Pictish Art

A warrior with his spear marches to the left across the land in four known instances. Three of these spearmen are in the south of Pictland, at Collessie, Bertha(Tulloch), and Balgavies, and only one in the north, at Rhynie. This story started off asking what, and potentially who, this Spearman is. But it quickly fell into a swirling story, of Caledonians and Picts, massacres, grain, Romans, people and ideas facing each other at the far end of their world, and how the Spearman and the early Pictish symbol stones tell their own part in the story of this extraordinary moment in time and place. 

Connecting the Spearman to the Roman and high-status native context in which they are found, points to these Spearman stones being contemporary with the Severan campaign, and this dating is supported by the weapons and portrayal of northern native warriors of the time in Romano-Celtic art.  Archaeology, art history and environmental studies also point to a hiatus in southern Pictland after the Severan massacres, which leads to the conclusion that the CI stones of this southern area are dated to the early centuries AD, with their origin being in the late Iron Age pre-Roman flourishing of native culture.

The Pictish symbols are here provided with a list of each symbol’s occurence, together with a distribution map of that symbol. 
The symbol lists are divided for convenience of size into two papers, Part One and Part Two.
This paper is PART TWO. 
Part One contains mostly high-frequency symbols, Part Two the lower frequency symbols. 
A table of symbol frequency is included in Part One. 
These lists and maps are offered to enable exploration of possible concentrations or peculiarities of certain symbols, which may point to their significance, provide an insight into their function, and take us a step closer to understanding their meaning. 
The papers here do not offer indepth analysis of the data, except for a few brief header notes.

The axe-wielding and / or beast-headed human figures in Pictish sculpture-such as the Rhynie Man or the axe-brandishing centaur and men locked in combat on the Glamis Manse stone-continue to fascinate audiences, but their original significance is only now being recognised. Axe-or club-brandishing figures on Class I monuments share notable connections with those on Pictish Christian sculpture, suggesting that they had a long-lasting significance in Pictish culture. The placement of these unusual weapon-wielding figures on cross-slabs share marked similarities with artistic representations of pre-Christian deities in neighbouring cultures, particularly with the mixed pagan and Christian iconography of Scandinavian sculpture in Britain and the Isle of Man. Such comparative material suggests that these figures in Pictish sculpture represent pagan Pictish gods.

Recent research into the representation of pre-Christian mythology in early medieval sculpture, the identification of a pagan Pictish motif, and new archaeological discoveries suggest novel ways of interpreting and understanding these figures and their chronology. On Pictish cross-slabs and sculptured panels, such figures are usually not found in isolation, but instead form part of a carefully planned artistic programme, incorporating multiple deities or otherworldly beings from what was clearly a well-known narrative in pre-Christian Pictish religion. The frequent association of this iconographic narrative with a cross, in comparison with the assimilated pagan and Christian iconography and literature of neighbouring cultures, may indicate that this visual narrative represents the pre-Christian Pictish tradition of the apocalypse.

Analysis of the similar iconography on cross-slabs and panels that portray these figures thus indicates that a narrative sequence from pre-Christian Pictish religion has been assimilated into a new Christian context, and that the Picts, like the Scandinavian settlers, had an artistic culture that looked for parallels between pagan and Christian iconography, and used these parallels in meaningful combinations.

15th January 2020

Dans cet article, l'auteur analyse comment les mois du calendrier de Coligny suivent de très près les lunaisons pendant les 62 mois des 5 années figurant sur la plaque de bronze, et, ce faisant, met en évidence la précision extraordinaire, au jour près, à chaque 'extrémité' de la lunaison moyenne. Cela signifie que chaque mois du calendrier lunaire commence toujours au même point de la phase de la lune, et que ce calendrier peut rester synchronisé avec la lune indéfiniment. La forme globale du calendrier est déterminée ensuite par l'attribution de 29 jours au premier mois intercalaire, ce qui fait du calendrier un calendrier métonique tout au long de 4 cycles successifs de 5 ans; cela montre aussi que, dans cet ensemble de 5 années, nous avons une partie complète, la seule nécessaire, du calendrier entier. Ce calendrier métonique pouvait aussi être intégré à une période de 30 ans, constituée de 6 cycles successifs de 5 ans, sans qu'il soit nécessaire de redéfinir le cycle de 5 ans.

