Pictish History and Scottish Early Medieval History

The relationship of King Arthur to the Byzantine Empire is something akin to that of the missing years of Jesus being spent in India, & the Grand Tour of Europe made by William Shakespeare 1585-87. The evidence for Arthur's own travels & Gothic heritage lies scatter'd through the sources, & this paper attempts to place the scraps together to make some kind of cohesive outline of Arthur's connections to the Byzantine Empire.

Dunnottar Castle and church are set upon a rocky headland on the NE coast of Aberdeenshire, about 2 miles S of Stonehaven. It has been thought that the medieval castle has disappeared, while the surviving buildings are largely of the 14 th to 17 th C. However a close inspection of the ruins that cover an area of 3½ acres suggest reality could be very different.
My earlier attempt to load this missed most of the text, so I have reloaded.

This appendix to "Scottish Clans: Legend, Logic & Evidence" sets out to show that "Manuscript 1467" was fabricated at the behest of the Macdonalds around 1467 in an attempt to hide their Viking origins. They dragged many other clans along with them

This is a synopsis of my 2 volume work. It provides a new perspective on the origins of many Scottish Clans - identifying many of the lies fabricated to suit the necessity of the times and since believed and consistent with a sensible chronology. Supporting this there is a wholly new understanding of Pictish place names and of the origins of Heraldry, a rechronologising of Norwegian history covering the period 800-1015 together with a narrative overview of the politics of the Scotland of the day. Many people, such as Crinan and Duncan I's wife are identified for the first time.

Provides overview of textual evidence for the existence of organised Christianity in Orkney and the mainland north of the Oykel. Argues that we should see the region like the Hebrides not like Iceland, and that we have relatively strong evidence for the existence of at least one bishopric in the region in/around the 10th century, with bishops probably supplied from Scotland and England. Also suggests that the Celtic name of the see, at least in Latin form, survived into the late eleventh century as 'Blascona'.

Resistance to an intelligent interpretation of Ptolemy's geography of Scotland has created a milieu in which an approach to the prehistory/development of Pictland is impossible. With this problem addressed, sense can be made of evidence on the ground; the dynamics of political power and the results of unrecorded wars which led to the boundaries the confederated Pictish kingdom can be seen-not perfectly, but with a different order of magnitude of resolution. The hypothesis offered here builds upon and provides a possible context for data recently released about the archaeological explorations at Tap O' Noth. This version 2 corrects misallocations in the table for map 1

Gathering together can be a ceremonial reaffirmation of community across time and space, a natural and spiritual communion with the past and with the land. The process of assembly can assert ownership, celebrate, release tensions, redress grievances or give sanctuary. Bringing the extended community together on traditional land is a process whereby the place of each individual within the community and within the world is re-established and reinforced. Pictland, the kingdom of northern Scotland which flourished between the fifth and ninth centuries CE, sprang from a fusion of the indigenous tribes of the region. Its citizens probably gathered for all of the reasons just listed. The Picts left little written explanation for their choice of sites for gathering. Theirs was an oral culture that prided itself on memory skills, genealogies recited at length, and landscapes described in epic tales. Literacy was embraced only in the later stages of the Pictish kingdom, along with Christianity and the monastic tradition. 1 Although the burial of the Pictish king, Bridei mac Bili, on Iona around 593CE is indicative of Christian influence, the first verifiable acceptance of Christianity, and with it the written recording of activities, was Nechtan mac Derile's proclamation of compliance with the Roman Church in 710. 2 Applying a multidisciplinary approach to the search for assembly sites in the Pictish region has yielded a clearer picture than relying on history or archaeology alone. Examining archaeological, historical and onomastic data together allows us to build on current theories by highlighting hitherto neglected aspects of Pictish culture. In recent years the field of onomastics has illuminated the Picts' shared cultural heritage with the wider Celtic milieu whilst highlighting the indigenous marks left in the placename record. So while nemeton links the Picts with Celtic-speakers across Europe, pett (a parcel of land) sets them apart. The placename sites, unless accompanied by documentary and/or material evidence, were relatively neglected as sites of interest by researchers until recent years when onomastics proved a rich vein for investigating some of the sacred and celebratory functions of the Pictish community. The combination of the study of the etymological derivation of placenames with their topographical study can aid in revealing elements of sacred and administrative importance within the landscape. Pinpointing these sites of assembly is a beginning, for as Barry Raftery pointed out, 'the complexity of religious beliefs and practices often defies easy reconstruction from material remains … [as] archaeology tends to uncover only the end-products of … ritual activities …'. 3

Various 'Gunn Chiefs' are supposed to have lived before Coroner Gunn of Caithness (often wrongly called Crowner Gunn).  James De Gun  (James Gunn) Ingram Gunn and various knighted Gunns all fail the test of any historic  support for their existence.  And logic is also against the whole 'knighted Gunns' idea - Scottish knights in minor highland families did not exist at these times.

