D E T ER-WO L F

K R U TA K &
Photograph by Ilan Spira T
he desire to alter and adorn the
human body is universal. While
“Tattooing is as popular today as at any time in human history, and Ancient Ink will help
specific forms of body decoration
the layman, as well as the scholar, better understand how we got here.”
L A R S K R U TA K is a research associate and the motivations for them vary according
—C. W. ELDRIDGE, Tattoo Archive, Winston-Salem, North Carolina to region, culture, and era, all human
in the department of anthropology at
the National Museum of Natural History, societies have engaged in practices designed
“As tattooing has become massively popular, the world has commodified our trade for to enhance people’s natural appearance.
Smithsonian Institution. He is the author
cash, television shows, magazines, and flash books. Thankfully, every now and then a One of the most widespread types of body
of Tattoo Traditions of Native North America:

Ancient Ink
significant publication comes along that is created by people who know its history and art, tattooing, appears on human mummies
Ancient and Contemporary Expressions of
are themselves tattooed. Ancient Ink is an important book and a must for every library.” by 3200 BCE and was practiced by ancient
Identity and Spiritual Skin: Magical Tattoos
—HENK SCHIFFMACHER, tattoo artist and author, the Netherlands cultures throughout the world.

T H E A R C H A E O LO GY O F TAT TO O I N G
and Scarification.
Ancient Ink, the first book dedicated to
“With contributions by leading lights in the growing field of tattoo studies, Ancient Ink the archaeological study of tattooing,
is essential reading for tattoo scholars, artists, and enthusiasts—anyone who cares about presents new research examining tattooed
the history and diversity of this ancient global practice and its modern iterations.” human remains, tattoo tools, and art.
Examples include Predynastic Egyptian
—MARGOT MIFFLIN, author of Bodies of Subversion: A Secret History of Women
Courtesy of Aaron Deter-Wolf

tattoo traditions, Iron Age animal motifs of

and Tattoo
Siberia, Ottoman-era religious imagery of
Croatian Catholics, historical and contempo-
“A careful, measured, detailed, well-researched, and interesting volume. It updates a huge
rary burik designs of the Philippines, and
range of scholarship on tattoo practices from across the globe.”
the modern revival of birthing tattoos in
—MATTHEW LODDER, tattoo art historian, University of Essex Alaska. This volume contributes to our

Ancient
understanding of the antiquity, durability,
A A R O N D E T E R-WO L F is a prehistor- “Krutak and Deter-Wolf have brought together an impressive group of scholars to write and significance of tattooing and human
ic archaeologist for the Tennessee Division about the antiquity and persistence of a near-universal human activity.” body decoration and illuminates how different
of Archaeology and senior editor of Drawing
—TANYA M. PERES, associate professor of anthropology, Florida State University societies have used their skin to construct
with Great Needles: Ancient Tattoo Traditions
identities, transmit knowledge, and display
of North America.
societal values. Ancient Ink connects ancient
body art traditions to modern culture with

Ink
essays on Indigenous tattoo revitalization
and the work of contemporary tattoo
The contributors are Orlando V. Abinion, Gemma
T H E A R C H A E O LO GY artists who employ historical techniques
Angel, Ronald G. Beckett, Tara Clark, Colin Dale, and imagery, demonstrating the pervasive-
Renée Friedman, Louise Furey, Svetlana Pankova, O F TAT TO O I N G ness of tattooing and its status as a shared
Dario Piombino-Mascali, Luc Renaut, Benoît
human practice.
Robitaille, Analyn Salvador-Amores, Dong Hoon
Shin, Isaac Walters, Leonid T. Yablonsky, and Petar
A MCLELLAN BOOK
N. Zidarov.

Jacket design: Katrina Noble University of Washington Press ISBN 978-0-295-74282-3

ED ITED BY
Front jacket illustration: Egyptian faience figu- Seattle | www.washington.edu/uwpress
rine with tattoos on truncated legs (ca. 1980−1800 BCE);
90000
L A R S K R U TA K & A A R O N D E TER-WO LF
not to scale. Photograph by Renée Friedman. British
9 780295 742823
Museum, London (EA52863)
Ancient Ink
T H E A R C H AE O LO GY O F TATTO O ING

Edited by

LARS KRUTAK
and

AARON DETER-WOLF

A McLellan Book

University of Washington Press

Seattle & London
10

Balkan Ink
EUROpE’S OLDEST LIVING TATTOO TRADITION
Lars Krutak

ince 2009, Bosnian researcher Tea Mihaljevic (née Turalija, 2011)

S has conducted more than two dozen interviews with traditionally tattooed
Catholic women and men from Bosnia and Herzegovina. The oldest tattooed
woman she has met, Marta Kuna of Osmanlije (Kupres Municipality), was born in 1917,
but her story and those of the many other Bosnian and Croatian Catholics who wear
these ancient symbols are waiting to be told (fig. 10.1).
It is not known when or where the practice of tattooing originated among the
Catholics of this part of the Balkan Peninsula. However, it has been demonstrated (see
Renaut, chapter 17, this volume) that it was an autochthonous tradition of Thraco-
Illyrian cultures that inhabited the Balkans prior to 300 BCE. Moreover, Croatian
anthropologists Ćiro Truhelka (1896) and Mario Petrić (1973, 1976) wrote that the
combinations of cruciforms, celestial bodies, and other natural symbols that comprise
this graphic tradition predated Christianity. British travel writer Mary E. Durham
(1929:121−22), who traveled extensively across the region in the early twentieth century,
was told by a local priest, “They have a number of curious pagan beliefs, which they
will not tell me. I have found that they believe in two powers—Light and Darkness—
which are in conflict—Good and Evil. These tattoos are in some way connected with
this belief. So is the Serpent, which they sometimes tattoo and also draw on the walls.”
Bosnian Catholics called the tattooing process bocati or sicati (Bosnian, “to sting,”
“to prick,” or “to cut”) whereas Durham’s Catholic informants in northern Albania

150
Fig. 10.1. Bosnian Catholic tattoos (ca. 1908). Redrawn after Durham (1929:105).

called it sharati (“to color”). Croats who fled Bosnia during Turkish rule to settle as
refugees in Dalmatia and Slavonia termed it bocanje or sicanje (Croatian, “stinging,”
“pricking,” “tattooing”). In Bosnia, some of the traditional patterns were as follows: kolo
(“the circle”), named after a customary dance, klas (“ear of corn”), ograda (“fence ring”),
narukvitza (“bracelet”), grancitza (“small pine twig”), eliza (“fir tree”), krizh or krizhevi
(“cross,” “crosses”), and Sun, Moon, and Morning Star (Krutak 2007:46) (plate 11).
The tattoo patterns were traditionally applied by old women, who first stenciled the
design onto the skin with the blunt end of their tattooing needle or a chicken feather.
Sometimes the design was carved into a piece of willow or ash bark and stamped onto
the epidermis. Generally speaking, tattoo pigment consisted of the soot of resinous
pinesap collected on a plate and then combined with honey and water, saliva, and
1
mother’s milk from women who had a male child with blue eyes. However, many other
2
substances could also be combined with soot to produce tattoo ink, including milk
from a black sheep, horse milk, egg yolk, juniper berry juice, holy water, or sugar (Tea
Mihaljevic, personal communication, March 27, 2016). Mihaljevic’s informants stated
that after the design was pricked into the skin with one or more “hot” needles, a piece
of blue indigo paper was applied to the wound for one day to enhance the color. This
type of paper was once common as a tobacco wrapper.

BALKAN INK 151