#pictish carving

[thesilicontribesman]

Eassie Pictish Symbol Stone, Eassie, Scotland

[bigoldeels]

can I get a vibe check on this sticker sheet

[grandboute]

[nosasblog]

The Location of King Bridei’s Fort: New Clues from Adomnán’s Life of Columba?

By Fiona Campbell-Howes In my talk for NOSAS in October, I spent some time discussing the episodes in Adomnán’s Life of St Columba (hereafter the Life) in which the holy man visits the Inverness area, which Adomnán locates in provincia Pictorum, in the province of the Picts. For this blog I want to take a closer look at those episodes. In particular, I want to see if they contain any…

[scotianostra]

St Madoe's Stone , Perth Museum.

The most complete of all the pictish/Celtic stoones I saw on display on Monday, this was found lying down in St Madoes Churchyard, Perthshire during 1830's. . In the 1920s it was moved, in its base, to stand against the wall beside the church door. In the 1990s it was taken to Perth Museum & Art Gallery.

One side, as seen in my gif, is dominated by the ring-headed cross that fills what we can accept as the front of the slab. It is surrounded by biting dogs and with two lion-like creatures facing each other across the top of the stone.

The other side of the slab shows three cloaked and hooded riders, probably churchmen (possibly a reference to the road and its users between St Andrews and Scone) and below them three Pictish symbols: a crescent and v-rod, a double-disc and z-rod and a Pictish beast. The symbols are much worn due to exposure to the elements when it stood in thechurchyard.

In the first thousand years AD, the country we now call Scotland was dominated by changing groups of Celtic peoples, most notably the Picts. From AD 250-900, they controlled most of Scotland north of the River Forth. We do not know what they called themselves. The Picts – meaning “the painted ones” – is the name the Romans gave them. Their language has disappeared and no Pictish manuscripts are known to have survived. But their art does survive on over 300 pieces of carved stonework and a much smaller number of portable objects such as jewellery.

There at least 17 sites around the Perth area, they include Stone Circles, a Pictish Free-Standing Cross, Pictish Symbol Stones and stones with cup marks, cup and ring marks are by far the most common motif, if you remember, or have ever inspected the Caiy Stone, at Oxgangs, which I visited and posted pics of last year, there are 6 of thes type of marks on this stone.

Perth Museum has several fragments of smaller stones which I shall post at a later time.

[sierrawitch]

🌳Ogham Master Post🌲

(Aicme links below)

Ogham is an Early Medieval (and the first) Celtic writing system created in 100 CE, which went on to develop Ancient Irish in the 4th-6th centuries CE, and Old Irish in the 6th-9th centuries CE. It was also used to write Pictish, Scottish Gaidhlig, and some Welsh.

The Ogham alphabet consists of four major letter groups—or aicme—to make up the feda, and one additional group that was created in the 6th century of the Old Irish period—the forfeda.

Ogham can be seen today carved into ancient stones in Ireland, Scotland, and in Wales, some dating back to the 4th century CE.

Each character is representative of a type of tree or plant with additional associations such as wealth, healing, love, etc. Today, these characters are used primarily in divination practices in Celtic paganism and Celtic folk witchcraft as wooden staves, cards, or carved onto stone and other natural objects. Ogham is typically written vertically from bottom to top, resembling the growth of a tree. However, it can also be written horizontally by rotating the characters 90° to the right (as shown in aicme links).

First Aicme (B)

Second Aicme (H)

Third Aicme (M)

Fourth Aicme (A)

Fifth Aicme/Forfeda (EA)

If you would like typed Ogham on a mobile or desktop device, be sure to use the horizontal format of the Ogham Transliterator. Highlight, copy, and paste the text to use in various projects.

[victusinveritas]

Larry Trask, the linguist + Basque expert, felt obliged to put this note at the top of his website!

"But please note: I do not want to hear about the following:

Your latest proof that Basque is related to Iberian / Etruscan / Pictish / Sumerian / Minoan / Tibetan / Isthmus Zapotec / Martian

Your discovery that Basque is the secret key to understanding the Ogam inscriptions / the Phaistos disc / the Easter Island carvings / the Egyptian Book of the Dead / the Qabbala / the prophecies of Nostradamus / your PC manual / the movements of the New York Stock Exchange

Your belief that Basque is the ancestral language of all humankind / a remnant of the speech of lost Atlantis / the language of the vanished civilization of Antarctica / evidence of visitors from Proxima Centauri

I definitely do not want to hear about these scholarly breakthroughs."

