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 Head To Head The Modern Antiquarian Scotland Forum | Start a topic | Search |
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thesweetcheat wrote: HD, I missed this excellent post previously, sorry. Lots of good stuff to investigate. By the way when I said Scotland was effectively prehistoric during the Pictish period, I mostly meant the Pictish period during the Roman occupation of the south, so "prehistory" carried on a little while beyond the usual TMA time constraints. I take it you mean from the 3rd Century (traditionally the start of the "Pictish period") until the mid/end of the 4th Century then? 250 years earlier, the King of Orkney journeyed down to attend the tribal submissions to Claudius at Colchester in AD 43. There is evidence of roman trading in the Orkneys even before that. thesweetcheat wrote: I think. For instance, are some of the hillforts not Pictish in date and occupation? I suppose it depends on what hillforts you mean and the use of the word "Pict"! Sorry I'm not trying to be difficult here but the word "Pict" was used so rarely (ie. only once) in the early historical period that the term is a difficult one for me to get my head round! The word "Pict" is now often used to refer to a group of people living in certain areas in the East and North East of Scotland. However, fine "Pictish" stones, jewellery, chains etc. have been found across Lowland Scotland from Galloway to Edinburgh (a massive silver "Pictish Chain" was found not far from me at Whitecleuch) indicating a more widespread presence than simply the North East. Bede wrote about how St Ninian had converted the "Southern Picts". Ninian was based at Whithorn on the southern tip of Galloway (Trusty's Hill Fort with its "pictish carvings" is close by). Many hillforts in Scotland were occupied during the period traditionally referred to as the "Pictish Period" (ie. 300 to 843 AD). Some of the hillforts near me (the valley at Kilbucho a few miles south of my kitchen window has 9 hillforts within an area of 3 square miles) will have been occupied during the "Pictish" period. But were they "Picts" occupying them? Who were (are) "the Picts"? The term "Pict" was used by Eumenius in 297 and is generally understood to mean someone North of the Wall (and that would be Hadrian's Wall as the Antonine Wall had been abandoned 150 years before Eumenius was writing). In other words a "Pict" was/ is.... "a Scot", "a Caledonni", "a Taexali" "a Verturiones" "a Venicones", " a Damnonni" (feel free to pick a generalised name or a more specific tribal group like those Ptolemy mentioned). It is acknowledged that the term "Pict" derives from "Pritani", "Qritani", "Cruthin" ie. "Brittanni" - the peoples the Romans called "britons". Indeed the word "Pict" was only ever written ONCE in the early historical period. That was by Eumenius. No-one else. So an awful lot of baggage has been attached to this single use of the word "Pict" by one guy. I think for many people looking at the "Pictish Period" in Scotland, which I suppose equates quite closely with what is sometimes termed "The Dark Ages" in England, the main difficulty is the lack of surviving written records. As I mentioned before, most of Scotland's written records and history was burned by King Edward and other English Kings. Yet, just like in England what does survive from this period is far from "Dark", we have beautiful illuminated manuscripts, incredible jewellery and some exquisitely carved stones (there is an amazing Pictish Stone at Inverurie which has some Ogham script on it). http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/images/l/1080173/ So... during the "Pictish" period some of Scotland's hillforts were occupied by the people living in Scotland at the time. While the legions were pulling out of London, St Ninian was packing his boat and sailing to Whithorn and Scotland's early ecclesiastical buildings were begun. Over the next few hundred years the various strands of what eventually became known as Scotland drew together as the kingdoms of Alba and Dalriada formed a peace with one another. The Angles were ousted from some of the territory they'd moved into in the South East and the Western Isles were occupied by the Danes in the 9th Century up until 1265. But these "Picts" seem to have been everywhere in Scotland. Check out this lovely "Pictish Treasure" from Shetland (yes Shetland!)! http://www.nms.ac.uk/highlight[...]/st_ninians_isle_treasure.aspx Reply | with quote |  23rd November 2012ce 19:13 In reply to: Re: Scotland's origins (thesweetcheat) |
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