This is part one in a three-part series of articles. Read part two.
Since time immemorial, even before Homo Sapiens arrived in Europe, humankind wanted to record and express its life achievements via artistic inspiration, mainly by painting and drawing on the rock walls of caves which served a generally wider purpose.
Hence, the first recorded ancient cave wall drawings have been attributed to the Neanderthals, who were widely dispersed in ice-age Europe, around 120,000 to 35,000 years ago (Pastoors & Weniger, 2011).
These ancient works of rock art have been estimated as being more than 64,000 years old, making them the oldest works of art ever to be discovered. They were found in northern Spain 1,000 feet deep in the Ardales caves, which consist of a web of 70 interconnecting caves.
The Neanderthals used the technique of finger painting and bone-sharpened instruments as their brush medium to paint on cave walls. They recorded and painted scores of wild creatures which roamed their countryside apart from other depictions of fauna. These primitive people also wanted to leave a legacy for future generations by painting or signing these drawings by marking them with the first human handprint in red ochre and carbon black pigments (Figure 1; Becker, 2018).
An image showing Ötzi’s mummified body and the location of his tattoos. Photo retrieved from www.huffington post.com/2015/01/26/Ötzi-iceman-new-tattoo_n_6546884.htmlThe above is testament to the fact that, since the prehistoric era, some form of art has, more or less, always existed globally among humankind.
Cave drawings were not only found across Europe but also in native American-Indian communities, in South American cultures, in Asia and in Australia (David, 2017).
An interesting point to consider is how the cave art found in all these places − continents that are geographically separated by oceans and hostile deserts − shares the same common factor of drawings on cave walls.
Another interesting consideration is how this form of art was created: who were the pioneers of cave art?
Various theories have been proposed as to why human beings felt the need to produce art from such an early stage. It seems clear, however, that works of art were not purely decorative but might have celebrated successful hunts or acted as prayers or thanksgiving to the gods (Fritz & Tosello, 2007).
Some form of art has always existed globally among humankind
In a similar manner, humans later developed the art of painting and scarring their bodies, with these activities carrying different meanings and being carried out for a range of purposes.
Ancient historical tattoos
Cave art was not the only form of ancient artistic expression. For more than 2,000 years, tattoos and body markings have marked the bodies of diverse civilisations, warriors and, particularly, natives of tribes. During these past millennia, tattoos were generally considered as hereditary religious symbols associated with priests and were eventually passed down from one generation to the other. Various pieces of relevant evidence, in the form of artefacts, documents and mummies were discovered both in the eastern and western parts of the globe.
Red ochre hand stencils in the Cave of El Castillo (c.37,300BC) in Cantabria, Spain. The positive hand stamp can be considered a first work of art or a self or body portrait. Photo retrieved from www.visual-arts-cork.com/prehistoric/hand-stencils-rock-art.htmTrade and communication
Trade and communication between neighbouring countries were being constantly maintained from early times by the movement of merchant vessels between various harbours. Concurrently, the custom of body branding, or tattooing, gained momentum when a dominant class of tattooed rulers from the early Egyptian, Libyan, Syrian and Greek royal dynasties disseminated this custom among their citizens who travelled around the known world during the period spanning approximately from 2100BC to 800BC.
Body painting became customary among the Dacians, for example, as it was assumed that tattoos have a magical significance in which hereditary symbols were transmitted up to the fourth generation (Lobell & Powell, 2013).
In 1891, French Egyptologist Eugene Grebaut discovered a number of mummified remains of a priestess named Amunet who had served the pharaohs between the years 2134 and 1994 BC, serving in the name of the goddess Hathor, at Thebes.
The Amunet mummy was from the Dynasty XI era and, when exhumed, it displayed several tattooed lines, dashes and dots drawn all over her body. These markings seem to have been restricted only to members of the female gender who were involved in some kind of spiritual or ritualistic practice (Angel, 2012).
Prehistoric art. One of these handprint outlines, found in the Maltravieso Cave, in Spain, has been dated to at least 66,000 years ago, which means it must have been made by a Neanderthal. Photo: H. Collado. Retrieved from www.the-scientist.com/the-nutshell/oldest-known-paintings-created-by-neanderthals-not-modern-humans-30076Ötzi the Iceman: Bronze Age mummy
Until the 20th century, the first known tattoos documented on mummified human skin dated only as far back as 2100BC. This changed with the discovery of a frozen and naturally mummified body in the Alps Tyrol Mountains, between Italy and Austria.
This mummy, who was named Ötzi, had become accidentally uncovered in an ice glacier. His body dated back to the Bronze Age period and it was found alongside his weapons, clothing and shoes, which were surmised to have belonged to a warrior or hunter who roamed the Alps about 5,300 years ago.
This mummified human corpse predated all other known examples of tattooed mummies by several centuries (Engelking, 2015). Ötzi’s body displayed a total of 61 tattoos, which were believed to have been inked for the sake of rheumatic and medical treatments (Engelking, 2015). His tattoos could have served as a form of acupuncture to relieve him from joint and ankle pains, as well as chest, heart, kidney and teeth/gum problems.
The iceman’s tattoos included a cross on the inner side of the left knee, six straight vertical lines of various thickness around 15 centimetres long above the kidneys and various other parallel lines on the chest and ribs, besides others on the ankles.
Ötzi’s tattooed body provides another possible reason for tattoos – an attempt at relief from the pain caused by medical conditions. This reason seems to be very different to the reasons why tattoos are used nowadays, particularly among the mainstream young and not so young people who embark on a mission to decorate their bodies with tattoos. As we have seen earlier, tattooing is definitely not a modern phenomenon but an artistic practice that has been linked to ink a symbol that represents a meaning.
French philosopher Jacques Lucan (1901-1981) suggested that a tattoo is the first mark or symbol that signifies or represents a meaning. On the other hand, when philosopher Hans-George Gadamer (1900-2002) spoke about the origins of the word symbol (symbolon), he referred to it as a token of remembrance. Hence, a symbol is an object broken or divided into two pieces, with one given to the guest while the other piece is retained, with the hope that the two pieces could be rejoined in the future as an act of recognition (Gadamer 2003).
Lionel Cassola is a Master of Fine Arts in Digital Arts. Read part two in this series of articles.