This paper examines how closely the lunar calendar months of the Coligny calendar track the individual lunations over the 62 months of the 5-year bronze plaque, and in doing so, discovers an extraordinary precision to within a day either side of the average lunation. This means that each calendar month always starts at the same point in the lunar phase and the calendar can remain in sync with the moon indefinitely. The question of the overall shape of the calendar is further defined by assigning 29 days to Intercalary One, which then shows the calendar to be a Metonic calendar through four successive cycles of the 5-year base, and that in the one 5-year plaque we have the complete and only needed part of the entire calendar. This Metonic calendar could also be embedded as part of a larger 30-year age of 6 successive cycles of the 5-year base, again without the necessity of reshaping the 5-year base cycle.

This article is about the forms of rods on Pictish symbols, the V rod and the Z rod. Only four symbols have rods, each with a common form of rod ends. These rod ends change from their common form if the rodded symbol is the lower symbol of a pair of rodded symbols. This behaviour demonstrates that the upper symbol of a pair on a particular stone plays the dominant role which the lower subordinate symbol must respect. Each symbol pair is acting in concert on a stone. If instead the lower symbol is required to be given dominance, then special rules apply to acknowledge the changed condition, again demonstrating that the symbol pair is acting as a pair in an explicit relationship on each symbol stone.

Mathematically, the frequency distribution of Pictish symbols shows that the symbol stones as a body do not hold a personal name, acting as some kind of burial or memorial marker in the form X mac/ui Y, where X and Y are the symbols of a symbol pair.  The evidence for this is reviewed, and the proposal of di-thematic names where each symbol represents a word or ‘theme’ is analysed and this is shown also to be mathematically untenable.  A third possibility is raised, in which a symbol can occasionally be used to represent a name, if and whenever it is required, as part of a broader mnemonic system.

Recent analysis of the axe-wielding and / or beast-headed human figures in Pictish sculpture suggests that they represent Pictish gods. Depictions of these Pictish deities are found on both early incised Pictish stones (Class I) and later relief-carved monuments (Class II, III), traversing the Conversion Period. How early is this tradition in Pictish art, and what was the function of a carved god on Class I monuments? On cross-slabs and later sculpture these figures are usually associated with otherworldly beasts. Although this mythical imagery is generally presented in a non-linear fashion, much of it is repetitive, suggesting that these gods and otherworldly beasts represented well-known mythological narratives in Pictish culture, and that this mythology continued to circulate in the oral culture of the Picts into the Christian period. How do the Pictish mythological narratives, as depicted in sculpture, compare with the mythological traditions of neighbouring cultures?

This paper explores the early evidence for pre-Christian religion and ritual in Pictland, comparing the contexts of Class I monuments with carved deities with the material culture of Iron Age Celtic and Romano-Celtic religious sites. Specific mythological motifs found on Christian Pictish sculpture are compared with examples from Celtic mythology and Indo-European mythology more generally. Such a comparison highlights extensive points of overlap between pre-Christian belief in Pictland and Indo-European mythology more broadly, and demonstrates the immense significance of the Pictish sculptural material in providing a means for reconstructing an otherwise lost belief system.

Edinburgh Rhynie 0 500 N km The date of unique symbolic carvings, from various contexts across north and east Scotland, has been debated for over a century. Excavations at key sites and direct dating of engraved bone artefacts have allowed for a more precise chronology, extending from the third/fourth centuries AD, broadly contemporaneous with other non-vernacular scripts developed beyond the frontiers of the Roman Empire, to the ninth century AD. These symbols were probably an elaborate, non-alphabetic writing system, a Pictish response to broader European changes in power and identity during the transition from the Roman Empire to the early medieval period.

