The latest entry in the new series exploring the world of body modification, Tattooing In Ancient Britain:

| “Tattooing has been practiced on the island of Great Britain for perhaps two thousand years, starting with the Celts, one of the island’s earliest inhabitants. The term “Briton,” in fact, is derived from a word meaning “painted in various colors.” Caesar, for instance, noted that the Britons “dyed” their bodies with woad; he may in fact have been referring to tattooing. A quote from Herodian, a first-century Roman historian, noted that the Celts, who wore no clothing, “punctured” their bodies with pictures of animals. There is also evidence that contemporary cultures to the Celts, like the Scythians, who were known to have influenced Celtic culture, practiced tattooing.

Once the Celts came under Roman control and became Christianized, they soon adopted the wearing of Christian tattoos, as in the style of the Jerusalem souvenir tattoos. This practice may also have been associated, as with the Roman practice, with the marking of slaves and criminals, but it was certainly used by Celtic Christians to mark devotion.

After the fifth century when the Roman Empire collapsed, the Celts were pushed westwards, and it is unclear whether Celtic tattooing continued and was able to influence the English practice of tattooing. However, by the Middle Ages, we do know that tattooing was still being practiced in some quarters.

For example, Anglo-Saxons continued to practice tattooing, at least among the nobility and warrior classes. Pilgrims, for instance, received tattoos during their travels to the Holy Land, but religious tattoos were not the only tattoos that the English wore. Following the Battle of Hastings in the eleventh century, for example, King Harold’s body was identified only because he had “Edith” tattooed over his heart….” | full article

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