Picts: History and Heritage

at a time when Scotland is wrestling with issues of national identity studying Scotland's history has never been more important looking back into Scotland's past and how the nation was formed reveals a Scottish national identity that has evolved and developed over time it has never been fixed and unchanging the crucial roles played by William Wallace and Robert the Bruce in the creation of the Scottish state are well known but the roots of the Scottish nation go further back than this the pics of the north and east of Scotland are one of the foundation stones of the Scottish nation in this film we try to place the pics in their historical context and show how and why that identity developed and changed despite the centuries that separate us the pics have left a legacy that continues to influence modern Scotland and fascinate us today in our to our lair films on the Pictish symbol stones we saw that Pictish history and culture has been the source of considerable confusion and controversy over the years if you were to believe some of the more popular sources on Pictish history calgis bursts onto the scene as the first picked in history in 87 at the Battle of Mons Gropius he defends his territory against the invading Roman army and that battle may have taken place right here on the slopes of Beni he in Aberdeenshire but the roman writer Tacitus who first mentions kal Gaius never refers to him as a pict in fact the term pick T was first coined by the Roman poem Aeneas in 297 more than two centuries after kaga cases first mentioned and the people to whom the term pixie was applied by the Romans never used this term to refer to themselves or even began to think of themselves collectively as pict probably until the end of the 7th century long after the Romans had left Britain for good over the years there's been considerable disagreement about the origins of the pigs the Northumbrian monk beat writing in Charo and 731 was a contemporary of the Pictish King honors storm Angus and garlic we'd believed that these the pigs had their origins somewhere in cilia the vast area east of the Black Sea since Pete's time scholars of assigned Scandinavian Germanic Celtic and Gallic origins to the pigs today however historians believe that the pigs are simply the indigenous people of the north and east of Scotland at the time when the Romans were expanding their empire and Britain but the pigs didn't emerge fully formed as it were from the ruins of the Roman Empire and Britain between the end of the fourth century when the Romans left Britain and the creation of the Scottish Kingdom of Alba at the end of the 9th century the Picts evolved from perhaps a dozen or so small-scale States into a single political Kingdom by the beginning of the 8th century the rulers of this kingdom began to identify themselves as king of the pigs one of the great legacies of the pics is the large number of standing stones with their unique symbols you you from five to Orkney these symbols display a remarkable standardization this suggests an underlying political and cultural unity among peoples whose former identities were replaced by a self-conscious Pictish identity the origin myth of the pix was written sometime after the demise of the Pictish kingdom it tells of a founding father crew theny in garlic who had seven sons although the tale is mythical the names mere affair to Pictish provinces kate appears to refer to Caithness forth la is Ethel and K might be a reference to the land of been he a possible location for the Battle of Mons Gropius for tree derives from the roman light named for the veterans for tree was located around the inner mari thirth its capital may have been at burg head for tree was later to become the political capital of a united Pictish kingdom at a local level Victory Society was initially composed of communities which were linked by lineage some historians refer to these kind of societies as farmer Republic's decentralized and quite democratic in the way they operated the communities were small-scale farming and fishing settlements who used timber frame buildings like this model of the Round House at the former Archaea Link park some Pictish houses like this one would have been built on chronics for extra security and safety but as Pictish society became more hierarchical and more centralized much larger royal residences were built in the fertile lowlands of Aberdeenshire and in stuff down recent archeological digs in rainey have revealed evidence of a large royal residence dating to the 5th and 6th centuries the buildings were surrounded by a defensive wooden palisade so when we started excavating here we found that there were a series of enclosures to very large concentric ditches and outside of that which you can see just being excavated here in front of me a palisade slot which is a very large fence big wooden plank fence that we've stood proud on the hill here and all of that was enclosing several buildings probably Hall type buildings which is quite rare to sign and Pictish architecture timber built buildings where people were probably living sometimes feasting and doing other types of activities in addition to all of the amazing architecture that we've got here with ditches and very very big plank built surrounding the site we also know that they were conducting themselves in a very high-status way so they weren't making bronze jewelry brooches and molds we found those molds brooches and pins with results for those visiting informatics we also have imported pottery which is extremely rare so we have something called a big room and a meringue which is probably going you like the rain oh boy it's originated in my turkeys probably and this is the dirty ones northerly find spot in work with a lap time which is very exciting and that usually only occurs at very very high status royal sizes you just wonder is there any link connection between the settlement here and the top and North Ireland age four well we think there has to be some sort of link because it's so commanding the landscape in such an impressive and important site obviously the pics were living