In the grand timeline of human evolution, dating all the way back since ca. 40,000 BCE, mankind developed many forms of communicating with each other. From cave drawings to forming systems of languages, these incredible advancements in early civilizations lead mankind to the complex world we now live in.
I was amazed by the amount of effort and time that was put into making the basic languages that we use to this day. For example, English started from the Phoenicians creating the first-ever written alphabet, then the Greeks adapted the Phoenician alphabet for their own language which came to be the Greek alphabet, which has a lot of similarities to modern English letters. The Greek alphabet was combined with the Etruscans’ to create the language of Romans, Latin, which is the basis of English that we use. It was very inspiring to see just how far humanity advanced from a very primitive way of communication like hieroglyphs to creating written languages. The collaboration that many countries went through by copying and borrowing elements of another country’s language to develop their own also showed me how powerful different cultures learning from each other can be.
Your Body is Your Canvas
The history of painting one’s body goes way back, nearly to the beginning of humanity itself. In almost every continent there is a history of our ancestors utilizing natural pigments from plants and fruits for many different purposes and occasions.
The colourful history of augmenting our bodies is more than just for cosmetic purposes. When people painted their bodies it was common to do so for social and spiritual events, such as a marriage, funerals, rites of passage, and for war. In these different circumstances painting their bodies symbolized different meanings, had different reasons and purposes for why people painted themselves. For example, body paint in wars was used for camouflage, or often in order to make a warrior look fiercer to intimidate the enemy. It would also often indicate the position or rank of the person as well.
It was common for people to decorate themselves with ritual paintings, tattoos, piercings and scarrings instead of simply using pigments rubbed on their skin. In many cases, body art was a very important part of people’s everyday and spiritual lives, as the markings on their bodies represented their inner qualities, their wishes, and many illustrations of gods or scenes of war. Some cultures, such as the Romans, used tattoos and carved skin designs to mark people as criminals or slaves instead of incorporating it into a cosmetic lifestyle.
In today’s society, people are getting cosmetic tattoos, usually symbolizing a person’s ideals, their likes or memories that they want to cherish. The idea behind modern body art and augmentation is for entirely cosmetic purposes, artistic projects and to engrave a part of their lives onto their bodies to remember them and to indicate to other of what they are like, without having to communicate anything in words. It isn’t utilized as ceremonial designs but communicates ideas from one another without the use of words.
McManus, M. R. (2015, February 17). How Body Painting Works. Retrieved from https://people.howstuffworks.com/culture-traditions/body-art/body-painting3.htm Body Painting History. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.historyofcosmetics.net/history-of-makeup/body-painting-history/ The world’s oldest tattoos. (2015, November 11). Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352409X15301772?via=ihub Rank, S. (2019, August 5). Were Norsemen Tattooed? Evidence of Ink on the Rugged Rusiyyah. Retrieved from https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-ancient-traditions/were-norsemen-tattooed-evidence-ink-rugged-rusiyyah-008351 7 Oldest Cave Paintings in The World. (2017, November 13). Retrieved from http://www.oldest.org/artliterature/cave-paintings/