The Bell Beaker, the Cauldron of Regeneration, the Grail, are these all part of the same mythology?  There may be a reason for the strength and longevity of this story.  Around the start of the Bronze Age 5000 years ago, the stars around the north celestial pole had shifted, progressed, so that the northern pole star had moved out of the serpent we today call Draco.  A group of the same stars were then re-conceptualised as a cauldron or beaker, holding within it the north polar point, the cauldron we are told in story and shown in art in which people could be reborn to a new life, the Cauldron of Regeneration.

The Cat-stane, a Neolithic menhir bearing a Christian period inscription in Roman letters, has been traditionally taken for a Latin lapidary text commemorating a Roman General or a Pictish king of the late fifth century CE. Throughout the centuries, the inscription has suffered much from effacement resulting in uncertain interpretations for certain portions of the text. A British Celtic reading for this dedication should not to be ruled out inasmuch as it could very well be the only epigraphic artifact testifying to the historical existence of Uther Pendragon, not the least.

According to some scholars, the dedication found on the side of St. Vigeans Drosten Stone and inscribed in medieval Gaelic or Hiberno-Saxon script reads partially as Latin or Goidelic. Others argue that Pictish was a pre-Celtic language and that the inscriptions defy translation since written in non-Indo-European. Regrettably, this interpretation has only thwarted progress in the understanding of the Pictish language as a form of Brythonic. Also, Pictish stones are replete with symbols which are also found in other examples of Celtic Art from the Hallstatt and LaTène periods.

This article re-evaluates the two inscriptions and the mirror symbol on the Newton Stone. The ogham is unusual in that it is read from the top rather than the bottom. The alphabetic inscription is intended to be read with, or to supplement, the ogham inscription. Close analysis demonstrates that the alphabetic inscription was painted onto the stone prior to carving. The carver may have followed an exemplum for the alphabetic inscription, possibly written on a wax tablet. Examination of the alphabetic script demonstrates that it is most closely related to informal scripts of the Late Antique period. The inscription is written in the Pictish language, and the stone probably dates to the 6th or early 7th century. The placement of the inscriptions and the mirror symbol may indicate that the two inscriptions were used in place of Pictish symbols.

The Picts carved a pair of trumpeters on two of their stones. These trumpeters do not play a typical Celtic horn or trumpet known from Celtic archaeology and artwork, but are a pair of Salpiktai, the Roman and Greek sacral trumpeters, used in warfare, pagan ritual processions, and male funerals. Why would the Picts reach into Roman art to use such an icon? What sacral context would be of relevance in the post-Roman world of the Picts?

The Pictish symbols are here provided with a list of each symbol’s occurence, together with a distribution map of that symbol. 
The symbol lists are divided for convenience of size into two papers, Part One and Part Two.
This paper is PART ONE. 
Part One contains mostly high-frequency symbols, Part Two the lower frequency symbols. 
A table of symbol frequency is included in Part One. 
These lists and maps are offered to enable exploration of possible concentrations or peculiarities of certain symbols, which may point to their significance, provide an insight into their function, and take us a step closer to understanding their meaning. 
The papers here do not offer indepth analysis of the data, except for a few brief header notes.

