The following are skulls and bones taken from a few late seventeenth century image showing various representations. Froelich’s “Dance of Death” along with others, is discussed in fair detail in here.įor the curious, what might the skull and crossbones, or skeleton, have looked like on real pirate flags of the early 18th century? We have only one likely authentic example of one, and it’s only a purported drawing of the flag of a French pirate, and of a woodcut believed to have been made from the drawing. Charles Hill, in his Episodes of Piracy in the Easter Seas, 1519 to 1851, published serially in the 19 editions of The Indian Antiquary, points this illustration out. Below is one by Hulderich Froelich of Basil, Switzerland, part of his 1588 Todtentanzes or “Dance of Death” series, one of which is Zwen Todentäntz, deren der eine zu Bern. Details can be found in the first chapter of The Golden Age of Piracy: The Truth Behind Pirate Myths.īanners with skull and bones have reportedly been around a long time, although depictions of them in art prior to the eighteenth century are difficult to find.
They may have been in use prior to this time by some of the Barbary corsairs. The original flag was reportedly destroyed on the order of Louis XIV.Įxcept for a skull and bones flown on a red field–a flag of no quarter–by French flibustiers in 1688, and perhaps before and after, we have no evidence of their use among pirates and other sea rovers of European origin until the early 18th century, the first in 1700, and the rest circa 1715 and afterward. All are similar but none exactly matches the other. Originally, pirates used a fiery red flag on top of their ship masts to symbolize bloodshed and. During the 1400s, the skull and bones symbol began its journey to becoming a thing of the past until some of the most dreaded pirates adopted it in the next century. However, in The Golden Age of Piracy I do discuss the flag of Jean Thomas Dulaien who sailed shortly after the period, for which we have a written description, as well as images of a purported drawing and of a purported woodblock made from the drawing. The Skull and Crossbones Flag Also Known As The Jolly Roger Flag/The Pirate Flag. Most, we imagine–and we can only imagine, having no existing pirate flags from the Golden Age from 1655 to 1725, only written descriptions–would be simple fabric cutouts or simple painted images.
The death’s head in the painting above has a frightening three dimensional aspect, which would take a talented pirate to replicate with paint and brush. The same black flag with skull and crossbones is similarly used in an allegorical poem of the early 18th century, prior to the American pirates who flew the skull and bones, to represent the banner of Charon, ferry-master of the Styx in Hades. Details, of course, are discussed in The Golden Age of Piracy: The Truth About Pirate Myths. The fact is, although the skull and bones was used extensively as a mortuary symbol, and may have been flown at this time by some Barbary corsairs, it does not appear to have been regularly flown, with extensive attached symbolism, until the coming of the Anglo-American pirates in the early 18th century. Detail from “Das Schiff der Kirche” by Jacob Gerritsz.
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