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Information about Woad

Woad
Enlarge picture
Woad flowers

Woad flowers
Scientific classification
Kingdom:Plantae
Division:Magnoliophyta
Class:Magnoliopsida
Order:Brassicales
Family:Brassicaceae
Genus:Isatis
Species:I. tinctoria
Binomial name
Isatis tinctoria
L.


Woad (or glastum) is the common name of the flowering plant Isatis tinctoria in the family Brassicaceae. It is commonly called dyer's woad. It is occasionally known as Asp of Jerusalem. Woad is also the name of a blue dye produced from the plant. Woad is pronounced to rhyme with road (IPA pronunciation: [woʊd]).

Woad is native to the steppe and desert zones of the Caucasus, Central Asia to eastern Siberia and Western Asia (Hegi), but is now found in southeastern and some parts of Central Europe as well. It has been cultivated throughout Europe, especially in Western and southern Europe since ancient times.

History of woad cultivation

Until the end of the 16th century, when indigo became available as trade routes from the far east developed, woad was the only source for blue dye available in Europe.

The first archaeological finds of woad seeds date to the Neolithic and have been found in the French cave of l'Audoste, Bouches du Rhone (France). In the Iron Age settlement of the Heuneburg, Germany, impressions of the seeds have been found on pottery. The Hallstatt burials of Hochdorf and Hohmichele contained textiles dyed with woad.

Julius Caesar tells us (in de Bello Gallico) that the Britanni used to mark their bodies with vitrum; this has often been assumed to mean that they painted or tattooed themselves with woad. However vitrum does not translate to "woad", but probably more likely refers to a type of blue-green glass which was common at the time.[1] The Picts may have gotten their name (Latin Picti which means painted folk or possibly tattooed folk) from their practice of going into battle naked except for body paint or tattoos. (This has been commemorated in the humorous (modern) British song The Woad Ode.) However, more recent research has cast serious doubt on the assumption that woad was the material the Picts used for body decoration. Contemporary experiments with woad have proven that it does not work well at all as either a body paint or tattoo pigment. Highly astringent, when used for tattooing or placed in wounds woad produces quite a bit of scar tissue and, once healed, no blue is left behind. The common use of dung as an ingredient in traditional woad dye preparations also make it unlikely to have been suitable for application to wounds.[1]

In Viking age levels at York, a dye shop with remains of both woad and madder dating from the 10th century have been excavated. In Medieval times, centres of woad–cultivation lay in Lincolnshire and Somerset in England, Gascogne, Normandy, the Somme, Toulouse and Britanny in France, Jülich, the Erfurt area in Thuringia in Germany and Piedmont and Tuscany in Italy. The citizens of the five Thuringian woad-towns of Erfurt, Gotha, Tennstedt, Arnstadt and Langensalza had their own charters. In Erfurt, the woad-traders gave the funds to found the University of Erfurt. Traditional fabric is still printed with woad in Thuringia, Saxony and Lusatia today: it is known as Blaudruck (literally, 'blue dyeing').

Medieval uses of the dye were not limited to textiles. For example, the illustrator of the Lindisfarne Gospels used a woad-based pigment for blue paint.

Woad and indigo

Enlarge picture
Woad plants in their first year
The blue pigment in woad is the same as in indigo dye, but it is less concentrated. With the European discovery of the seaway to India, great amounts of indigo were imported. Laws were passed in some parts of Europe to protect the woad industry from the competition of the indigo trade. Indigo was proclaimed to rot the yarns as well. "In 1577 the German government officially prohibited the use of indigo, denouncing it as that pernicious, deceitful and corrosive substance, the Devil's dye." [2] "... a recess of the Diet held in 1577 prohibited the use of 'the newly-invented, deceitful, eating and corrosive dye called the devil's dye.' This prohibition was repeated in 1594 and again in 1603."[3] With the development of a chemical process to synthesize the pigment, both the woad and natural indigo industries collapsed in the first years of the twentieth century. The last commercial harvest of woad until recent times occurred in 1932, in Lincolnshire, Britain.

In Germany, there are attempts to use woad to protect wood against decay without dangerous chemicals. Production is also increasing again in the UK for use in inks, particularly for inkjet printers, and dyes, as woad is biodegradable and safe in the environment, unlike many synthetic inks. Isatis tinctoria is viewed as an invasive species in parts of the United States.

Woad and health

Recently, scientists have discovered woad might be used to prevent cancer, having more than 20 times the amount of glucobrassicin contained in broccoli.[4] Young leaves when damaged can produce more glucobrassicin, up to 65 times as much.[5]

Ethnomedical Use

References

1. ^ Ní Dhoireann, Kym (2004) "The Problem of the Woad". Accessed 2007-06-02
2. ^ Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 17, No. 100, April, 1876.
3. ^ D G Schreber, Historische, physische und economische Beschreibung des Waidtes, 1752, the appendix; Thorpe JF and Ingold CK, 1923, Synthetic colouring matters - vat colours (London: Longmans, Green), p. 23
4. ^ "War paint plant 'tackles cancer'". BBC online, 13 August 2006. Accessed 2007-06-02
5. ^ "Celts' warpaint may be weapon to beat cancer". The Telegraph,14 August, 2006. Accessed 2007-06-02

External links

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Dyeing
Techniques:Batik Dyeing Mordant Tie-dye Resist
Types of dyes:Dyes Acid Reactive Solvent Substantive Sulfur Vat
Traditional textile dyes:Brazilin Cochineal Cudbear Dyewoods Fustic Indigo Kermes Logwood Madder Polish cochineal Scottish dyes Tyrian purple Weld Woad
Craft dyes:Dylon Kool-aid Procion
Scientific classification or biological classification is a method by which biologists group and categorize species of organisms. Scientific classification also can be called scientific taxonomy, but should be distinguished from folk taxonomy, which lacks scientific basis.
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Plantae
Haeckel, 1866[1]