Pictland and Its Symbol Stones  is the original paper in which we first proposed that the symbol stones are referencing something significant in the land in the stone’s immediate vicinity. 
The paper was written in 2002, presented at the Fifth Australian Conference of Celtic Studies and published in 2004.  Reading it now, I am tickled by the naïve view we had of how simple and basic this solution is, not because it has turned out not to have legs as it has since gone from strength to strength, but because 17 years later I’m still busy testing and exploring what the significance of the symbols and their context actually is.  It’s all very well to say a broch symbol represents a broch – but that part of the solution merely pushes the question back a level:  What is a broch? What is its function and what is the ideology driving its build? Why is there a symbol depicting a broch when surely the Picts have their choice from hundreds of real ones?  Or, is a broch a physical manifestation of the symbol?  Is the symbol really indicating an actual broch or it is a virtual-reality stand-in for a broch when they are no longer being built by the Picts?  So many questions, one after another after another. 
This initial research was done at the other side of the world to Pictland, without access to any of the usual papers and resources, in fact we only had hints that they even existed!  The excitement of the moment was when the Archaeoptics database of photos of stones, and the STAMS database first came on line in the early days of the internet.  Streetmap was our only mapping resource, and even that was in its infancy and not crash hot.  Canmore was yet a few cardboard boxes full of scraps of paper, invisible to the antipodes.  Our excitement and fascination carried the day nonetheless.
Today I can examine ideas in much greater detail, from rich sources like Canmore, electronic sources, and photos by everyone, reports and observations on all sorts of topics.  I can reach out to other scholars around the world to discuss the ideas big and small.  Over time some details in this paper have not held up – I no longer think the arch symbol refers to a well. 
The double-disc/Z symbol has strengthened its claim to representing a rotary quern with a head of grain as its rod – at the time of writing the original paper I had no idea a quern existed, having spent my working life in modern SE Asia!  The distribution of this symbol follows closely the best grain-growing areas of Pictland.  But does it point to a simple blessing of the crops? Is it a votive deposit as real life querns are used? And if so, what did the Picts intend and conceptualise a votive offering to mean anyway?  Are these symbols virtual-reality ritual pits of charred grain as we find in archaeology?  Or are they more prosaic, more functional, blessing a mill, or a barn, or even more are they marking out an organised grain trade and distribution network of Pictland?  What other levels of meaning does this symbol hold?  Does it represent the king whose wellbeing and right governing affects the crops?
The symbol that first started me thinking about this solution was the goose.  One day the Archaeoptics page put up a photo of the Blackford goose stone with a view beyond it, across what looked suspiciously like a big wide swamp, stretching across to the mouth of Gleneagles.  A goose in a goose swamp – that’s straightforward I thought.  These days I know that in Pictish times this area was indeed a huge shallow lake stretching for miles, and even today migrating geese fly the wind here.  The lake even has a story of the queen who drowned in her boat.  The other goose symbol sat on what I now know is another massive shallow lake, Loch Spynie, which in historical times was famous as a resting place for thousands upon thousands of migrating geese.  This lake lay inland behind the huge naval fort of Burghead, and would also have served as a sheltered bay for ships and traders.  At its mouth lies another Pictish monastery with barrows and stones, a Pictish settlement at Clarkly Hill and beyond it on the coast is the Covesea cave used through many centuries for deposition of bones and heads.  Geese have a significant and complex place in Celtic mythology, holders of souls, companions of gods, taboo to eat, and much much more.  Was the goose the sacred bird which gave this whole place its significance?  A goose in a goose swamp merely hints at the magic of the story that lies behind it. 
‘Solving’ the mystery of the symbols will never be a simple matter, it will always merely open a door to more questions and mysteries.  The hope still remains that they form a systematic group, and that eventually we will learn enough to recognise that structure and be able to fill in the details and test the answers.

In the grounds of Newton House near Insch in Aberdeenshire are two Pictish monuments. One is an inscribed stone that also has an incised Pictish mirror symbol, and the other is a Pictish symbol stone with a notched double-disc above a serpent and z-rod symbol. The inscribed stone, commonly referred to as the Newton Stone, has an ogham inscription on one edge that continues onto an added stemline, and on the top front is a unique horizontal, six-line alphabetic inscription. This article examines the documentary record for these two monuments, which were moved from their original location in the 18th and 19th centuries respectively. Through analysis of the documentary evidence, and in comparison with the local geology, the area of the original findspot of the Newton Stone and associated symbol stone is identified. The original landscape of these stones is compared with the topographical features of other Pictish monuments, particularly those in Donside. This comparison reveals that the topographical and liminal features in the original vicinity of the Newton Stone and symbol stone correspond with the wider pattern of the siting of Pictish symbol stones and Pictish cemeteries, and the association between a potentially Pictish-age settlement and these monuments may be suggested through examination of local place-names.