[barbucomedie]

St Madoes Stone from Scotland dated between 500 - 700 CE on display at the Perth Museum in Perth, Scotland

This sandstone-slab features Pictish symbols and was found in 1945 during ploughing at Inchyra House, St Madoes. Carvings on both sides indicates it was supposed to be standing up and with carvings in different styles it shows it was made by a team of artists.

The symbols comprise of the double-disc, salmon, snake, tuning fork and mirror. The narrower faces are cut with strokes of Ogham inscriptions that seem to be a series of names. These are a later addition and perhaps indicate the Christianisation of the area.

Photographs taken by myself 2024

[transgenderer]

In 1809 work was well advanced on building the planned new village of Burghead, and, in the process, destroying much of what remained of the Burghead Promontory Fort. One problem encountered by the builders was locating a reliable source of fresh water for the village, and they decided to explore the local story of a lost well that had once formed part of the fort.

What the builders uncovered was one of the most mysterious places in Scotland. A flight of 20 stone steps led down into the ground to a square chamber, measuring 16ft or 5m square, cut into the natural rock at the base of a crag. Within the chamber was a square rock-cut tank surrounded on all sides by a ledge 3ft or 0.9m wide. The tank was 4ft or 1.3m deep and fed by water from an underground spring. While clearing out the chamber the objects recovered included a stone with a bull carved on it, one of many found in the remains of the fort (and, mostly, since lost), plus part of a Pictish stone cross and, oddly, a number of Spanish coins.

Also discovered was a semicircular pedestal on the ledge in one corner of the chamber, and a basin in another. A third corner has steps down into the tank. Having cleared out the chamber, the builders used explosives to deepen the tank in the centre to increase its capacity. They then re-cut the access steps to make them more regular and covered over the chamber with a vaulted stone roof with a ventilation hole left in its centre.

[historia-vitae-magistras]

I think my favourite fiction of yours is the Summoning. It's written beautifully. I adore that love Alasdair bears for Matt, enough to raise the dead and ask the impossible. And the gulf between him and his mother is so tenderly painful. The layers of formality; the misunderstandings of time. It's perfect. I have to ask though: do Rhys and Arthur follow through on her request (or does Alasdair keep the visit to himself?)

AWW thank you! That was honestly one of the best things I've ever written. Being outside of time but also so anchored in this 17th century world where everything is fire, blood and witchcraft carved out of them all. Eirian is there, a shadow of who she was, existing in the nightlands, this land of the dead only to occasionally walk between worlds and into the realm of the living because the only thing that can are ideas, and love might be the strongest idea there is.

And they do! Not specifically because he relayed that message, I think he might have kept that to himself because their world is one where by and large, any attachment is a screaming weakness. Brighid, Alasdair and Rhys have a somewhat easier time connecting with their mother, they could probably do it semi-regularly just to catch up if they wanted. They still speak languages that descend from hers, the celtic fringe that survives every day. Pictish, probably closer related to Welsh and Cumbric than Gaelic, was kind of torn from him in late antiquity and the early middle ages but it was replaced by Gaelic, his form of what was Brighid's language. Those three are kind of laced into each other. Invasions and counter invasions, defined by degrees of alienation from the imperial core that Arthur represents.

Arthur's inheritance is largely dead. His people never were completely usurped by the Germanic speaking peoples who formed England, but the words are gone, with only a handful remaining for him to use to name things he loves in at least a twisted way, the way his mother loved him. So its harder, I think, to look that far into the past, that far beyond the world Arthur had more hand in shaping than maybe the rest of them combined. He, like his siblings sees his mother in whatever space-time exists between this life and the next. She's a part of the tether that keeps them constantly on the balance between human and not, alive and not, real and not. The only difference being that it's the main way he sees her because dying is so much easier than unlocking things he could feel and speak in a language gone from this world. His mother is almost entirely reserved for those places. When crushed into the depths by a shipwreck under unfathomable pressure, rolling out of a plague cart, looking up at the heavens from some godforsaken rock of his second son or second empire. He sees her in the places where his arrogance and his over confidence has laid him bare to human consequences of cold, exposure and hunger. Mirages of what the Romans named barbaric when the image of 'civilization' Arthur imposes on the world everyone else tears him to shreds.

[azvolrien]

On the way back from Torridon, we took a detour into Strathpeffer for a quick look at the Eagle Stone, so named - obviously - for the eagle carved on it below the 'horseshoe', another common Pictish symbol.

