Picts
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Recent papers in Picts
This essay reviews some of my own earlier publications relating to Scotland and attempts to place them within their wider intellectual environment.
- by Alex Woolf
- Alba, Picts, Viking Age, Moray
Abstract: Adomna´n’s Vita S. Columbae narrates a series of miracles relating to Columba’s visit to the Pictish king. One such tale describes Columba’s psalmody outside the Pictish king’s fort, where the saint’s thundering oration reduces... more
Introduction The Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles (PICTS) is a measure of the criminal cognitions and thinking styles that maintain offending. The scale comprises 8 a priori thinking styles and two validation scales,... more
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... more
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... more
This is a written up version of a paper delivered at a conference in Lerwick in 2008. Publication in an edited volume was supposed to follow within a year or two but has stalled so I am posting this here now. This Versionwas completed in... more
This is a draft version of an item I intend to publish in the near future. Any comments or corrections would be gratefully appreciated. It represents my thinking about a year and a half ago and there is much to be added.
The inscription found on one of the Newton stones has longed baffled experts. Some early scholars have tried to interpret the roman-like characters as Hebrew (George Moore, 1864) while others such as L. A. Waddell saw them as Phoenician... more
This is an Author's Original of an article published by Edinburgh University Press in The Innes Review, Volume 69 Issue 1 (2018), Pages 1-48, ISSN 0020-157x (Available Online May 2018). The Version of Record is available online at:... more
The Picts are now understood as the indigenous inhabitants of north-eastern Scotland in the early medieval period, corresponding to the area of distribution of Pictish symbol-bearing stones (broadly dated to the fifth to ninth centuries)... more
The population of the North Sea archipelago of Shetland, UK possesses a distinct sense of ethnic identity, which connects the island’s present-day community to that of its Old Norse/Viking settlers from Scandinavia. This sense of Viking... more
Through this paper, the author deals with the troubling historical episode known as the Barbarica Conspiratio that, in brief, implied a brutal barbarian attack by sea played by Picts, Scots, Saxons and Franks on the shores of continental... more
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... more
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... more
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... more
This note seeks to draw attention to some of the implicatiosn of recent work on Pictish identity by James E Fraser and to caution against essentialist thinking about the Picts and things Pictish.
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... more
In Viking Britain, Thomas Williams shows how the people we call Vikings came not just to raid and plunder, but to settle, to colonize and to rule. The impact on these islands was profound and enduring, shaping British social, cultural and... more
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' &... more
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... more
Paleo-Siberian Ket substrate might influence the Proto-Germanic language and remain in Britain as the Pictish language
The cross-slab from Hilton of Cadboll in Highland is one of the best-known early medieval sculptures in Britain. Archaeological excavations in 2001 (initiated and managed for Historic Scotland and its partners by Sally Foster) provided a... more
Uncorrected proofs of an article published in Vol. 50 of Studia Celtica. Discusses the changing nature of Roman ethnographic Britishness over the course of the imperial period, focusing primarily on the works of Tacitus and Cassius Dio.
Please note: due to journal copyright conditions I am only able to upload my original working paper. Visit the journal for the final version. Failure to achieve a consensus on a regular Easter cycle divided Christians in the second... more
An examination of the interplay between landscape, environment and colour on early medieval sculpture, specifically the Ruthwell Cross, Meigle 2 cross-slab and the Dupplin Cross with reference to performance and reception.
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... more
A critique and update of the author’s previous research into Pictish origins since the publication of Picts and Ancient Britons in 1998. Older theories that the Pictish tribes and their lost language were ‘Celtic’ no longer stand scrutiny... more
This article discusses the extent and history of two of the most frequently mentioned Pictish territorial terms found in Scottish and Irish sources, Circin and Mag Gerginn. These have previously been considered by most scholars to... more
RESUMEN El objetivo de este artículo es mostrar, a través de la clasificación, comparación y análisis de textos específicos clásicos y tardoantiguos griegos y latinos, cómo las fuentes antiguas sobre Britania e Irlanda están, tanto... more
Headstone TR33 from Tarbat Cemetery in Portmahomack presents an image that resembles a cross and also forms a rebus inscription similar to a Symbol Stone. It honors Olov IV, Defender of the Southern Border: Olov IV: Farewell from 10,000... more
Birnie Symbol Stone, a class-I symbol stone carved in 761 AD, stands beside the north entrance of Birnie Kirk Graveyard south of Elgin. The shape of the stone resembles the torso of a Roman general dressed in armor when seen three-quarter... more