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People with modern experiences with woad as a tattoo pigment have claimed that it does not work well, and is actually caustic and causes scarring when put into the skin. The resulting paints yielded colours from "grey-blue, through intense midnight blue, to black". Gillian Carr conducted experiments using indigo pigment derived from woad mixed with different binders to make body paint. The use of the word for the woad might also be understood as "coloured like glass", applied to the plant and the dye made from it. In terms of usage, the Latin vitrum is more often used to refer to glass rather than woad. The connection seems to be that both glass and the woad are "water-like" ( Latin: vitrum is from Proto-Indo-European *wed-ro-, ' water-like '). Julius Caesar reported (in Commentarii de Bello Gallico) that the Britanni used to colour their bodies blue with vitrum, a word that means primarily ' glass ', but also the domestic name for the woad ( Isatis tinctoria), besides the Gaulish loanword glastum (from Proto-Celtic * glastos ' green '). Ĭeltic blue is a shade of blue, also known as glas celtig in Welsh, or gorm ceilteach in both the Irish language and in Scottish Gaelic. Melo and Rondão write that woad was known "as far back as the time of the ancient Egyptians, who used it to dye the cloth wrappings applied for the mummies." Skelton states that one of the early dyes discovered by the ancient Egyptians was "blue woad (Isatis tinctoria)." Lucas writes, "What has been assumed to have been Indian Indigo on ancient Egyptian fabrics may have been woad." Hall states that the ancient Egyptians created their blue dye "by using indigotin, otherwise known as woad." Ī dye known as סטיס, satis in Aramaic is mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud. The Hallstatt burials of the Hochdorf Chieftain's Grave and Hohmichele contained textiles dyed with woad. Seed and pod fragments have also been found in an Iron Age pit at Dragonby, North Lincolnshire, United Kingdom. Impressions of seeds of Färberwaid (Isatis tinctoria L.) or German indigo, of the plant family Brassicaceae, have been found on pottery in the Iron Age settlement of Heuneburg, Germany. The seeds have been found in the cave of l'Audoste, Bouches-du-Rhône, France. The first archaeological finds of woad seeds date to the Neolithic period. Testifying to the importance that this crop had in the economy in addition to the archival documents was the identification of a hundred millstones surveyed by Delio Bischi in the Province of Pesaro and Urbino, the original use of which had become completely unknown as their memory had been lost. To fully understand the importance of the ford industry in the State of Urbino, it is enough to read the comprehensive Chapters of the art of wool in 1555, which dictated prescriptions regarding the cultivation and trade of woad, whether in loaves or macerated (powdered). In the Marche region, the cultivation of the plant was an important resource for the Duchy of Urbino in Italy. There has also been some revival of the use of woad for craft purposes. The double use of woad is seen in its name: the term Isatis is linked to its ancient use to treat wounds the term tinctoria references its use as a dye. Woad has been used medicinally for centuries. Woad was eventually replaced by the more colourfast Indigofera tinctoria and, in the early 20th century, both woad and Indigofera tinctoria were replaced by synthetic blue dyes. Towns such as Toulouse became prosperous from the woad trade. In medieval times, there were important woad-growing regions in England, Germany and France.

Since ancient times, woad was an important source of blue dye and was cultivated throughout Europe, especially in Western and Southern Europe. Woad is native to the steppe and desert zones of the Caucasus, Central Asia to Eastern Siberia and Western Asia but is now also found in South-Eastern and Central Europe and western North America. Woad is also the name of a blue dye produced from the leaves of the plant. It is occasionally known as Asp of Jerusalem. Its genus name, Isatis, derives from the ancient Greek word for the plant, ἰσάτις. Isatis tinctoria, also called woad ( / ˈ w oʊ d/), dyer's woad, or glastum, is a flowering plant in the family Brassicaceae (the mustard family) with a documented history of use as a blue dye and medicinal plant.