here knew it was there they must have known and they probably placed their site here purposefully because it was in the shadow of tap north and indeed is connected to several other hill forts in the area the pics also developed much stronger and more easily defended forts some of these like Donata and dan akira and the Aberdeenshire coast were coastal fortifications others were hilltop forts the northeast of Scotland has several examples of these but two particularly notable examples are at tapa north near rainy and at Miller Tappan Benna he although some parts of these were built in pre Pictish times they were reused and redeveloped by the pics into the 7th century here just below the some of the Bene he the entranceway into the Pictish ford is still clearly visible as is the defensive rampart wall the Picts built or rebuilt two huge defensive walls one at a higher level and one at a lower level here at just over 500 meters altitude even if the climate was vastly different from what it is today it seems unlikely that this would have been a permanent Pictish residence the pics probably came up the hill into the safety of the fort in times of threat and then moved back down the hill when the threat receded the fort on top north is another example of an Iron Age for reused by the pigs this large fortified central area is even more impressive than the summit of Benna he the fort here had its own water supply a recent archeological investigation has revealed numerous small wooden structures between the upper and lower defensive walls although the significance of these buildings is yet to be explained Miller top and tapa north seem to have been abandoned sometime in the 7th or 8th century it's tempting to see this as part of a political process which centralized poll within pic planned at burg head and for tree and downgraded it or removed it from regional power centers like this the centralization of power in the kingdom of Fort tree was one of the key developments in bacteria during the 7th and 8th centuries the capital of thought tree is thought to have been the coastal fort of burg head with another important fort at Craig Patrick in Inverness the burg head bull carvings which may have had ritual significance are clear evidence of the high status nature of the settlement little evidence of the Pictish fort is visible in berg head today the development of the fishing village in the 19th century destroyed much of the evidence but archaeology and early maps have revealed that a large fort with multiple defensive walls and ditches stood here it covered an area of seven acres of very large settlement for the time bark head was probably the capital of an increasingly powerful Pictish state whose fleet maintained contact with religious centers like Port Mohammed on the target and insula and also with much more dependent kingdoms like the Orkney Islands the growth of the Pictish kingdom was closely linked to its relations with neighboring states notably the Gallic speaking dal Riata the brittonic kingdom of Strathclyde and the Anglin kingdom of Northumbria the balance of power among these kingdoms herbed and flowed as they competed with each other for control of land resources and trade routes during the seventh century a number of the Pictish provinces paid tribute to the kingdom of Northumbria this may have taken the form of cattle or perhaps grain but in 685 the Pictish King breathy king of fortree challenged this state of affairs and the decisive Pictish victory at the Battle of Dunnigan changed everything historians are disagreed over the exact location of the Battle of Dunnigan with some suggesting Daniken Hill near for fur quite close to here others however suggests the nokton near King you see on Speyside as a more proper location but whatever the exact location many historians agree that this remarkable stone in Arbor lemnoc kirkyard commemorates the victory of brissie over his cousin the Northumbrian ruler each with the carved figure on the stone here may in fact be edged Freeth being pecked by a raven I'm Glen cavalry are depicted retreating from the scene with the Pictish Army in hot pursuit the Battle of Daniken not only ended Northumbrian control of pecked land it also allowed the kings of fir tree to establish and consolidate their control over the other Pictish provinces over the next century the pics were united by British successors military campaigns by the ruthless king honest in the middle of the 8th century but particularly important and extending for trees control over the other Pictish provinces Pictish potent influence also extended beyond pict land to include at times both dowry Atta and the kingdom of Strathclyde while rivalry between Northumbria and pict land resurfaced periodically but while this side of the stone displays the military rivalry between pic planned and Northumbria the other side shows some of the common values shared by both kingdoms the emergence of a unified Pictish Kingdom in the 8th century was greatly helped by the conversion of the Picts to Christianity this is traditionally associated with the work of simcha lumba in the late sixth century but it had in fact begun earlier with Pictish ministries and also carried on later into the 8th and 9th centuries this site of the arbor Lemnos stone clearly shows the common religious values shared by Northumbria and pic lon the decorative techniques displayed on this cross were shared widely by Christian kingdoms at this time art historians refer to this as insular fusion shared religious beliefs may have been a factor helping to promote periods of coexistence between pict land and Northumbria in 714 the Pictish King Natan aligned the Pictish church with Rome's Easter calendar which was observed in Northumbria and ended the dating of Easter according to the Colombian tradition on Iona this seems to have encouraged a period of close cultural and religious contact between the two kingdoms the high points of Pictish power is displayed in the Regal Dublin cross from the Royal Pictish Palace of 30 Viet but how is no instance F skirt and Dunning it's thought to be a memorial to Constantine the