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Tattoo Art Intro
TATTOO ART INTRO
Jim (Hamish) Burgess & Dudley Burgess
Following the ancient patterns of Celtic beliefs, tattooing in the Celtic Lands has gone through a long cycle of life, death and rebirth. This continuous circle of life represented by unbroken interlacing knotwork designs of the early Celts, whose art had rested unnoticed for many years. Only comparatively recently, in the last century, has their art seen a revival by several artists around the world, foremost amongst whom is Courtney Davis, whose latest book we have the pleasure of introducing.
Many people mistake the origin of tattooing as being Polynesia, the Pacific Islands. In fact all over the world, since stone age times, many ancient cultures were practising the art of tattoo. In the early 1990's the discovery of ancient frozen mummies (the 5000 year old tattoed "Iceman" in the Tyrolean Alps, and then the 2400 year old elaborately tattooed Pazyryk"Ice Maidaen" and "Warrior" in Siberia) show the antiquity of the art. It is well documented that the Ancient Egyptians, Persians, Thracians, Scythians, Siberians, Arabs, Incas, Indians, asians, North and South American Natives, Japanese and Pacific Islanders were tattooed.
Our focus here though is on the Ancient Celts. The Celts themselves had an oral tradition and therefore no written historical records (although they did have an early system of marks known as Ogham), so earliest observations of tattooed Celtswere noted by their adversaries, the invading Romans. Many Roman (and Greek) accounts were written of the 'painted barbarians', naming the Britons, Iberians, Gauls, Goths, Teutons, Picts and Scots (the 'Scotii' came from Ireland) as being tattooed, the Latin word for 'tattoo' being 'stigma'.
"The Britons incise on their bodies coloured pictures of animals, of which they are very proud" (Herod of Antioch, 3rd century AD).
More to follow.
Taken from the foreword to Celtic Tattoo Workbook Two
First published by Awen Press in 2003 |
