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Pictish Art (Medieval Studies)

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  1. Introduction
  2.  
  3. Pictish art was created by people living predominantly in north and eastern Scotland between about the 4th and 10th centuries. People in the same locality had created a distinct artistic culture in the Roman times and earlier, with their recumbent stone circles, vitrified forts (rubble stone fused together by fire), souterrains (underground storage structures), brochs (circular stone dwelling towers), and exquisite carved stone balls. Pictish art emerges in the post Roman period, when the Anglo-Saxons, Picts, Irish, and Britons each contributed their own traditions to form the spectacular fusion of Insular Art. The Pictish contribution to this cultural mix is both original and innovative, based on the outstanding production of stone sculpture and metalwork. Pictish art carries a heavy historical burden because so little else survives from this society. Almost all contemporary written accounts are produced by outsiders, with their own agenda, while systematic archaeological investigation is only beginning to approach the larger historical and social questions of power and patronage, daily life and technology. As a result, scholars have pitted themselves against the problem of decoding the Picts’ unique and endurable legacy: their enigmatic carved symbols. These occur first incised on rough boulders and jewelry; they are later incorporated onto Christian cross-slabs, and then they disappear. Their initial creation is associated with the formation of some coherent cultural and political unity within eastern Scotland in the post-Roman era (5th century onward), and their demise is associated with the eventual takeover of Pictland by the Scots (Gaels from the west of the country) during the later part of the 9th century. Difficulties with the ethnic label “Pictish art” emerge for the centuries between the political demise of the Picts and the appearance of Romanesque art in the late 11th century. Clearly, Picts and their artists continued to live in the east, albeit under a Scots hegemony but, lacking the symbols, the evolution of art in these centuries is poorly dated. Pictish art studies have grown from the monumental corpus created by J. Romilly Allen and Joseph Anderson in 1903 (see Allen and Anderson 1993, cited under Academic Accounts). Since about 1970, scholars have concentrated increasingly on placing Pictish art in both a British and a European context, while specialists in related fields of archaeology, linguistics, and history have tried to fill the gaps in source material. The Art of the Picts (Henderson and Henderson 2004, cited under Academic Accounts) brings the argument back to art itself, looking at the objects not simply as diagrams and distribution patterns but as individual works of art created by patrons and artists. Pictish Progress (Driscoll, et al. 2011, cited under Conference Transactions) summarizes the direction of Pictish art studies between the 1950s and 2011. The one missing piece in this bibliography is a new corpus, fit for the 21st century. It has yet to be commissioned and written. Without it, all study in this field requires a large number of books on hand in order to locate the required items. In the meantime, online sources (cited under Reference Works) are becoming increasingly user-friendly and comprehensive for Pictish studies. Since the later part of the 20th century, the quantity and pace of research has greatly increased, with more scholars entering the field from diverse backgrounds. Part of its attraction is undoubtedly the strong visual appeal of the art itself, combined with the scant supporting evidence: The scholar must come up with solutions that are not readily provided. At its best, this leads to passionate engagement coupled with the humility of ultimate uncertainty.
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  5. General Overviews
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  7. General overviews are available on two levels: accessible introductions to the Picts and their world, which inevitably feature sculpture and metalwork as the richest source of illustration, and the two major monographs on Pictish art itself, Allen and Anderson 1993 and Henderson and Henderson 2004 (both cited under Academic Accounts). Historic Scotland has sponsored several useful guides to the early medieval period in Scotland, clearly written and well illustrated. These are aimed at beginners, tourists, undergraduates, and people who want to grasp the whole picture quickly. However, each volume incorporates the latest discoveries and research at the time of publication. They are also effective because they incorporate the interdisciplinarity essential for modern art history, covering archaeology, landscape, and distribution maps. This approach was begun by Henderson 1967 (cited under Popular Introductions) with a publication that came from a series about archaeology but succeeded in putting Pictish art on the popular map with its generous illustrations of visually compelling sculpture.
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  9. Popular Introductions
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  11. All these accessible books look at the entirety of Pictish culture, not just the art. Foster 2004, Driscoll 2002, and Laing and Laing 1993 usefully cover all of Scotland, a reminder that Pictish society coexisted alongside the Gaels in the west. Henderson 1967 opened the door to modern Pictish studies. Ritchie 1989, Harden 2010, and Pictish Stones are historic Scotland productions with an emphasis on the stones in government care, while Carver 1999 has a more archaeological approach.