The first Gunn in history was Coroner Gunn, the Gunns before him are merely Victorian romantic fantasy. And there were never any historic Gunn Chiefs as Gunns are not a Clan based on descent from one individual - their name is a regional name by origin.

The excavation of Trusty's Hill in Galloway in 2012 revealed the archaeological context for the Pictish Symbols carved on to bedrock at the entranceway to the fort. This Pictish inscribed stone is unique in Galloway and has long puzzled scholars as to why the symbols were carved so far from Pictland. The archaeological context suggests the carvings relate to a royal stronghold and place of inauguration for the local Britons of Galloway around AD 600. Examined in the context of contemporary sites across Scotland and northern England, the archaeological evidence from Galloway suggests that this region may have been the heart of the lost Dark Age kingdom of Rheged, a kingdom that was in the late sixth century pre-eminent amongst the kingdoms of the north. The new archaeological evidence from Trusty's Hill enhances our perception of power, politics, economy and culture at a time when the foundations for the kingdoms of Scotland, England and Wales were being laid.

There is plenty of evidence to show how in the middle of the second millennium BC, groups near eastern peoples such as the Mitanni, the Kassites, & sub-groups such as the Manneans & the Gutians, were settl'd in what we now call Scotland. This then gives an appropriate background for the introduction of the Samothracian mysteries onto the island of Arran, where Machrie Moor is not only the single mult-zoned religious site on a British island, but whose etymology matches that of Demeter & Corrie.

Aka "Scotland, the Last Kingdom of the ancient Britons" and "The World of MacBeth mac Findlaich, King of Moray/Fortriu, King of Alba".

Politics north of the Firths were dominated by two dynasties of "Pictish" origin. Since the so-called Pictii were actually Britons who retained their pre-Roman culture, the kingdom of Alba and later of Scots could well be called the largest, most successful, and longest lasting of the kingdoms of the Britons. The Gaelic families who married into the Pictish kingdoms did not displace anyone at all, merely took over realms that already existed. This is the real story of the good king behind the character in Shakespeare's tragedy "Macbeth".

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.

Very superficially the legend of Cruithne and his seven sons may seem fair enough; a little less superficially it is clear that it is complete nonsense. But if, as this paper attempts to do, we dig deeper into the names and keep sensible time scales in mind then the legend can indeed tell us a great deal about the development of Scotland. This paper has been written with the particular intention of putting Fife in context.

A critical evaluation of published literature about the so called origins of the Morrisons in Scotland. The findings demonstrate the fallacy of the claims made about Norse origins and the name supposedly originating on the Isle of Lewis and Harris.

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

This Paper puts forward the extensive evidence that sites the famous Battle of Brunanburh at the Lancashire town of Burnley. A Brunanburh contender must connect in some way to the following ten bullet points.

FOUGHT IN ENGLAND
UP IN TH’ILLS
THE RIVER BRUN
ETYMOLOGY
A SAXON BURH
NOT TOO FAR FROM YORK
EARL’S NESS
VINHEATH
THE PLAINS OF OTHLYN
DINGESMERE

This paper shall show how the Burnley site fits more than well with all of the points, while at the same time revealing some long-lost nuances of Anglo-Saxon history.

Adomnán's sixth-century "Life of St. Columba" has often been used to "bolster" belief in the Loch Ness Monster, yet specific historical and cultural analysis of Adomnán tends to completely separate  Adomnán’s story about St. Columba from the modern myth of the Loch Ness Monster, and finds an earlier and more culturally significant use of Celtic “water beast” folklore along the way. Judicious application of Critical Theory and structural analysis can discredit any strong connection between kelpies and water-horses on the one hand and the modern “media-augmented” creation of the Loch Ness Monster on the other. Without St. Columba, the myth of the Loch Ness Monster falters,
for belief in the creature can be seen to rest upon several oft-cited but easily discredited foundations.

