60.—Woad (Isatis Tinctoria)details

The dresses of the inhabitants of Britain before the Roman invasion are not, like those of the people of ancient Egypt, and other countries advanced in the practice of the imitative arts, to be traced in painting or sculpture. In Roman statues we have the figures of ancient Gauls, which give us the characteristic dress of the Celtic nations: the braccæ, or close trowsers, the tunic, and the sagum, or short cloak (Figs. 61, 62, 63). The dye of the woad was probably used for this cloth, as it was to colour the skins of the warriors stripped for battle (Fig. 60). It is difficult to assign an exact period to their use of cloth in preference to skins.” (p. 22)