This paper examines the iconographical background of Adam's skull beneath Christ's cross in Byzantine art, its appearance as a motif in Irish texts and its possible occurrence on two Pictish artworks, the Portsoy whetstone and the Dunfallandy cross-slab.

One of the most enduring and well-known aspects of early medieval Pictish society is the array
of carved stone monuments scattered across eastern Scotland. Amongst the stones’ imagery of
wild animals, mythical creatures, and abstract symbols, two familiar objects appear repeatedly: a
mirror, frequently accompanied by a comb. This image is an enduring, widespread, and popular
motif on monumental sculpture across Pictland. The mirror and comb design, appearing on both
Class I and Class II styles of carving, has been traditionally regarded as an expression of gender
and of an “intrinsic femininity” (Thomas 1963). Numerous writers have discussed possible
symbolic and semiotic meaning for the Pictish symbols, from totemic imagery to forms of
writing. Scholarly opinion, both antiquarian and recent, regularly cite this symbol as an indicator
of femininity, whether representing a female burial, commemorator, or lineage.
Drawing on an analysis of the 69 extant stones bearing a mirror or mirror and comb design, my
paper questions the nature of the information communicated through this symbol. Beyond the
stones themselves, their position in the landscape and any associated burials were also
considered. Additionally, the social meaning and symbolic importance of the material culture
objects being represented, the mirror and the comb, were examined. While the monuments
appear to have had important commemorative purposes, they also served other functions within
the wider landscape of Pictland, and the image of the mirror and comb was an important facet of
sophisticated, polyvalent statements inscribed on the stones. I argue that the mirror and comb
speaks more clearly to issues of status, identity, authority, and heritage. The symbol also conveys
important allusions to ancestral and possibly supernatural connections, as a means to assert
legitimacy and reproduce a desired social order. In this paper, I endeavour to move the reading of
the mirror and comb motif beyond simplistic narratives and to construct a more nuanced sense of
this intriguing expression of Pictish worldview.

[For: Thomas Pennant and Enlightenment Networks
A One-Day Research Workshop, Saturday 12th September 2015, University of Glasgow
Location: School of Critical Studies, Room 202, 4 University Gardens
Conveners: Prof Nigel Leask (University of Glasgow) and Dr Mary-Ann Constantine (CAWCS, University of Wales, Aberystwyth) ]

My 1995 field report of the rock art of Galloway, Scotland, which is dedicated to the late Ronald Morris, the pioneer of Scottish cup-and-ring art. The book offers a detailed inventory (of course out of date in 2016) of most petroglyph sites in that area that date (mainly) from the Neolithic Period to (rarely) the Iron Age. With numerous line drawings, maps and Plates.

This paper concerns the early medieval sculpture of the northern Picts, in particularly that which is centred on the Beauly and Moray Firths. This region is home to some of the most celebrated pieces of Pictish sculpture, for example the assemblages from Portmahomack and Rosemarkie and the Class One carvings from Knocknagael and Sittenham
A result of this ‘embarrassment of riches’ is that a substantial proportion of sculpture has largely remained absent from scholarly discussion. The sculpture from three sites Balblair, Convinth and Dores will be analysed along with the relevant archaeological, crop-mark and place-name evidence to highlight the importance of these three understudied sites, and in light of this study the importance of stray finds of sculpture in locating important secular and religious sites.
It will be argued that these three sites constitute undocumented and unexcavated places were objects of worship and symbols of power, such as the stone sculpture present at all three sites were being created and utilised.

The identification of particular Pictish symbols in relation to the symbolism of the Book of Jonah, and the use of Jonah as a type of Christ, in the tomb for 3 days, in Pictish art. Reference to other symbols with possible Christian meanings, particularly in the light of their occurrence on cross slabs.