The Ancients - The Picts

Episode Date: June 18, 2023

Emerging around the 3rd century CE and later designated official adversaries of the Roman Empire, the Picts wreaked havoc across the northern fringes of Roman Britain. But due to their limited presence in the archaeological record and the complexities of multiple kings, kingdoms, and languages involved, unravelling the true identity of the Picts and understanding why Rome harboured such animosity towards them can be challenging. So what sources can archaeologists turn to, and what does it show us about ancient Scotland?In this episode, Tristan welcomes Professor Gordon Noble from the University of Aberdeen to shed light on the enigmatic culture of the Picts. By examining Imperial sources, ancient artwork, and even the earliest known form of daily 'tweets', what insights can we gather about the Picts? And why have they been obscured by the passage of time?You can take part in our listener survey here.Discover the past on History Hit with ad-free original podcasts and documentaries released weekly presented by world renowned historians like Dan Snow, Suzannah Lipscomb, Lucy Worsley, Matt Lewis, Tristan Hughes and more.Get 50% off your first 3 months with code ANCIENTS. Download the app on your smart TV or in the app store or sign up at historyhit.com/subscribe.

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and in today's episode, well, we're going back to ancient Scotland to talk about one of the most mysterious and enigmatic people of ancient Britain. A people that were also considered the bane of Rome in the north. I am of course talking about the Picts. The Picts are associated with striking art such as these beautiful carved stones called the Pictish stones. Just look up Pictish stones and you'll see what I mean.

They are absolutely stunning. But overall, I think it is fair to say the archaeological evidence for the Picts is limited. However, more recently, these extraordinary professors and archaeologists, especially in the north of Britain and Scotland, are unearthing more information about the Picts. And to explain all about our current knowledge about the Picts, well, I was delighted to interview one of the figures right at the forefront of this new research. He is Professor Gordon Noble from the University of Aberdeen. Now, Gordon, he has been leading excavations at striking Pictish sites, Now Gordon, he has been leading excavations at striking Pictish sites such as the massive hill fort at Tap O'Noth near the village of Riney in Aberdeenshire.

This was a fascinating chat and I really do hope you enjoy. So without further ado, here's Gordon. Gordon, it is wonderful to have you on the podcast today. Oh, thanks for inviting me, Tristan. It's great to be here. You're very welcome. And anyone who knows me will know that any chance to talk about ancient Scotland or prehistoric Scotland, I will jump at. So it's wonderful to get you on the podcast to talk about the Picts. They're such a fascinating people, aren't they, Gordon? But they almost seem the name that's surely amongst the most elusive people who lived in the island of Britain in the first millennium AD. I think so.

You know, we've made leaps and bounds in the last couple of decades in terms of uncovering new sites and new information. But I think we're still light years behind what we know of, say, late Roman or early medieval England or early medieval Ireland, for example. So we've still got a lot of progress to make. So there is still that elusive and mysterious element to the Picts, I would say, for sure. And in some ways, long may that continue to an extent in terms of it really does attract people to studying the Picts and getting interested in Pictish research. But that's what's also so fascinating, Gordon, what you highlighted there, and that's, you know, the last couple of decades in particular,

there's so much that's been discovered, so much archaeological work that is revealing more about these people too. Absolutely. My background was in history of art where I did my degree in that subject and we did a little bit on the Picts there in terms of looking at their art styles and part of the broader insular art traditions that kind of thing and I almost went straight off to do a PhD in Pictish archaeology straight after my history of art degree. But people warned me. They said, you know, don't do that. There's nothing to find out. There's no archaeology. There's no point, really, in trying to do that.