Divisions

Green algae
  • Chlorophyta
  • Charophyta
Land plants (embryophytes)
  • Non-vascular land plants (bryophytes)

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Magnoliophyta

Classes

Magnoliopsida - Dicots
Liliopsida - Monocots

The flowering plants or angiosperms are the most widespread group of land plants. The flowering plants and the gymnosperms comprise the two extant groups of seed plants.
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Magnoliopsida
Brongniart

Orders

See text.
Dicotyledons, or "dicots", is a name for a group of flowering plants whose seed typically contains two embryonic leaves or cotyledons.
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Brassicales
Bromhead

Families

See text.

The Brassicales are an order of flowering plants, belonging to the eurosids II group of dicotyledons under the APG II system.
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Brassicaceae
Juss.

Genera

See text.

Brassicaceae or Cruciferae, also known as the crucifers, the mustard family or cabbage family is a family of flowering plants (Angiospermae).
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Isatis

Species

About 30 species, including:
''Isatis boissieriana
Isatis glauca
Isatis indigotica
Isatis tinctoria

Isatis (Í-sa-tis
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binomial nomenclature is the formal system of naming species. The system is also called binominal nomenclature (particularly in zoological circles), binary nomenclature (particularly in botanical circles), or the binomial classification system.
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Carolus Linnaeus (Carl von Linné)

Carl von Linné, Alexander Roslin, 1775. Currently owned by and hanging at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
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Magnoliophyta

Classes

Magnoliopsida - Dicots
Liliopsida - Monocots

The flowering plants or angiosperms are the most widespread group of land plants. The flowering plants and the gymnosperms comprise the two extant groups of seed plants.
..... Click the link for more information.
Brassicaceae
Juss.

Genera

See text.

Brassicaceae or Cruciferae, also known as the crucifers, the mustard family or cabbage family is a family of flowering plants (Angiospermae).
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The term blue may refer to any of a number of similar colours. The sensation of blue is made by light having a spectrum dominated by energy in the wavelength range of about 440–490 nm.
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dye can generally be described as a colored substance that has an affinity to the substrate to which it is being applied. The dye is generally applied in an aqueous solution, and may require a mordant to improve the fastness of the dye on the fiber.
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IPA for English The
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steppe (Russian: степь - [sʲtʲepʲ], Ukrainian: степ
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Caucasus or Caucasia is a region in Eurasia bordered on the north by Russia, on the southwest by Turkey, on the west by the Black Sea, on the east by the Caspian Sea, and on the south by Iran. The Caucasus includes the Caucasus Mountains and surrounding lowlands.
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Siberia (Russian: Сиби́рь, Sibir); is a vast region on the eastern and North-Eastern part of the Russian Federation constituting almost all of Northern Asia and comprising a large part of the
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Europe is one of the seven traditional continents of the Earth. Physically and geologically, Europe is the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, west of Asia. Europe is bounded to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the Mediterranean Sea,
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As a means of recording the passage of time, the 16th century was that century which lasted from 1501 through 1600.

See also: 16th century in literature

Events

1500s

  • 1500s: Mississippian culture disappears.

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Indigo dye is dye with a distinctive blue color (see indigo). The chemical compound that constitutes the indigo dye is called indigotin. The ancients extracted the natural dye from several species of plant as well as one of the two famous Phoenician sea snails, but nearly all
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Neolithic[1] or "New" Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology that is traditionally the last part of the Stone Age. The Neolithic era follows the terminal Holocene Epipalaeolithic
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Iron Age was the stage in the development of any people in which tools and weapons whose main ingredient was iron were prominent. The adoption of this material coincided with other changes in some past societies often including differing agricultural practices, religious beliefs
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Heuneburg is the site of a large early Iron Age (Hallstatt culture) hill fort near Riedlingen, Württemberg, in Germany.

The fort occupies a strategic site on a spur overlooking the River Danube, with a single line of earth ramparts and a counterscarp (outer bank) facing the
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State Party  Austria
Type Cultural
Criteria iii, iv
Reference 806
Region Europe and North America

Inscription History
Inscription 1997  (21st Session)
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Hochdorf may refer to
  • Hochdorf, Lucerne, a municipality in Switzerland
  • Hochdorf (district), a district (Amt) in the Canton of Lucerne, Switzerland
  • Hochdorf, Esslingen, a municipality in the district of Esslingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

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Gaius Julius Caesar
Dictator of the Roman Republic

Reign October, 49 BC–March 15, 44 BC
Full name Gaius Julius Caesar
Born 12 July 100 BC - 102 BC
Rome, Roman Republic
Died 15 March 44 BC (aged 57)
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Commentarii de Bello Gallico
(Commentaries on the Gallic Wars)

An 18th century edition of Commentarii de Bello Gallico
Author Julius Caesar, Aulus Hirtius(VIII)
Language Classical Latin
Subject(s)
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A tattoo, or dermal pigmentation, is a mark made by inserting pigment into the skin for decorative or other reasons. Tattoos on humans are a type of decorative body modification, while tattoos on animals are most commonly used for identification or branding.
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Picts were a confederation of tribes in what later was to become central and northern Scotland from Roman times until the 10th century. They lived to the north of the Forth and Clyde.
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Latin}}} 
Official status
Official language of: Vatican City
Used for official purposes, but not spoken in everyday speech
Regulated by: Opus Fundatum Latinitas
Roman Catholic Church
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ISO 639-2: lat
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