Dark Age |
The Picts: A History
by Tim ClarksonTo be published in March 2008
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Forteviot: A Pictish and Scottish Royal Centre
by Nick AitchisonThe royal centre of Forteviot in Strathearn, Perthshire is one of the most famous early medieval sites in Scotland. It has traditionally been regarded as a royal capital, first of the powerful Pictish kingdom of Fortriu and then of the early Scots. But the royal centre is poorly understood. Much of it disappeared in the early nineteenth century, swept away by the Water of May, leaving only fragmentary sculpture. However the function, date and iconography of the magnificent arch, discovered in the river bed in 1836, have until now remained obscure. This first full-scale study of this famous site throws new light on Pictish kingship and the Church, enabling one of the most powerful Pictish kings, Unuist son of Uurguist, to emerge from the shadows of historical obscurity.
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The Art of the Picts: Sculpture and Metalwork in Early Medieval Scotland
by George Henderson and Isabel HendersonA sustained art-historical analysis of the work of the Picts, perhaps the least well-known of the Celtic peoples, who occupied north-eastern Scotland between the 6th and 9th centuries. The only real traces of their society are stone cross slabs and some silverwork, all engraved with symbols.
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Pictish Sourcebook: Documents of Medieval Legend and Dark Age History
by J.M.P. CaliseProvides both scholars and students of Dark Age History with a guide to various Medieval texts discussing the Picts. Edited and translated Medieval texts related to the Picts and Dark Age Scotland have been compiled for the first time in this one volume collection. Recorded texts include Pictish Origin Legends written in Medieval Irish and Pictish and Scottish Regnal Lists, many of which have never previously been edited. Students and scholars will also find appendices containing lists, tables, and charts of supplemental information related to the Picts. Dictionaries of 500 personal, place, and population names associated with the Picts provide further innovative analysis of these texts. Calise has compiled a useful tool which allows scholars and students to compare and contrast the content of these texts in one handy reference book. There are no written documents attributable to the Picts, leaving their history to be created mainly by non-Picts. This refence work is an attempt to find historical truths within the mythological with the use of the available Medieval documentary sources.
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Pictish Warrior AD 297-841
by Paul Wagner (Author), Wayne Reynolds (Illustrator)The origins of the Picts are an interesting and hotly debated topic. Fundamentally, they were Celts, and numerous similarities exist between Welsh, Irish and British contemporaries. Their role as an enemy of Rome and their place in Dark Age Britain is often underrated. The Pictish warrior was not "ordinary" - he was noble - and warfare was enshrined in law as the duty and privilege of the landed aristocracy only. The warrior, whether one of the king's household troop, or a member of a wandering mercenary band, was part of an identifiable and close-knit unit. In these fraternities the warriors lived, ate, slept, fought and died together. This volume shows how, despite this, group cohesion does not seem to have been a military strong point and the emphasis for the warrior was on individual skill in single combat.
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Surviving in Symbols
by Martin CarverThe Picts were an artistically brilliant people and a nation of great warriors who occupied the eastern part of north Britain around AD 300-900. They were exposed to Christian missions from the sixth century onwards and by the eighth century they were the dominant force in Scotland, ruling from Orkney to the Forth until the arrival of the Vikings and the disappearance of the Picts into a new kingdom of Scots. Yet their symbol stones are still alive with scenes of hunting and music, battle and court. Their characteristic 'pit' names remain and their great forts at Dundurn, Dunnottar and Burghead dominate the surrounding country. Of all the people who built Scotland, none has such deep roots in the prehistory of the land, and none has left such an individual legacy in the form of the symbol stones: the surviving testimony of their ancestry and belief.
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From Pictland to Alba: Scotland, 789-1070
by Alex WoolfIn the 780s, northern Britain was dominated by two great kingdoms; Pictavia, centred in north-eastern Scotland and Northumbria which straddled the modern Anglo-Scottish border. Within a hundred years both of these kingdoms had been thrown into chaos by the onslaught of the Vikings and within two hundred years they had become distant memories.This book charts the transformation of the political landscape of northern Britain between the mid-eighth and mid-eleventh centuries. Central to this narrative is the mysterious disappearance of the Picts and their language and the sudden rise to prominence of the Gaelic-speaking Scots who would replace them as the rulers of the North."
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