In this paper, the author assembles all the evidence which points to the Pictish Language originating with the Kassites, & how the aristocracy of that Bronze Age Tribe, & also the Mitanni & the Egyptian Hyksos, appear in the earliest strata of the Pictish King Lists.

Albanus, an eponymous ancestor for the kingdom of Alba, provides an example of the extent to which the creation of an ethnic identity was accompanied by new ideas about origins, which replaced previous accounts. Through an analysis of the Historia Brittonum’s textual tradition and Welsh knowledge of early Roman history and medieval ethnic groups, this article establishes that Albanus was added to the Historia Brittonum in the late ninth or early tenth century as an ancestral figure for the new kingdom of Alba in northern Britain. This was potentially a result of shared political situations in Gwynedd, Alba (formerly Pictland) and Strathclyde in relation to Scandinavian power at this time, which encouraged contacts and the spread of Alba-based ideology to Gwynedd. The later development of this idea and its significance in Alba itself, Geoffrey of Monmouth's account and English claims to supremacy over Scotland are also traced.

It would be useful to
present a single, generic pattern for a nemeton, but the landscape
evidence confounds me. Uniformity is a nice idea but should not
be expected, and indeed, in Pictland at least, is not supported by
the evidence. From the classical commentators we can infer that
there was a substantial clearing most likely within a grove of trees,
possibly with perishable artefacts, like wooden carvings, bone or the
like. Equally, a nemeton in Pictland seems to have been a clearing
on a riverbank that was reasonably flat, where people from nearby
would have been able to gain access by travelling up or down river.
Nemeta didn’t need to be signposted, as they were known by the
peoples who used them for hundreds of years. When Christianity
became the religion of choice in Pictland, nemeta made ideal sites
for situating a church, where the judgement of the new god could
become known.

A survey of the written evidence for attacks by Scotti on fourth-century Roman Britain provides a historical context for the introduction of two hitherto overlooked references to Scotti in the works of Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis on Cyprus (c. A.D. 315–403). Examination of Epiphanius’ Ancoratus and Panarion confirms that he inserted the ethnonym Σκόττοι into patristic source-material in the early 370s. These passages claim attention as unique testimony to the Scotti in Greek literature and the second earliest witness to this term in Roman sources. Their date prompts the conjecture that the barbarica conspiratio that beset Britain in A.D. 367–68/9 was a widely reported event even before its significance was magnified by Theodosian dynastic propaganda.

Keywords: Late Roman; Scotti; Irish; Epiphanius; Theodosius; Barbarian Conspiracy

Aboriginal languages of the Canarian Islands (Guanche) were clearly belonged to the Afro-Asiatic macro-family. However, in addition to the traditional idea of the Guanche languages as Berber-Lybian, the Guanche-Chadic links are demonstrated. 
Substrates in Sardinian include Basque-like, Basque-Caucasian, Basque-Caucasian-Afro-Asiatic, Afro-Asiatic, and Paleo-Balkan elements 
Pictish language might be close to the Siberian Yenisseian languages, cf. possible Yenisseian substrate in Proto-German and Hattic as a Sino-Caucasian language (of possible West European origin) closely related with Yenisseian. 
Remains of pre-Finno-Ugric substrate in Sami/Lappish (related to the I1 haplogroup?) demonstrate similarities with pre-Romanian substrate (related to the I2 haplogroup?). It might be a traces of an initial language of the I male haplogroup

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.

So far those seeking to discover the location of the Battle of Daegsastan (603) have adopted the wrong approach and so have come to the wrong answer(s). By giving due weight to military, geographical and political constraints a hitherto very surprising conclusion is reached - not only about its location (in Yorkshire) but also as to the identity of "Daegsa".

Five of my papers available on this site provide a completely new context within which to consider the legendary kings of the Picts-by which I refer to those before Vipoig (r. 312-342 AD). This paper takes that fresh look at the matter, concluding that while not fully accurate, the king lists offer us a more or less complete line of the Cruithnian kings of North West Scotland (they only first arrived on Orkney after c219 BC) and another almost entire list of the Caledonian line from the time they were defeated by the coalition of what I am characterising as the Coalition of Animal Tribes (around 200 BC). The list of "Brudes" is probably also fairly complete for the period for which it applies. There is much of value to be abstracted from these lists-and much more sense can be made of them when placed in this proper context. The paper also points to where intelligent further research could now be directed.

