Enlightened Bodies. The Symbology of Tattooing in Ancient Thrace

Abstract

The use of tattoos in antiquity is a widely extended practice that, in the case of the Thracian people, was believed to be traditionally linked to the feminine element. However, as we will see through both Hellenic and Thracian written sources and iconography, this practice extended to the male element as well, and its function was not to be a symbol of sin committed or anger provoked by the murder of Orpheus. The Thracian tattoo really had a multiple meaning, related not only to social status but also to beauty, and, above all, it was an apparently voluntary practice, not imposed, that the Greeks tried to explain from the perspective of their own beliefs about the barbaric and foreign.