What did the Picts use to paint themselves?

Question

The picts are immortalized historically for painting themselves blue before battle. However I happen to know that blue is one of the rarest naturally occurring pigments, so that begs the question of how exactly did the ancient picts make the paint that they used upon themselves.

Update:

The picts are immortalized historically for painting themselves blue before battle. However I happen to know that blue is one of the rarest naturally occurring pigments, so that begs the question of how exactly did the ancient picts make the paint that they used upon themselves. Do we have any archaeological evidence of their paint perhaps fossilized or maybe preserved on a bog body, any Roman accounts of their paint, etc.?

Answer 1

Woad.

Answer 2

They did not paint themselves at all, that is a myth.

Answer 3

"The Latin word Picti first occurs in a panegyric written by Eumenius in AD 297 and is taken to mean "painted or tattooed people" (from Latin pingere "to paint";[3] pictus, "painted"

No one is quite clear in what way the Picti were 'painted' - they may, as Julius Caesar said the Britons did have used war-paint, or more permanent tattoos or scarification.

A number of othe posters have pointed out that blue dye was readily accessible.

Answer 4

You "know something" that isn't true then: because woad grows all over Europe and its use ensured that for millennia light-to-mid-blue was one of the cheapest colours for textile dyeing.

Answer 5

Rollers.

Answer 6

If you read anything about the Picts or Britons, you should have run across the term "woad" or "blue woad". See below, and learn how to use the expression "begs the question" correctly.

Source(s): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isatis_tinctoria

Answer 7

Caesar wrote of the Britons (not the Picts, he never got near them) as painting on woad before battle. As a byproduct it turns out woad has antiseptic qualities.

Answer 8

ok

Answer 9

Woad - made from the isatis tinctoria plant. Which was (and still is) extremely common in Britain.

Answer 10

No, it doesn't "beg" that question; it "raises" or "suggests' it. "To beg the question" means something very different.