ON WOAD AS A PREHISTOKIC PIGMENT 



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ON WOAD AS A PREHISTORIC PIGMENT. 

 By Chaiiles 13. Plowright, M.D. 



One of the first concrete facts of English history which a child learns 

 at school is that the Ancient Britons dyed themselves blue with a plant 

 called Woad. Since visiting a Woad farm in Cambridgeshire some years 

 ago the question has constantly recurred to the writer, How did they do 

 it ? A pretty extended correspondence with those who in recent times 

 have written on the subject, a perusal of most of the published books on 

 it, from Ruellius's " De Natura Stirpium" (1536) to Professor Beijerinck's 

 latest paper, epitomised in Nature, November 18, 1899, as well as a 

 series of attempts to extract the blue colour from the plant itself, in 

 order to find an answer to the above question, have afforded a considerable 

 amount of occupation during the past six months, and yielded results 

 some of which may be of interest to the readers of the Jouenal of the 

 Royal Horticultural Society. 



In the first place, Did the Ancient Britons really dye themselves blue '> 

 Cfesar* clearly says they did : "All the Britons stain themselves ^^itb 

 Woad [vitrum), which produces a blue colour and gives them a more 

 horrible appearance in battle." Pliny t says, however, " There is a plant 

 like Plantain, called in Gaul glastum, with which the wives and daughters 

 of the Britons smear their bodies in certain ceremonies and go naked, 

 being of the colour of Ethiopians ;" while Ovid j: speaks of our ancestors as 

 Viridcs Brifannos. Pomponius Mela§ confirms Caesar in the use of Woad 

 by the Britons ; he says, " They dye their bodies with Woad {vitrum), 

 whether for ornament or any other reason is not known." Lastly, 

 Herodian |! refers to the Ancient Britons as being ignorant of the use of 

 clothes, but " They mark their bodies with various figures of all kinds of 

 animals, which is the reason they wear no clothes for fear of hiding these 

 figures." 



Cfesar, Pliny and Mela, then, agree as to the use of Woad as a decorative 

 pigment, but Caesar says it was blue, Pliny that it was black, while Ovid, 

 although not mentioning the exact substance, refers to our ancestors as 

 "green," and Herodian intimates that they were tattooed. It is quite 

 possible that each of these writers is more or less correct, for Woad vdW 

 yield not only a blue pigment — which, however, is often more or less green — 

 but even more easily yields a black one, as the hands of the Woad gatherers 

 in autumn plainly show. 



That the fact that Woad was capable of yielding a blue pigment was 

 known to the ancients is evident from the remarks Pliny ^ makes as to 

 true indigo being adulterated by chalk and pigeon's dung stained with 

 Woad. Coming nearer home, Sir Thomas Wardle informs me, in a letter 

 on the subject, that he was present some years ago at the opening of 

 a barrow at Sheen, near Hartington, in which a considerable amount of 



* Caesar, Dc Bello Gallico, book v. chap. 14. y Pliny, Xat. Hist. xxii. 2. 



X Ovid, Aviorum, ii. 16, 39. $ Pomponius Mela, ii. 1. 



II Herodian, iii. 47. ^ Pliny, Xat. Hist. xxxv. 0, 27. 



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