Perth’s Pict warrior: Naked, big bottomed and armed
Alison Campsie reports on the Tulloch Man find – an important stone carving dug up by contractors working on the A9
He had a protruding bottom, a swept back hair style and carried a rather large fancy spear in one hand and perhaps a club in the other.
Meet Tulloch Man, a naked Pictish warrior carved onto a large stone, discovered by contractors working on the A9 upgrade on the outskirts of Perth.
Around 1,500 years ago, Tulloch Man may have been used to mark out territory and possibly indicate a superior princely presence in the area.
The sculpture, which is amongst a small group of Scotland’s very early Pictish stones, which likely dates from the 5th-6th century, was discovered in the Tulloch area of the city where a natural terrace once formed to the west of Perth.
From here, clear views across the surrounding land would have made it an appealing spot for human occupation.
Mark Hall, collections officer at Perth Museum and Art Gallery, said the carved warrior may have marked a funerary site or the residence or ritual centre of a ruling lord.
Mr Hall said it was “immensely exciting” to be researching and working with the new addition to the Perth collection.
He added: “To see this stone pop out of the ground and then for it to allow us to think about what was going on in the Perth area at the time is magnificent.
“It is a major new piece of evidence that allows us to find out what was happening at the end of the Roman period.”
The design of Tulloch Man has drawn parallels with Rhynie Man from Aberdeenshire, Collessie Man from Fife and a further sculpture found at Westerton in Angus. Mr Hall, who has been working with Dr Gordon Noble from Aberdeen University on this aspect of the research, said: “It looks like the stones are of a similar group. They are of superior figures who are mostly naked with distinctive hairstyles.
“They were some kind of warrior who belonged to these princely-led war bands.
“Really, this is the development of kingship in the early medieval period after the authority of Rome had gone.”
He said it was unlikely that the four stones represented the same polity and were more likely to reflect two or three different powerbases.
Mr Hall added: “We likely won’t see the full extent of this type of stone. Almost certainly we have lost examples. We won’t know what the real pattern is but these stones give us a distant echo of what was there.”
Mr Hall said there was evidence of Picts in the Perth area from the 8th century but that the stone reflected an earlier period of activity.
The stone was unearthed in September 2017 by a JCB driver and charge hand working for contractors Balfour Beatty.
The company helped to move the two metre high one-tonne sculpture to safety at Perth Museum and Art Gallery, where research has been ongoing since.
Mr Hall said the stone was soon to be legally allocated to the museum through the Treasure Trove process, which manages finds of historical and cultural significance made in Scotland.
He added: “It will be a huge thing for us actually. We have a really distinctive collection of Pictish sculpture and crucially only one piece, the St Madoes Cross Slab, is really of the same scale. The St Madoes slab dates from the 8th century but this stone is much earlier, possibly 5th or 6th century and right at the start of this kind of development of Pictish arts.”
Tulloch Man is due to go on show in Perth in 2021 to coincide with the opening of a new cultural attrac- tion for the city. City Hall will be developed to display nationally important items in Perth’s collection as well as major touring exhibitions. This will coincide with Perth’s bid to become 2021 City of Culture.