And you'll just get lost, really, in things like the symbols. And, you know, you'll find yourself at a dead end quite soon. So it's really nice to have all this new information and to show the possibilities of actually having a more developed archaeology and history of the Picts so it's exciting times indeed. Well let's delve into all of this. We're going to get to the archaeology very soon but I mean let's start with the types of sources that we have for these people. What range of sources are available for us Gordon? So in terms of our histories, we really only have one

series of documents and that's the Pictish king lists in terms of native or indigenous documents and that's pretty much as it's described, it's a list of kings. But it does have this fascinating origin myth appended to it which talks about Cruithne, the father of the Picts, and he has seven sons which have names like Feef or Fife or Kate for Caithness. So that's how we have a broad understanding of the kind of geographical spread of the Pictish kingdoms. But other than that it's external sources. So in our early period it's Roman sources, so our first references in AD early period, it's Roman sources. So our first reference is in AD 297. And then throughout the 4th century, there's repeated references to the Picts, usually in a negative way in terms of causing havoc north and south of the Roman frontier.

And then in the post-Roman period, it's sources like Bede, Athavans, Life of Columba, and also the Irish Annals which have you know the tweets of the day you know sort of one-liners about certain Pictish kings dying or certain battles the Picts are involved in so it's very slim sources indeed in terms of our our histories and then in combination with that has been the slimness of the archaeological record So the first book that I came across on the Picts Was this famous book, or infamous almost From the 1950s, The Problem of the Picts

And in there, Wainwright Who's the editor of the volume Talks about, you know, there's no problem In Pictish archaeology Because there's no archaeology of the Picts, or I paraphrase. But basically, that was the situation. There were so few burials, there were so few settlement sites that you could really associate. And that's still a big problem.

There's still very few settlement sites, for example, and relatively few well-excavated or preserved burial sites as well. So that was part of the attraction I think for me despite the kind of people warning me off studying the pics was you know what can we do in terms of the archaeology to actually change this situation and try and overturn that long-standing situation of the lack of resources and sources for understanding the pics Well, we are going to probably spend the lion's share of this interview talking about all of that archaeology. But I want to keep on that literature for a bit longer because you did mention that mythological origin story surrounding the Picts.

What is this mythology surrounding the Picts and where they come from? Well, there's lots of strands to that. So the name is probably a Roman name suggesting that they're painted or tattooed so it's this classic image of the Roman understanding of the barbarians in terms of their tattoo, their painted, their different, their other, their non-Roman. So clearly that's part of the kind of mythology and interest of the Picts is that kind of coining of the term and certainly in terms of their neighbors that is the term they adopt to describe the people north of the frontier and laterally in the post-roman period

we don't know whether the Picts themselves called themselves that but it seems likely that they did or at least adopted that term later on and then in terms of their origins there's various origin myths about them coming from Ireland and the most fanciful one is them coming from Scythia which is what Bede describes and I can only presume that that's you know indication of the kind of sources that Bede is able to access in that time period he's reading classical references and sources and the like, and perhaps comes across a reference to the Scythians being tattooed or painted. And he puts two and two together to get five and describes the Picts as also coming from that part of the world. that part of the world but you know every people every community in you know late roman and post roman britain ireland had some sort of fanciful origin myth some more fanciful than others again

we don't have the pics voice to say what they thought but yeah again it adds to the kind of romance and interest i think in tracing pictish origins and trying to understand more about the evolution of that society. I mean could there be any kernel of truth behind this idea of these people coming from a distant shore let's say like the Vikings or the Angles and the Saxons or do we think now that they are an indigenous people and they are like the successors of Iron Age communities like the Maiatai or the Caledoni that we hear of earlier occupying the island of Britain, Northern Britain? Well I think people had long dismissed the idea of them coming from Scythia for sure but it's not to say that there couldn't be more closer to home migration

streams that would at least contribute to Pictish society but I I think in general, people have expected them to have at least some relationship to the Iron Age communities that existed in that early Roman period. And we just published with colleagues this study on ancient DNA, which is amongst the first to really look at individuals from Pictland and looking at their genetic signature. And what that showed was that the genes are certainly distinctive to this part of the world. So they're different to what you find in England. They have some broad similarities to places like Ireland, Western Scotland and Western Britain. And the individuals seem to share broad origins and relationships to the Iron Age communities who lived in Britain. So it's really beginning to kind of cement the picture of, you know, the Picts being a local evolution or development of the societies who lived in that Iron Age and early Roman period.

Well, there you go. It's as you say, it's not just archaeology that's now revealing more about them, but also science as well, genomic data. It seems that when you mentioned the word Picts, you can seem to cover quite a large area of Scotland. This might be a too difficult question to answer, but do you have any rough idea where were the heartlands of the Picts? Do we know what part of Scotland they almost spread out from almost. Yeah so it seems to largely describe people who live north of what became the Antonine Wall so north of the Firth of Forth present day regions like Fife, Perthshire, Aberdeenshire up to the Highlands and we think probably also including the Northern Isles certainly Orkney probably Shetland and probably the Northern Isles, certainly Orkney, probably Shetland, and probably the Western Isles, although our sources for places like the Western Isles don't really come on stream until the 13th century or later, really. So it's always difficult to tell. But in terms of things like place names, saints' names, distribution of things like Pictish symbol stones, it broadly correlates with that area so again

north of first of fourth up to the western isles and up to the northern isles you mentioned different kingdoms but should we view the Picts even let's say in the late antique period before the early medieval let's say after 500 AD should we view the Picts all as one people or a group of different peoples well again that's uh difficult to say for sure. I think there definitely would have been different language groups and different communities, regions, political identities. We have some evidence for regional kings so in Atherban's Life of Columba for example which is either you know depicting in the late 6th century or late 7th century when Atherban's writing. He talks about King Berthay, a powerful Pictish king,

living at or near the mouth of the River Glens, up near Inverness somewhere. And in his court, he has a sub-king or a little king of the Orkneys. king of the Orpneys. So you can see already by that time period that the Picts had, you know, quite an extensive control over large regions of Scotland, including maritime connections and perhaps maritime control over places like the Orpneys. So yeah, it's one of the unusual things about the Picts is that their kingdom seems to be relatively extensive compared to, for example, if you look at the medieval Wales or Ireland, where you've got hundreds of petty kingdoms and small-scale kingdoms. The fact the Picts were able to have this quite extensive area of land and landscape under the control of an overking, certainly by the 7th century,

is quite interesting. Well come on then let's keep talking about the early Picts let's not go too far into the medieval period or God medieval and Matt Lewis will they won't be very happy indeed but we've got plenty to talk about let's go Picts versus Rome Picts versus Romans because what are our first literary mentions of the Picts? What's their context? Well, the first one, I'd say, is in that 3rd century context. And then they are referenced in things like imperial sources listing enemies of Rome, for example. And then they're involved in various campaigns against the Romans.

And most notably, in AD 367, they're involved in the barbarian conspiracy when they get together with the Scots and the Saxons and other groups and raid into Roman Britain and cause havoc for an extended period of time. And so it shows you the reach and the power of the Picts in that fourth century context. And it's really interesting if you think about the development of Pictish society. And again, we have to rely on pretty limited sources. But what's quite striking is that in our early Roman sources for northern Britain, things like Ptolemy's maps,

you get lots of different groups mentioned, tribal groups or whatever you want to call them, more than a dozen names. But by the time we get to the third and fourth centuries, it begins to reduce. So you've got the Caledonii and the Maetii. And then laterally, it's really only the Picts that get mentioned on a regular basis. So what might be happening, as you find elsewhere on the frontier, is that the Romans are almost creating their own downfall in terms of creating these more unified groups at the edge of empire

who are actually able to come together and actually resist Roman rule and ultimately help bring that empire down or at least cause it serious trouble. It's really interesting in the sources how you do get the portrayal of the Picts as you know being the enemies of Rome and I must therefore also ask about this extraordinary artifact that I don't believe it's from Britain but it relates the Picts you probably know I'm going to talk about the dice tower because what exactly is it

it does look remarkable from images yeah yeah so it's from the the German frontier and it's a Yeah, yeah. So it's from the German frontier and it's a bronze object, a dice tower. You know, you throw your dice at the top and it falls down the steps and it's part of a gaming tradition. And on the side of it in Latin, it says the Picts are defeated, play in safety. So it shows that that Pictish identity isn't just a very regional one found or only relevant to the northmost frontier. It's clearly an identity that is having a wider currency as a kind of noted enemy of Rome. So that's one of the reasons we began to toy with this kind of provocative title of our latest book, The Scourge of Rome, which is probably maybe slightly overblowing it, but certainly they were a noted enemy of Rome, and it is something that you get repeated throughout

the fourth centuries, the Picts causing trouble north and south of the frontier, and getting together with these other barbarian groups. And it's really interesting in terms of, again, if you think about, you know, how did those barbarian groups actually communicate then perhaps it might be through individuals who served in the Roman army and picked up Latin and were able to communicate with one another again to kind of come together to resist Roman rule and to try and get some of that power and wealth for themselves it's a really really interesting process isn't It really is. And it's fascinating to think that perhaps, you know, the Picts were almost the bogeymen of the Romans, as you said,

with the dice game, and then being well-known beyond the north of Britain, but almost saying to a Roman soldier, you know, don't misbehave or you'll get sent to Hadrian's Wall or whatever and you'll have to deal with facing with this terrible enemy in the north. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's a good description.

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So the beard is actually a form of excrement. In other words, not just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors. Twice a week, every week. Listen and follow on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If we keep moving on, therefore, because you did mention a bit earlier about Pictish societies, what is the archaeology revealing about the types of settlements that these early Picts in the late antique Roman, ancient Britain period, what is the archaeology revealing about the types of that these Picts lived in? Yeah, well, again, that's been one of the big problems about the Picts is finding their settlements. And that's a situation that really begins to become a big problem around

about the third century, you know, exactly the time period in which the Picts are first mentioned. So for Northern Britain, particularly north of the Antonine Wall, our settlement record really just falls off the radar in terms of you know we go from a situation where we have hundreds of of roundhouses hillfort settlements from the iron age to a situation where we you know have virtually no unenclosed settlement from that kind of third century onwards with a few exceptions but really it is a big big shift and that had led people down the road of actually questioning and that whole idea of the Picts being a kind of amalgamation and coming together of groups to create a kind of more powerful group people began to argue opposite you

know this was a big collapse in society and the like and I think the problem is the way that Picts built their structures is very difficult to recover archaeologically. So where we do find them, places like hill forts or places that haven't been ploughed, then we find these really ephemeral structures, which were turf walled, probably cruck frames. So you can imagine in a lowland context, you know, that a single season of modern ploughing would just completely remove them. So that's one of the big challenges really is finding the settlements. But we have began to make progress on that note. So we've been looking at a lot of hill forts and promontory forts, because again, that's probably where it's going to

survive. And we've began to find a lot more sites, particularly ones, or what's most interesting, is the ones that actually broached that traditional divide between the late Roman and early medieval period. And that's becoming much, much more obvious, is that there's much greater continuity between these traditional divides than we had probably countenanced. So at sites like Dunacare,

which is a coastal promontory site, we've got settlement there from the 2nd century through to the 4th century, maybe earliest 5th century. And that's the site type, promontory forts, which really become a big thing in the post-Roman period and seem to be elite centres in some cases. And you can imagine that's the kind of site that they might also be launching raids on the Roman Empire from these coastal locations. But really the kind of real eye-opener in terms of our understanding of

Pictish settlement and late Roman into post-Roman context has been our work at Tabanoth, which is a site just overlooking the village of Riney, about 40 minutes west of Aberdeen, so up in northeast Scotland. And we've been excavating at Riney for about 10 years, and we found this very high status, probably an early royal centre of the Picts. And that in itself extends back into the late Roman period, so probably starting in the 4th century and going through to the 6th century. So that in itself is fascinating.

So again, it shows the kind of late Roman foundations for some of these elite centres of the Picts. But then just before lockdown in 2019, we began working on this huge hill fort at Tappanoth, which overlooks Rhinie. And it was always being assumed it was going to be late Bronze Age or early Iron Age. And, you know, to be honest, we were largely over that opinion as well. And it's a huge hill fort. It's about 17 hectares in extent. So that's the second largest in the whole of northern Britain.

It looks extraordinary just online. It's massive. 17 hectares in extent so that's the second largest in the whole of northern britain it looks extraordinary just online it's massive yeah and uh it's well previous survey work has just there was a few hundred house platforms inside but using lidar imaging and drone based imagery my colleague james driscoll identified more than 800 of these house platforms inside this enclosure. So incredible settlement. And so we tested this in 2019, and we put a section across the rampart, and we dug a couple of the house platforms. And already in that kind of early days of digging there,

we were like, well, there's a lot of objects here that look really like the objects down at Rhinie. But we were like, oh, maybe it's just gonna a little bit later reuse and then we got the radiocarbon dates back just before the kind of first major lockdown I've never been so surprised by some radiocarbon dates in my life so they were second century through to sixth century so they were directly contemporary with what we had down down in the lowlands. And we were like, wow, that's quite something.

But obviously, you know, we'd only dug two of the house platforms. So we were like, all right, well, we need to increase the sample. And so that was massively delayed by COVID. And, you know, we're still working there. But now we've dug, I would say, at least a dozen more house platforms. And every one of them is of that date so we've got late roman dates particularly third fourth century through to the sixth maybe into the seventh century so again it's just really eye-opening gone from a settlement record of i think literally if you're being generous a couple of dozen structures from lowland eastern

Scotland in that kind of late Roman to post-Roman period to a site that potentially has 800 or more in one location. So really it just again makes you wonder about the scale of society in that late Roman through to the kind of late antique period, and about our models of, you know, social collapse, and that needs to be reworked. And again, maybe that idea of centralization is actually what's happening in that late Roman period. And it might be another reason why it's so difficult to find settlement is because you are getting centralisation at some of these sites.

But whether they are year-round settlements or whether they're kind of assembly places where you come at particular times of year to give tribute to your king or your late Roman leader is difficult to know. And it's something we're trying to figure out and get some ideas on. Right, because my next question was going to be like, what do we think the purpose figure out and get some ideas on right because my next question was going to be like what do we think the purpose of a massive place like tapo north is like do you think it's associated with defense or is this a symbol of power and majesty like maybe maiden castle further south and iron age hill fort or you know is it all year round we the purpose of this amazing center pictish center it's still a bit unclear from the archaeology that you've done so far. Yes, it is a real head-scratcher in terms of trying to figure out its role.

So we do have, you know, in our medieval sources, reference to sites of assembly where you come and give tribute to your king and the like. But in terms of, you know, the archaeological signature of those, those are generally thought to be open-air sites with not much in the way of infrastructure or settlement. So if this is an assembly site, it's an altogether different scale to what we knew before. And also there's some elements of the archaeology there that might argue against that in terms of

the sheer investment in that hill fort is incredible. So the rampart around it is about four meters wide, a meter high, and it supported a palisade, which, you know, if that goes all the way around, that's one and a half kilometers of timber you would have to find to build that defense or enclosure. And then inside, you you know all the platforms are quarried into the hill slope there's well-developed floor layers multiple hearths you know five six hearths built up on top of one another so again it's you know it doesn't really strike you as somewhere that's just being used for you know a couple of days per year. But you might have both. You could have smaller communities living there year-round,

and that's augmented by people coming at certain times of the year. But, yeah, no, it's really hard to get our heads around. And if it is a more year-round settlement or a large-scale settlement, then how is that actually resourced? And in that case, you would have to think that it that actually resourced and in that case you would have to think that it's been resourced by a much bigger polity who are indeed you know giving tribute to the to the people living in this landscape and allowing them to live in this you know fairly marginal landscape today but equally one that's got access to you you know, great resources down in the valley.

It's a very rich agricultural area, despite being kind of on the edge of the Cairngorms. And then it's got access to the kind of hunting, traditional hunting grounds up in the uplands as well. So the short answer is we don't know how it functions in society, but we're having great fun puzzling through all the different possibilities. And that's just amazing to be in that situation full stop. Because, you know, if you told us a few years back that we'd, you know, kind of overnight find a site that had 800 houses from the, you know,

late Roman, immediate post-Roman period, you know, I think it just would have been nonsense, really. It's amazing, isn't it? I mean, I've got to ask about artifacts themselves discovered there. I mean, actually, of course, you've got the Trapane treasure and Trapane law further south, which kind of shows that connection between that local people and the Roman Empire.

Have you found any evidence from atop Taponoth that shows connections, trade links with the Roman Empire at that late time in its ancient history? Yes and that's you know before we dug there there were a few objects from Tappanoth which were quite unusual and suggested Roman contact and from the house platforms we're finding Roman objects, Roman pottery, things like Nean Valley, colour-coated pottery and bits of Roman glass. Not huge, huge quantities, but again, if you think about the site being 200 kilometres north of Hadrian's Wall, it's amazing. We're finding anything, really. thing really so it is suggesting again those contacts with the roman world extend way beyond than what we thought before into an area that we had very very few roman finds from before but now

now done a care we got a few roman finds there so i think you know again the picture can maybe change quite quite rapidly and then in the kind of post-roman period we have at Riney down in Loland we've got pottery coming from the Mediterranean late Roman amphora which is the first time that material has been found that far north and we actually got a couple of shares of that material from Tappanoth as well right near the top of the hill fort so about 550 meters above sea level they were lugging these big probably wine amphora knowing the pics up to the top of this hill and clearly drinking mediterranean wine which again if you said that a few years back i think you know it would have just again seemed crazy to even think think of such things absolutely these pics drinking wine from amphora atop a massive hill in aberdeenshire

who'd have thought it is remarkable because I think when most people think Picts they will think you know the Anglo-Saxon period they'll think early medieval Britain and of course that you know it is early medieval Britain that you see the Picts reach their zenith but it is so fascinating how this recent archaeological evidence it's pushing the Pictish story back into the late antique period in Britain too. Our mind might immediately go to Pictish stones so beautifully carved, once again associated with a medieval period.

Do we think that actually maybe these stones, these artefacts may have their origins further back in the late antique period too? We think so. So this came from our work at Dunacare. So this is this promontory fort just south of Aberdeen, next to a famous castle called Dunottar Castle, which itself has references in the early medieval period to being under siege in the Viking Age as well. And just along from that castle, which is a huge, pretty big promontory, you can imagine would be quite impressive,

promontory fort, presumably presumably in the Pictish period there's this very small sea stack just next bay to the north and from that site in the 19th century sounds like a lot of fantastical story a bunch of youths from the nearby village

got talking to the local gravedigger who said that there was gold buried on top of the sea stack so you know in days before television they were like right let's go find this out and it's quite a dangerous spot to get to you have to scrabble up the the cliffs essentially and they got on top and they started digging they didn't find any gold but they found these carved stones which look like the kind of classic later and indeed are the medieval traditions of this symbol tradition but they're quite rough and ready and so they're always thought as being you

know either quite expedient or or early examples of this tradition but no one had visited the site or no one had investigated this site since that discovery in the 1830s. And when they found these stones, they say that they found them from a low stone wall along the edge of the sea stack. So that gave us the target. So in 2015, we went up, climbed on top, which is one of the scarier, more adventurous archaeological expeditions I've been involved in,

and we dug some test bits. And again, we had no real expectation of what we might find but I did wonder whether it could be part of a promontory fort but incredibly eroded so and that turns out what it was it was a promontory fort but it's been very extensively eroded because it's quite a soft conglomerate rock so it looks like you know we've lost a huge huge chunk of land essentially but what was left was part of the rampart for the fort and that was the kind of classic timber laced rampart and that appears to be where the stones came from so

built into that rampart fort and then inside we had lots of buildings and structures, hearths, Roman finds and again it was a really surprising series of dates because Prometheforts are kind of classic early Iron Age or post-Roman phenomena in Northern Britain and then we go to the dates back and they were 2nd, 3rd, 4th century AD

Wow! and they made us think oh god, what about these stones from the ramparts we're able can't date stones but we're able to date the rampart makeup from you know the charred timbers of the timber lacing that kind of thing and the dates there were third fourth century so we can't prove it for sure but it seems likely that those stones are third fourth century built into this rampart. And it makes sense of that early association of this kind of quite rough and ready carving. But at the

same time, it's the classic symbols you find later on. It's the crescent, it's the double disc symbol, it's the fish which you find on these later stones. So although they're not carved particularly expertly, they are the same tradition as this later manifestation. So, could it really be 3rd or 4th century? It makes a lot of sense in terms of if you think about what's the most likely origin for a symbolic system and a carved stone tradition would be in the Roman period. And that's what you find in Ireland in terms of the Aum tradition.

That's what you find in Scandinavia. In those two cases, they're more directly adopting a Latin-inspired tradition. But again, it's in that kind of late Roman period that they're doing that because of contact with literate cultures to the south. So it seems very likely that it is a late Roman tradition or you know could even extend earlier than that but I think our best evidence so far of that early origins is the evidence from Danicaire and we certainly have evidence now that it's certainly a vibrant tradition in the fifth and sixth centuries through our work at Rhynie and dating objects from the Orkney Isles as well. I'll mention Rhynie in a bit because I've got the Rhynie man in my notes, which I feel I need to ask about too before we completely wrap up.

But I mean, these symbol stones, they are so iconic of Pictish culture, aren't they? Do we have any idea what their purpose was? Short answer is no. The longer answer is, well, this is, again, one of the things that people said to me when I first started getting into the Picts was like, well, definitely don't do that PhD on the symbol tradition, because, you know, that's where madness lies. And again, you won't go anywhere. And there's lots of craziness surrounding it. So, you know, it's a tradition that's been recognised since the mid-19th century and associated with the Picts around about that time. It's found in the Pictish regions, as far as we know,

in areas north of the Antonine Wall. And it has a range of symbols. Some of them are animals or objects, but many of them are abstract things like these double disks or the crescents, these strange kind of tower-like symbols almost. So, you know, it's been a real puzzle since they were first rediscovered, I guess, in the 19th century. You know, what on earth do these mean?

And you can imagine there have been lots and lots of ideas about what they might mean. What we can say is that there's no local or regional concentrations of symbols, so they're unlikely to be territorial markers. They're found in presumably pagan contexts, if indeed they go back into 3rd, 4th century, and even in the 5th century, places that are highly likely to be pagan. But they're also later found on Christian monuments. So it seems unlikely that they're pagan symbols per se. It's something that was appropriate in both contexts. So people have, in the last couple of decades, particularly through the work of Ross Sampson and Catherine Forsyth have began to look at these as maybe kind of being part of a

symbolic system that might indicate something like names or status. So if you look on the later monuments, you see individuals on horseback or sitting on chairs, and they're labeled by these symbols, and they're usually one or two symbols. So if it is, you know, representing part of a written language or something along those lines, then the message must be really short. So if it is representing part of a written language or something along those lines, then the message must be really short. So names does seem most likely. And if we look at the Ogham tradition or

the Runic tradition in Scandinavia, even though they are based on the Latin tradition, so they could write whole novels using the Ogham or the Runic tradition in general particularly in the early period they are names so it does again

seem likely that's what the symbols are representing but what's really interesting about the Pictish tradition is that they're definitely not using the Latin alphabet so again it's a very non-Roman maybe deliberately so tradition as far as what their epics