Its Gaelic name, Clach an Tiompain, doesn't actually mean 'Eagle Stone' - that would be something like Clach na h-Iolaire, though I'll admit I'm not certain of the grammar. I'm not totally sure what it does mean; Wikipedia says 'the Sounding Stone', but I'm not altogether confident of that translation.

[thesilicontribesman]

'The Sun Stone', Early Christian Cross with Pictish Influenced Design, Govan Old Stones Collection, Old Govan, Glasgow, Scotland

[sadbhkellett]

Had some film developed recently. A few hikes from the summer, namely around the Mournes and in Wicklow. A bonus photo of my friend Roberta on top of the well rock in Dunino Den in Fife – a powerful and ancient place that you could drive right past without ever knowing was there! The area was clearly of significance to the Picts given the carved stone footprint beside the natural well, the Pictish stone and the stairs hewn out of the rock itself. It's a beautiful area. Go if you ever get the chance!

[jurakan]

May I have a Friday fun fact?

Today You Learned about the Pictish Beast!

In Scotland, there was a group of people called the Picts. Contrary to what you probably think, it’s unlikely they tattoed themselves with woad to look blue, because scientists tried it out and found out it makes a crappy tattoo material. And they did a lot of cool carvings that they left around Scotland, still being found today! Like this:

Some of them have carvings of animals, like wolves, or horses, or boars. Cool stuff. Except that they also sometimes have this thing:

What the eff is that? Well, in truth–we don’t know. It’s just some creature. What makes this stranger is that while there are some more symbolic images, overall, the Picts were pretty good at carvings of animals–all of them you can tell quite clearly what they are. But the Pictish Beast is just some weird critter. And it keeps popping up! So it must have been something culturally important, but we haven’t a clue what. 

There are a lot of random guesses I’ve heard over the years, including:

-A seahorse. -An elephant. -A dolphin. -A kelpie. -The Loch Ness Monster. -Some unknown, mythical creature from the long-dead Pictish religion we’ve never heard of. -A stylized animal-shaped brooch.

[shrugs] Who knows, man.

[ailishsinclair]

The Mystery of Burghead Well

Everything about Burghead Well is mysterious. It’s not known who built it, or when, or why. One definite fact: Burghead Well is huge It’s much bigger than a plain water source needs to be. The chamber, carved out of solid rock, is five metres wide. The pool is 1 metre deep and fed by an underground spring. It could have been part of Burghead Pictish Fort, or it could have come before or after…

[scotianostra]

On March 6th in the year 1217, Malcolm, Earl of Fife, founded the Abbey of Culross. A place oozing with character and history, the whole of Culross is a magical place to visit. Some sources state that St Mungo, also known as St Kentigern, was born in Culross and this site may have been chosen to establish an abbey because of this. It is evident that the abbey was built over the earlier Pictish church supposedly founded by Saint Serf in the 6th century, as witnessed by the presence in the ruined Cistercian church of early medieval carved stones and from a ninth-century reference to a church of St Serf at Culross (Cuileann Ros) in a Gaelic list of the mothers of various saints. The original 13th century abbey was cruciform in plan, without aisles. By the late 15th century the lay brothers had left, and the abbey community consisted of only choir-monks. The western half of the abbey was therefore abandoned, and the nave was demolished around 1500. In 1633 the east choir of the abbey was taken over for use as a parish church, while the adjoining buildings fell into decay. In 1642 the north transept was converted into a tomb house by Sir George Bruce, Laird of Carnock. Alabaster carved effigies of him, his wife, and eight children can still be viewed there today, as seen in the third pic. The abbey was restored in 1823, although many original features were removed, including the transept chapels. Another restoration took place in 1905, which reinstated the chapels and left the buildings much as they can be seen today. The eastern parts of the church are still in use for worship, and are generally open to the public. Folk lore says a Ley tunnel exists beneath the abbey and within is said to sit a man in a golden chair waiting to give valuable treasures to anyone who succeeds in finding him. Many years ago a blind piper decided to try and upon entering at Newgate with his dog he proceeded to search and could be heard playing his pipes as far as the West Kirk, three quarters of a mile away. Eventually the dog emerged into the daylight, however the piper was never seen, or heard of, again. Culross is a hot bed for paranormal activity, with not only the abbey having sightings of the traditional ghostly monks, but also many reports from the village itself which is steeped in such history of black magic and witchcraft

The colour pics are my own.