The Neighbours Of The Picts

A British historian explores the mysterious Scottish culture of the Iron Age and Early Middle Ages whose enigmatic symbols adorn standing stones. The Picts were an ancient nation who ruled most of northern and eastern Scotland during the Dark Ages. Despite their historical importance, they remain shrouded in myth and misconception. Absorbed by the kingdom of the Scots in the ninth century, they lost their unique identity, their language and their vibrant artistic culture. Among their few surviving traces are standing stones decorated with incredible skill and covered with enigmatic symbols. The Pictish Stones offer some of the few remaining clues to the powerful and gifted people who bequeathed no chronicles to tell the sagas of their kings and heroes. In this book, Medieval historian Tim Clarkson pieces together the evidence to tell the story of this mysterious people from their emergence in Roman times to their eventual disappearance.

The Picts were an ancient nation who ruled most of northern and eastern Scotland during the Dark Ages. Despite their historical importance, they remain shrouded in myth and misconception. Absorbed by the kingdom of the Scots in the ninth century, they lost their unique identity, their language and their vibrant artistic culture. Amongst their few surviving traces are standing stones decorated with incredible skill and covered with enigmatic symbols - vivid memorials of a powerful and gifted people who bequeathed no chronicles to tell their story, no sagas to describe the deed of their kings and heroes. In this book Tim Clarkson pieces together the evidence to tell the story of this mysterious people from their emergence in Roman times to their eventual disappearance.

Once the dominant culture in the northern reaches of the British Isles, the Picts, renowned for the blue tattoos that gave them their name, were known as a formidable enemy by the armies of Roman Emperor Severus. Their prominence rose as early as 350 BC and continued until at least AD 900. Then, 1,100 years ago, they vanished from history. Although many consider them the predecessors of modern Scots, little is known about them outside of limited archaeological artefacts and mentions of them left by the Romans. In this thorough and compelling exploration of extant historical sources, we finally have a clearer picture of this enigmatic people. Clayton N. Donoghue argues that much of what we consider culturally Scottish actually has its roots in the Picts, and that they had a more dynamic and rich culture than previously thought. This book fills in the gaps and helps to paint a clearer picture of a people that the Romans considered ferocious savages living in a desolate and frozen waste land. As we now know, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

Early historic Scotland - from the fifth to the tenth century AD - was home to a variety of diverse peoples and cultures, all competing for land and supremacy. Yet by the eleventh century it had become a single, unified kingdom, known as Alba, under a stable and successful monarchy. How did this happen, and when? At the heart of this mystery lies the extraordinary influence of the Picts and of their neighbours, the Gaels - originally immigrants from Ireland. In this new and revised edition of her acclaimed book, Sally M. Foster establishes the nature of their contribution and, drawing on the latest archaeological evidence and research, highlights a huge number of themes, including the following: the origins of the Picts and Gaels; the significance of the remarkable Pictish symbols and other early historic sculpture; the art of war and the role of kingship in tribal society; settlement, agriculture, industry and trade; religious beliefs and the impact of Christianity; how the Picts and Gaels became Scots.

When the Romans came north to what is now modern Scotland they encountered the fierce and proud warrior society known as the Picts, who despite their lack of discipline and arms, managed to prevent the undefeated Roman Army from conquering the northern part of Britain, just as they later repulsed the Angles and the Vikings.A New History of the Picts is an accessible true history of the Picts, who are so often misunderstood. New historical analysis, recently discovered evidence and an innovative Scottish perspective will expose long held assumptions about the native people.This controversial text contests that Scottish history has long since been dominated and distorted by misleading perspectives. A New History of the Picts discredits the idea that the Picts were a strange historical anomaly and shows them to be the descendants of the original inhabitants of the land, living in a series of loose tribal confederations gradually brought together by external forces to create one of the earliest states in Europe: a people, who after repulsing all invaders, merged with their cousins, the Scots of Argyll, to create modern Scotland. All of Scotland descends from the fierce Picts.

During the 19th and 20th centuries a trail of chance finds on the outskirts of Portmahomack led to the first exposure in 1996 of a Pictish settlement in northern Scotland. The area became the subject of one of the largest research excavations ever to have taken place on the Scottish mainland. This book describes the discovery and excavation of an early monastery. Dating from the 6th to the 9th century AD Portmahomack is one of the earliest Christian sites to be revealed in Britain and the first in the land of the Picts. The monastery was destroyed between 780 and 830 AD and was then lost to history before being unearthed by one of the largest archaeological research projects ever seen in Scotland.

An extensively illustrated study of the origins of English and Scottish identity in the reading of classical texts which enabled authors and artists to imagine the character and appearance of their forebears. Richard Hingley relates ideas derived from Roman sources to the development of empire, and places theories of origin in a European context.

Stuart McHardy examines the Pictish symbols which have been discovered on various items across Scotland. The book sets out a cohesive interpretation of the Pictish past, using a variety of both temporal and geographical sources. This interpretation serves as a backdrop for his analysis of the symbols themselves, providing a context for his suggestion that there was an underlying series of ideas and beliefs behind the creation of the symbols.