Did ancient Germanic tribes wear face paint?

[cadbren]

The Harii are the only ones mentioned and given it seems to be something that went with fighting at night so it's highly unlikely to have been patterns, block dye to darken the skin.
Which raises the question of how they saw at night. Did they only fight when the moon was out, did they carry torches, did they fight at dusk rather than night, were they actually a group of warriors who fought this way and not a tribe. Their name is possibly linked to the modern German word Heer meaning army. Compare the name with Chariovalda who led a Batavian contingent into Germania as part of Germanicus' punitive expedition in the wake of Teutoberg. Chariovaldus means army leader; chario being cognate with harii. Then again there were a couple of Gallic tribes with the similar corio in their name - Coriosolites from Armorica and the Petrocorii who gave their name to the Perigord region famous for its truffles.

The much later vikings are claimed to be tattooed by Arab sources. Was this something learnt from the east or did the Norse have tattooing natively? If that was the case then the tattooing likely existed earlier during the Germanic Iron Age but there is no mention of it by the Romans and none have been found on the handful of preserved bodies found in the peat bogs of northern Europe.
Face paint as seen in the tv series Barbarians though? No, that seems to be based on tribal art from various places in the tropics, there is zero evidence for any of those designs being used in Europe.

[Golgotha]

https://www.si.edu/stories/ancient-ink-iceman-otzi-has-worlds-oldest-tattoos

https://www.northernfiredesigns.com/blogs/northern-fire-blog/vikings-and-tattoos-an-interview-with-neil-price-by-sean-parry

[Rickf]

As in most things ancient, do what looks best to you.

[frank xerox]

Go for it!

[cadbren]

https://www.si.edu/stories/ancient-ink-iceman-otzi-has-worlds-oldest-tattoos

Otzi is from the copper age before the Indo-Europeans arrived. He dates to 3300bc and the tattoos he has are several small lines mostly on his lower body, too small to represent on wargaming models. He has zero link to Germanic culture. The region was later home to the Rhaetians who were linked with Etruscan culture but there is no sense that the Etruscans tattooed themselves so the practice probably died out during the Bronze Age with the coming of Indo-European cultures.

[Bowman]

"As for the Harii,……They black their shields and dye their bodies, and choose pitch dark nights for their battles."

TACITUS, Germania

Sounds more like camouflage than body ornamentation.

[Aethelflaeda was framed]

my take, partly after watching the German TV series Barbaren

[bigredbat]

I like the bones and skull effect! I'll be modelling the Harii, too, will give it a go.

[Aethelflaeda was framed]

Considering how common a practice it is/was globally it feels unlikely that there were none that did it. I'm tempted to go look for some dissertation on the primal instinct to paint ones face before battle and it's cause.

Part of my inspiration for these Germans was remembering pics of German infantrymen during WW2 doing such on the Eastern front.  My palette for them is based on modern German flag colors…Yellow Ochre, chalk white, Burnt sienna for a bricky red and charcoal black (as were the shields).  I thought they came out pretty evocative (to make them read german even though many of these exact same figs were also in my Celts box that  i painted at the same time) if not completely sure of the historicity of them.  The pigments certainly were available.

I think most tribal warrior societies would use some sort of ornamentation to denote status and death’s heads are an old archetypical motif.  Intimidating an opponent with fierce war paint seems a good motivation for the practice.

[cadbren]

I think most tribal warrior societies would use some sort of ornamentation to denote status and death’s heads are an old archetypical motif.  Intimidating an opponent with fierce war paint seems a good motivation for the practice.

There are no skulls depicted in any ancient European culture. The arch head hunters, the Celts depicted fully fleshed heads and in legend there is the story of the Green Knight and also Bran the Blessed where the head continues to talk normally after being cut off. Trophy heads were embalmed in resin to keep their appearance.
I can't find any evidence of skulls being used for military use in Europe prior to the 18th century when privateers adopted the Jolly Roger in the early part of the century and later in the century certain cavalry units adopted similar symbols. That symbol itself likely derives from the later medieval into renaissance art depicting death due to the frequent plagues that ravaged Europe.
You're free to paint your minis how you see fit but skulls on ancient Germans are as factual as skulls on Roman soldiers.

[Aethelflaeda was framed]

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[Aethelflaeda was framed]

I’d say that evidence of face paint, tattoo motifs, and makeup would be most difficult to find in any of the archeological record by its very nature.  The motifs used might have been anything if it was done at all. I’ll agree that there isn’t any deaths heads in the surviving Celtic artifacts such as jewelry so the odds are against it, all though there are some early Saxon depictions on jewelry that might be abstract deaths heads.  We  have only a bare idea of how a penannular brooch was worn and what color their clothing was.  I won’t rule it out historically, and as it is more romantic, I’ll happily use it for my Germans who are frequently used as “Jotuns” in my realms of Faerie campaigns.

Tacitus describing the Harii as “ghoulish” (love to see the original latin word!) could point to masquerade rather than camouflage.  the shields are blackened, but the body dye not specifically stated as being blackened.

[Aethelflaeda was framed]

There are no skulls depicted in any ancient European culture. The arch head hunters, the Celts depicted fully fleshed heads and in legend there is the story of the Green Knight and also Bran the Blessed where the head continues to talk normally after being cut off. Trophy heads were embalmed in resin to keep their appearance.

What of the Sanctuary of Roquepertuse?  This seems evidence that skulls, as opposed to resin preserved heads were used there?  Depiction of recently taken heads might be an important image to present but still the skull lasts far longer than unpreserved flesh and probably served the same purpose ans an momento, particularly if the head was taken days or weeks before returning to a sanctuary site, where the rotting is quite pronounced.  I haven’t heard of resin soaking heads before outside of Egyptian funeral practices. Not arguing it didn’t happen but  do you have a source?  New Grange may well have been a passage grave decorated with actual skulls.

There is also the example of the Roman catacombs…when were they first built and how public were they?


As for Romans we also see here :

Roman mosaic representing the Wheel of Fortune which, as it turns, can make the rich poor and the poor rich; in effect, both states are very precarious, with death never far and life hanging by a thread: when it breaks, the soul flies off. And thus are all made equal. (Collezioni pompeiane. Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli)