Tattoo Archaeology by Sebastien GALLIOT
The practice of tattooing has been documented in cultures across the globe and throughout recorde... more The practice of tattooing has been documented in cultures across the globe and throughout recorded history. While there are several lines of archaeological evidence through which to study ancient tattooing, the marks identified on naturally and deliberately preserved human skin provide the only direct evidence of tattooing in antiquity. Until recently there was a discrepancy regarding the identity of the oldest tattooed human remains, with popular and scholarly sources alternately awarding the honor to the Tyrolean Iceman known as Ötzi, or to an unidentified South American Chinchorro mummy. Through a reexamination of the identity of the South American specimen and the associated radiocarbon data, we are able to identify the source of this confusion, and confirm that Ötzi presents the world's oldest preserved tattoos.
Papers by Sebastien GALLIOT
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2020
HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific re... more HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.
L'ouvrage présente les résultats de fouilles archéologiques extensives menées entre 2002 et 2008 ... more L'ouvrage présente les résultats de fouilles archéologiques extensives menées entre 2002 et 2008 sur le complexe rituel ScMo-124/-125 situé les hauteurs de la vallée de 'Opunohu (Moorea, îles de la Société). Ce site de fouilles ouvert en 1961 par Roger Green présente une série de marae, d'autels, de terrasses pavées et d'unités résidentielles sur lequel Jennifer Kahn et Patrick Kirch ont effectué des recherches complémentaires par le biais de cartographies, d'analyses morphologiques, de fouilles stratigraphiques et de datations au carbone 14 et à l'uranium/thorium. 2 L'ensemble de la vallée de 'Opunohu est composée de deux cent vingt temples et autels. Les excavations et les datations réalisées par Kahn et Kirch sur cette portion visent à établir un lien entre les transformations dans les relations de pouvoirs internes aux groupes des îles de la Société et les modifications, la maintenance et l'élaboration de Compte rendu de Monumentality and Ritual Materialization in the Society Islan...
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Dec 16, 2022
HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific re... more HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. Copyright
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2015
HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific re... more HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. Marque de l'échange et échange de la marque. Essai de biographie culturelle appliquée au tatouage samoan, Cahier du CAP, n°2, Modèles et modalités de la transmission culturelle
O le ta tatau. Couleur, tatouage et technique du corps à Samoa
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2008
L'art du tatouage en Micronésie
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2013
Religions are just as much action plans than systems of faiths. They involve, to equal part, the ... more Religions are just as much action plans than systems of faiths. They involve, to equal part, the spirit and the body, the interiority and the physicality. The acting out of faith or in other words its material anchorage is moreover a component of all religious life as well as of the emergence of any believers' community. Moreover, Numerous recent researches in the field of religious materiality have shed light on the importance of the physical relationship to certain artefact in votive practices. In contrast, the process of acquisition of knowledge which establish the particular status of the religious specialists have been subject to less scrutiny. For the religious specialists and ritual experts, touch, material actions, techniques of the body and the embodied knowledge belong to a category of skills that are integral part of the permanent and canonical aspects of any liturgy. At the same time, access to religious authority critically depends on access to these knowledges. If ...
Journal de la société des américanistes, 2015
En dépit du nombre croissant d'ouvrages consacrés au tatouage, et de la popularité de ce thème à ... more En dépit du nombre croissant d'ouvrages consacrés au tatouage, et de la popularité de ce thème à l'heure actuelle, très rares sont pourtant les volumes collectifs conjuguant approches archéologiques, ethnographiques, ethno-historiques et iconographiques comme cette publication. S'y trouve réunis les résultats de recherches initialement présentées en 2009 à Mobile (Alabama) dans un colloque intitulé « Tattooing and Body Modification in the Prehistoric and Early Historic Southeast ». Comme le titre du colloque le suggérait déjà, il s'agit d'un ouvrage enraciné dans un espace culturel donné et, ce faisant, on ne s'étonnera pas qu'il se dispense d'un cadre d'analyse général portant sur le tatouage. C'est donc au fil de la lecture que se découvre le projet intellectuel qui a guidé les auteurs. Ce défaut mineur est au demeurant largement compensé par l'intérêt de contributions qui éclairent des matériaux jusque-là peu étudiés à travers le prisme du tatouage, pour une région qu'anthropologues et archéologues américanistes s'accordent par ailleurs à considérer comme particulièrement complexe. Deter-Wolf Aaron and Carol Diaz-Granados (éd.), Drawing with great needles. A...
Journal de la société des océanistes, 2011
Journal de la société des océanistes, 2012
The Journal of Pacific History, 2019
Modèles et modalités de la transmission culturelle
Modèles et modalités de la transmission culturelle, 2015
Arnaud Bertinet Evacuating museums: which heritage to save and a history of taste, 1870-1940 This... more Arnaud Bertinet Evacuating museums: which heritage to save and a history of taste, 1870-1940 This article examines how heritage was protected when major French public collections were evacuated during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and the two World Wars. The author focuses on the decision-making process for establishing lists of works to be evacuated and how they varied across Europe. This preliminary research report comprises a review of the historiography, existing literature and sources available for research, a history of the 1870, 1914 and 1940 evacuations, in order to describe the practical details of the operations and discover new elements for a political history of heritage and an ideological history of taste, with all the national and international controversies of contemporary heritage policies.
Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2016
• Although tattooing has been practiced by cultures across the globe and throughout human history... more • Although tattooing has been practiced by cultures across the globe and throughout human history, the precise antiquity of the practice is unknown. • There has been a discrepancy between popular and scholarly sources regarding the identity of the oldest tattooed human remains. • Through reexamination of radiocarbon data we are able to identify the source of this confusion. • This research conclusively determines that the oldest preserved tattoos known to date belong to the Tyrolean Iceman, also known as Ötzi.
Journal of Material Culture, 2015
As a contribution to the much debated problem of ritual efficacy, this article aims to present a ... more As a contribution to the much debated problem of ritual efficacy, this article aims to present a technological approach to ritual theory. In most scholarly studies of ritual, analyses of the material setting are avoided in favour of a focus on symbolic expression, cultural representations, or embodied cognition. Here a close look at the interplay between substances, sounds, smells, elementary actions on matter and supernatural forces shows that there is a blending phenomenon between myth, rite and technique at the early stages of the preparatory phases as well as during the ritual action itself. The central part played by technical actions and interaction with matter in the ritual of Samoan tattooing is a case study for a technological approach to ritual efficacy.
Gradhiva, 2015
par Sébastien Galliot dossier 158 fi g. 1 Jeunes membres de l'association Malofi e qui regroupe p... more par Sébastien Galliot dossier 158 fi g. 1 Jeunes membres de l'association Malofi e qui regroupe plusieurs centaines de porteurs de tatouages rituels, Apia, juin 2012. Photo Sébastien Galliot.
Interstices: Journal of Architecture and Related Arts, 2017
Over the past thirty years or so, the iconographic corpus of ethnic tattoo designs has increasing... more Over the past thirty years or so, the iconographic corpus of ethnic tattoo designs has increasingly been used as an efficient, non-discursive way of expressing indigeneity, commitment, belonging, strength, etc. While they are detached from their original destination (the human skin) and due to their primal connection with the body, tattoo designs have an iconic power which rests on a process of naturalization. Their evocative strength together with their high portability tends to an exploitation of their power through a multitude of media. In this paper I will rely on the Samoan tattooed images to address the process of iconicity by downplaying their discursive meaning. To the extent that Samoan tattooing combines a high standardization of patterns’ assemblage, and a socially separated body of techniques with relatively low symbolic emphasis on individual designs, I will try to re-evaluate its visual saliency by looking at its changing semiotic status.
Religion and Touch, 2021
HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific re... more HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. Copyright
Interstices, 2017
The transfer of images from one medium to another and their diffusion far beyond Pacific islands ... more The transfer of images from one medium to another and their diffusion far beyond Pacific islands communities changes their mode of reception and the way they mediate social relationships. In this context, the question of iconic power also brings up a range of other controversial issues among tattoo practitioners and tattoo wearers. The most contentious one relates to the economy of images and the professional ethics ruling the circulation, appropriation, and copying of images.
As a contribution to the much debated problem of ritual efficacy, this article aims to present a ... more As a contribution to the much debated problem of ritual efficacy, this article aims to present a technological approach to ritual theory. In most scholarly studies of ritual, analyses of the material setting are avoided in favour of a focus on symbolic expression, cultural representations, or embodied cognition. Here a close look at the interplay between substances, sounds, smells, elementary actions on matter and supernatural forces shows that there is a blending phenomenon between myth, rite and technique at the early stages of the preparatory phases as well as during the ritual action itself. The central part played by technical actions and interaction with matter in the ritual of Samoan tattooing is a case study for a technological approach to ritual efficacy.
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Tattoo Archaeology by Sebastien GALLIOT
Papers by Sebastien GALLIOT