are innovating. So again, that's really, really interesting. And I think I'm in broad agreement, it must be some sort of identity marker, and naming tradition does seem most likely. But unless we find a Rosetta Stone, we're not going to know for sure. And I'm kind of almost like,

maybe we shouldn't find a Rosetta Stone because, again, part of that kind of mystery and drive to find out more might be lost if you knew it was something really dull. Yeah, who knows? Who knows? Who knows? A Pictish Rosetta Stone, who sees? Well, come on then, before we have to completely wrap up, I will ask you quickly about the Rhiney Man because you mentioned Rhiney a few times and this particular simple stone is unique and extraordinary. So quickly, because we don't have much time, what is the ryan man that we've got here well actually i think we can probably credit the ryan man was really inspiring the whole project because it was the first site that we really worked on so the ryan man is this carved stone was found in 1978 by the farmer ploughing his field, going happily

about his business and hitting this huge stone with his new plough, and uncovered this stone with this carving of this man, or maybe man, or figure, mythical figure maybe, and they are carrying an axe over their shoulder, this really thin shafted axe, and they've got big pointy teeth and they're wearing a kind of tunic so again there might be you know a god or a mythical figure or hero figure of some kind and so it was part of that discovery that really inspired the project and in the same year it was found 1978 the regional archaeologist and Ian Ralston flew over the site and took some aerial photographs of the find spot and revealed this crop mark enclosure

round about where there's a current Pictish stone that's still unusually standing in its original position called the cross stain. And so we set about to find out more about these enclosures and try and date those and see if they were contemporary with the stones. And again, we had no real concept of what we might find. We thought we might find a few burials or the like. And it turns out this was this incredibly high-status settlement

of the 4th to the 6th centuries AD. Basically, the cross stain, and maybe the rainy man, because we found another stone socket next to the cross stain, were standing at the entranceway to this enclosure complex, which would have had a big wooden palisade, and inside we found the kind of foundations of big wooden buildings. And the artifact assemblage was just quite incredible. It had this late Roman amphora, it had glass from Western France,

it had glass from Anglo-Saxon England, and huge amounts of production evidence, things like crucibles, moulds, including objects that resemble what you see in the stones. Again, we're not able to date the stones, but again, able to make a close association between stones and archaeology. So we found a little miniature axe that resembles the axe the writing man carries. We found little moulds for making animal figurines that resemble the animals you see on the Pictish stones. And again, that helped us kind of put the chronology of the symbol tradition on more firm footing

in terms of definitely an operation in that 5th and 6th century and perhaps 4th century context of the Rhinie site. So yeah again it was a real eye-opener of you know what you can find if you actually look at some of these sites and find spots of monuments like the Rhinie Man. Well exactly and it bodes really exciting for the future for archaeological work going forwards to learn more about the Picts and how far back they stretch into late ancient history. Gordon this has been absolutely fascinating and I've no doubt people listening have also found this so so interesting. Last but certainly not least as we wrap up now you have written a book, a very recent book with updated information about the state of archaeology about the Picts which is called? Picts, Scourge of Rome, Rulers of the North. Well there we go. Gordon it just goes for me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today. Thanks Tristan.

Well there you go there was Professor Gordon Noble explaining all things the Picts. I hope you enjoyed that episode. I really enjoyed recording that one. Anything Scotland in either prehistory or ancient history, and maybe even into the early medieval period too, you know me, I'm there. It's just such a fascinating area of the world with an incredible ancient history. Last things from me, you know what I'm going to say. If you've been enjoying the ancients episodes recently, whether it's the Picts or the First Spears or Boudicca or Australopithecus or any of those recent episodes and you're thinking, you know what, I'd love to give something back to the Ancients. I'd love to help out. Well, you know what you can do. You can leave us a lovely rating on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, wherever you get your

podcast from. It really helps us as we continue to grow the podcast. But also, regardless, to share these amazing stories from our distant past with you and with as many people as possible. That is our mission and we will continue doing that for as long as we can. But that's enough from me and I will see you in the next episode.