Pictish stones paint a different picture as experts say they date back to third century
New research suggests the Picts were innovators of what may have been an early form of written language
The history of Pictish symbol stones in Scotland is being “rewritten” with new research finding the mysterious monuments were being created hundreds of years earlier than previously thought.
A breakthrough in the understanding of the ancient stones has been made following excavations at Dunnicaer sea stack, the site of a Pictish fort just south of Stonehaven in Aberdeenshire.
It is now believed that the site is home to the oldest Pictish stones in Scotland with a new dating system placing the remnants to as early as the third century.
Previously, scholars dated the country’s earliest Pictish stones to anywhere between the fifth and seventh centuries.
Dr Gordon Noble, head of archaeology at the University of Aberdeen, led the research with National Museums of Scotland and Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre.
He said the new approach, which deploys highly accurate date testing on items found surrounding the stones, had significantly “pushed back” the chronology of the monuments.
He said: “Establishing an outline chronology through a combination of direct dating, modelling and examining associated dates from archaeological excavation is helping us rewrite the history of these symbolic traditions of Northern Europe and to understand more clearly the context of their development and use.
“In the last few decades there has been a growing consensus that the symbols on these stones are an early form of language and our recent excavations, and the dating of objects found close to the location of the stones, provides for the first time a much more secure chronology.
“While others had suggested early origins for this system no direct scientific dating was available to support this. Our dating reveals that the symbol system is likely to date from the third-fourth century AD and from an earlier period than many scholars had assumed.”
It is now believed the symbols carved into the stones were a form of naming system that communicated the identities of Picts at a time when other writing systems were being developed across Europe, such as like the Ogham script of early Ireland and the runic system developed in Scandinavia.
The dating evidence drew on excavation work at a promontory fort at Dunnicaer, where relatively plain carvings were recovered in the 19th century.
Work at the site by Dunnot- tar Castle revealed that stones probably came from the rampart of the fort.
Dating of the site conclusively showed that the settlement was at its height in the 3rd to 4th centuries AD.
Dr Martin Golderg of National Museums Scotland added: “The general assumption has been that the Picts were late to the game in terms of monumental communication, but this new chronology shows that they were actually innovators in the same way as their contemporaries, perhaps more so in that they did not adapt an alphabetic script, but developed their own symbol-script.”
The Picts saw off the mighty legions of the Roman Empire, who retreated behind great walls rather than attempt to conquer them. They also defeated a Northumbrian army at the battle of Dun Nechtain in 685, a victory that some believe was crucial to the later creation of Scotland as a nation.
However, according to the Venerable Bede, not long after this decisive encounter, the Picts inexplicably vanished from history. Over the centuries, this apparent mystery helped turn them into something more like mythical beings than ordinary humans in the popular imagination.
Modern historians have suggested that their true fate was more prosaic – they simply adopted Gaelic language and culture and gradually became indistinguishable from other Scots.
One genetic study estimated about 10 per cent of Scottish men alive today are descended from Picts.
But, despite advances in history and archaeology they have remained largely lost in the mists of time.
So it is rather exciting – at least for those with an interest in ancient history – to hear of a breakthrough in the understanding of Pictish symbol stones at the site of an ancient fort at the Dunnicaer sea stack near Stonehaven.
The findings suggest the Picts were “innovators” in the use of symbol script as early as the third century AD, hundreds of years before they were thought to have developed this form of “monumental communication”.
Dr Gordon Noble, of Aberdeen University, said that, over the past few decades, there had been a “growing consensus that the symbols on these stones are an early form of language”.
At the moment, most of what we know about the Picts comes from outsiders writing about them from afar, like Tacitus, the ancient Roman writer who wrote an account of the Battle of Mons Graupius in 98AD, and Bede, a Northumbrian monk writing in the eighth century.
If the symbols were only used for names, then working out what they mean will be extremely difficult, but it does hold out the tantalising possibility that one day we might actually hear something from the Picts first hand.
And that would help demythologise these ancient inhabitants of Scotland, turning them back into the real people they were.