dye-wood plant, a member of the mustard family, whose roots give it a distinctive blue color. This mixture of natural dyes is temporary for up to 10 days + if injected under the skin has a severe allergic reaction which a person cannot tolerate.
Nothing remains of the Pictish language except stone markings called 'ogham', a language that has been traced back to the so-called P-Celtic language. Picts (possibly from Latin picti, "painted"), a group of people who lived in what is now eastern and north-eastern Scotland from Caithness to Fife.
The Picts were first mentioned in 297 AD, when someone a Roman writer spoke of "Picts and Irish [Scots] attacking" Hadrian's Wall. In 843, Kenneth I Macalpine, king of the Scots (centered in Argyll and Bute), also became king of the Picts, uniting their two lands into a new kingdom of Alba, which became Scotland. The Pictish kingdom is notable for the stylized but vigorous beauty of it’s carved memorial stones and crosses.
Martin Carver had said on the artistic quality of the Picts:
''They were the most extraordinary artists. They could on a stone piece with one line draw a wolf, salmon, eagle and create a beautiful naturalistic drawing. Nothing as good as this can be found between Port Mahomac and Rome. Even the Anglo-Saxons with a stone carvings didn’t work, as Picts. Only after the Renaissance people could feel the nature of animals in the same way.’’ A culture that believed in totemic figures - animals were the main visual component of language that represented qualities and values that warriors hoped to embody in war.
Unlike the Gaels and Scots, the Picts are still shrouded in mystery, which makes their tattooing practices even more intriguing given that the people's verbal culture means there has almost never been direct evidence of any of their customs.
P.S.
We can only guess and surmise about how the Picts created these drawings. We have no historical mummies to prove the existence of tattoos on their bodies. I agree with Martin Carver, they could draw an intricate pattern on the stone with single line. I think that they also did this on their own skin, literally carved drawings on themselves. Today we call it a scarification tattoo - a painful and complicated type of tattooing that requires high precision. All that remains is to apply the blue pigment to such a body and Pict is ready for battle.
Those of you who have tried to draw a Celtic pattern through a single line will understand me, because only then does this pattern contain value. All about that in the next publication :)