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.

Three words in Scottish Gaelic which appear to be loans from Pictish (preas, bad & dail) attest short vowels. In Brittonic (c.500-550) such vowels became lengthened due to the operation of the New Quantity System giving 'prys', 'bod' & 'dôl'. There is no good reason why such vowels should be shortened in Scottish Gaelic and it might suggest that the NQS did not operate in Pictish. The NQS is one of the numerous features of Brittonic directly derived from Late Spoken Latin. Such a linguistic conservatism would sit well with the historically justifiable view that Pictish is largely a somewhat less latinised form of Brittonic.

Any comments or corrections would be appreciated.

The Battle of White Hill (927), announced in version 1 of this paper had remained unidentified by history because of the fractured records of the times. Simeon of Durham recognises a battle of Wendune but erroneously conflates it with Brunanburh; the Skjald of Egil's Saga identifies it as Vin Heath. Apparent contradictions in the annals, part of which have arisen from conflation, are herein resolved. In this version 2, I also announce an earlier 1st Battle of Otterburn (926 "othlyn" in the Annals of Clonmacnoise). White Hill was a definitive victory for King Athelstan of Wessex. As the immediate result of the battle Athelstan reasserted control over Northumbria which he had annexed by fiat and then lost over the previous twelve months and in the treaty of Eamont Bridge, which followed hard upon this victory, the kings of Scotland and Strathclyde formally recognised Athelstan as king of all England and overlord of all Britain. As such I propose that this was the "First Battle of Britain". Without victory for Athelstan at this battle, there would have been no Battle of Brunanburh (937), so vaunted by the annalists. This paper sets this battle in its context, identifying the battlefield. This 2nd version of the paper builds on the fruits of the very active discussion of version 1. The author is grateful to the many contributors to the discussion who have made such a difference in firming up the proposition originally advanced and allowing several errors to be removed. The author hopes that the improvements will further enthuse local and, indeed, national bodies to preserve and memorialise such of the battlefield as remains otherwise undisturbed and take appropriate steps to recognise the forthcoming 1100th anniversary.

This paper, originally written two years ago, has been badly in need of updating in the light of the dramatically new understanding of early Pictish and Scottish history set out in papers I have written subsequently. What is new in this version of this paper is the identification of the Boresti as "The Dolphin Tribe" otherwise "The Moraymen".

The specific problem arose from a resistance to an intelligent interpretation of Ptolemy's geography of Scotland - creating a milieu in which an approach to the prehistory/development of Pictland is impossible. I addressed this problem in my book "Arthur: Legend, Logic & Evidence" - so now sense can be made of evidence on the ground; the dynamics of political power and the results of unrecorded wars which led to the boundaries the confederated Pictish kingdom can be seen - not perfectly, but with a different order of magnitude of resolution.

See this weblink for the Open Access online published version: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03044181.2022.2076723

Recent scholarship has become increasingly sceptical about the importance of Pictish identity in the first millennium A.D. It has been suggested that Picti was an external classical general label for people inhabiting northern Britain only adopted internally in the late seventh century. This article reviews the references to Picti in late antique and subsequent Insular sources from the late third century to A.D. 700. It proposes that the term was adopted in northern Britain by the end of the Roman period and maintained afterwards through the usage of Latin, due to imperial influence and conversion to Christianity. While not the only ethnic identity upheld in the region, the concept of Picti was used by the kings of Fortriu for their wider realm in the late seventh century because it was already known and significant.

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.

"Society for Medieval Archaeology Student Colloquium 2013

CALL FOR PAPERS

The first call for papers is now open for the Society of Medieval Archaeology Student Colloquium, to be held at the University of Aberdeen, 7-8th November 2013. The event aims to provide a platform for postgraduates and early career professionals to present and discuss their current research. This year’s event will also incorporate a fieldtrip and keynote lectures by Professor Neil Price and Professor Stefan Brink.

Papers from across the medieval period (5th-16th centuries AD) from all geographical areas are welcomed. Papers from subjects other than archaeology but which have a broader medieval significance will also be considered.

Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be sent to medieval.archaeology@googlemail.co.uk. The deadline for all paper abstract and poster submissions is Friday 6th September.



Please see the attached flyer or  visit http://www.medievalarchaeology.co.uk/index.php/events/conferences/sma-pg-colloquium-leaflet/  for more details."