Pictish king who ruled for 30 years when he died in 8:20 the Pictish kingdom was probably at its greatest extent Constantine's power was acknowledged among all the other Pictish provinces his son Donal was ruler of dowry otta and his authority extended as far as Orkney this magnificent cross testifies to the power and majesty of a successful Pictish warrior king although the shape of the cross is not that of a traditional Pictish cross slab some of the decoration and the depiction of the mounted warrior is characteristically Pictish but the cross also has Northumbrian and Irish influences and a Latin inscription Constantine filius focus Constantine son of Fergus Fergus being the Gallic form of the Pictish August the Dublin cross is a striking example of the way in which at the height of their own power the Picts had absorbed elements of other cultures and languages the story of Pictish Progress symbolized by the Dublin cross was finally brought to an end at the end of the 9th century the disappearance of the pics from the historical record and the end of that century has been a source of considerable argument what actually happened to the kingdom of the pict the view among most modern historians is that pict land was weakened by internal political conflicts and by Norse attacks which included the Viking destruction of the Birkhead fort in 839 and other attacks in Strathearn and Strathmore Pictish forts like here at Donata were probably also destroyed during this period although the ruins that we're looking at today are from a much later period we can buy the Viking onslaught the pics were unable to fight off an attack by dal Riata which took advantage of the circumstances of the time to mount a takeover of bacteria the takeover of pecked land is traditionally associated with the ruler of Dali Atta Kenneth MacAlpin in the eight 40s but whereas traditional rivalries would have focused simply on his acquisition of the kingship the times demanded something more extreme in the years that followed conquest gave way to colonization historians are still divided on what this actually meant for the pigs the traditional view suggested a genocide at the hands of the victorious gales that most modern historians suggest that initial military defeat led to the pics being gradually absorbed into this kingdom of Alaba which succeeded both bacteria under Reata during the 10th century the Pictish language and many elements of Pictish culture including the unique symbols and Pictish standing stones disappeared as the pics became part of the kingdom of alabasta people the Scopes it's not clear how the pics were integrated into the new garlic speaking kingdom of Alba some early key events in the new kingdom included the establishment of new religious centers like Dunkeld and the creation of a royal power base here at Scoon a new inauguration ceremony was established whereby Kings were crowned sitting on the Stone of Destiny here at the motel this marked the end of both dal Riata and the Pictish kingships and the establishment of a new kingship of Alabama but if the pics disappeared from the historical record as a separate people and a separate Kingdom at this time they didn't literally cease to exist some come DNA ancestral testing shows the presence of a genetic marker in the northeast and in Central Scotland it suggests that the pics do indeed live on they live on in the legacy of their symbol stones and also in the language although a little of the Pictish language has survived and there are no surviving written texts experts conclude the Pictish words reveal a brittonic language closer to welsh limb garlic today in knowledge of this language is limited to the names in the king lists and some place names linguists have pointed out that the prefix arbor which means at the mouth of the river as in aberdeen is shared with welsh the Gallic equivalent is in you or invert as in in your nish inverness some Pictish place names the so called pet or pet names are combined with a garlic element these place names help to locate historic Pictish settlements that were colonized in the Gallic takeover of the 9th and 10th centuries pet Cable in Aberdeenshire may combine the Pictish pet meaning a part or portion of an estate with the Gallic couple meaning a mayor pet Capel becomes the settlement of the mayor's or horses pet Kennedy near a Burrell M know may be the site of a Pictish settlement taken over by Gallic speaking Kennedys there are several hundred pit names in Scotland they provide a glimpse of a people and their past still visible after centuries of silence in our films on the pigs we've tried to summarize some of the recent thinking about them and provide a visual reference for some of their accomplishments a current consensus sees the pict as the indigenous people of the north and East of Scotland who between the 5th and 9th centuries evolved from a number of small independent states into a single Kingdom they were united by the language a form of brittonic and by cultural and artistic achievements which have left a legacy of their unique symbol stones for posterity by the end of the 7th century the kings of fortree had begun to dominate the other Pictish provinces and consciously attempt to create an inclusive Pictish identity to replace former allegiances it's around this time that we first hear of the term expecting or king of the pickets the development of bacteria was also helped by the conversion of the pics to Christianity this helped to unify the different parts of the kingdom under a common religion for some Scots or those of Scots descent connecting to effects may involve some search for Pictish genetic inheritance but if you're searching for your inner pict you might just be missing the point in the pics we can recognize the genius of a people who created under scepter their own cultural identity while also being shaped by the ideas and culture of others you

Channel: Dip In Video

Views: 279,907

Rating: 4.9081631 out of 5

Keywords: Picts, Scottish History, Symbol Stones, Aberdeen-Shire, Scotland, Alba

Id: 0PUj8yYfzv4

Length: 26min 30sec (1590 seconds)

Published: Mon May 30 2016