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  13. Carver, Martin. Surviving in Symbols: A Visit to the Pictish Nation. Edinburgh: Historic Scotland, 1999.
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  15. Crisp and brisk, this looks like a child’s introduction with bright reconstructions and plenty of colored photos, but the content is informative and driven by archaeology. Summarizes academic arguments about language and impact of Christianity, with emphasis on recent excavations at Tarbat (see Carver 2008, cited under Churches).
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  17. Driscoll, Stephen. Alba: The Gaelic Kingdom of Scotland, AD 800–1124. Edinburgh: Historic Scotland, 2002.
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  19. Amply illustrated with Pictish art, the chapter “Picts into Scots: The Growth of Gaelic Royal Power” charts the demise of Pictish hegemony under the incursions of Vikings and Scots.
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  21. Foster, Sally M. Picts, Gaels and Scots: Early Historic Scotland. Rev. ed. Edinburgh: Historic Scotland, 2004.
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  23. More detailed than Ritchie 1989, this links the Picts with their western neighbors in Dalriada, the Scots, and sees the story through to the amalgamation of east and west into a single kingdom in the 10th century. Art is seen as an illustration for domestic life, trade, religion, and the currency of authority. Mainly black and white.
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  25. Harden, Jill. The Picts. Edinburgh: Historic Scotland, 2010.
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  27. All-color, great reconstructions, especially a colored interpretation of the Hilton of Cadboll stone. Sensitive use of art-as-evidence with excellent close-ups, historic time lines, and illustrated catalogs to the collections of Meigle and St. Vigeans.
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  29. Henderson, Isabel. The Picts. Ancient People and Places 54. London: Thames & Hudson, 1967.
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  31. Generously illustrated in black and white, this book brought the Picts on to the world scene as a dynamic and sophisticated culture full of historical issues to be explored and images to be enjoyed. Still an exciting read, but the academic debate has moved on, not the least driven by Henderson herself.
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  33. Laing, Lloyd, and Jennifer Laing. The Picts and the Scots. Stroud, UK: Alan Sutton, 1993.
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  35. An historical account of the Picts and Scots is followed by their everyday life revealed through archaeology. Chapter 4 deals with the art of the Picts and Scots as a separate topic in its own right, from the symbols to Christianity. Mainly black-and-white photos.
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  37. Pictish Stones.
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  39. A site developed by Historic Scotland. It is good for illustrations and some background but also showcases what can be achieved by 3D scans. Excellent interactive maps to indicate accessible destinations, museums, and stones in the countryside.
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  41. Ritchie, Anna. Picts: An Introduction to the Life of the Picts and the Carved Stones in the Care of the Secretary of State for Scotland. Edinburgh: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1989.
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  43. Tackles the basic questions “Who Were the Picts?,” “What Are Pictish Symbols?,” “The Impact of Christianity,” “At Home and At War,” and “What Happened to the Picts?” Fully illustrated in color.
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  45. Academic Accounts
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  47. With The Early Christian Monuments of Scotland (known as ECMS), J. Romilly Allen and Joseph Anderson set an international benchmark for the publication of early sculpture in 1903. This was reprinted with a new introduction by Isabel Henderson in 1993 and remains available and essential (see Allen and Anderson 1993). The two volumes covering the whole of Scotland comprise a partially illustrated catalog and a volume of detailed analysis of both iconography and form. Allen drew out and compared every item of interlace and key pattern, while Anderson tackled the interpretation of the symbols and other iconography. Anderson created the convenient but blunt classification of stones: Class I, boulders with incised symbols; Class II, dressed stones with symbols and a cross; Class III, stones with no symbols. This is discussed in Sculpture. Allen’s taxonomy, reproduced in firm line drawings, tends to flatten the individual artistic merit of each object and reduces the art to a directory of matching patterns. It took a long while for scholars to move beyond this primary exercise in identification and look at the art as the product of artists and society. With so few fixed points on home territory, Curle 1939–1940 pushes across boundaries in order to date Pictish art in relation to comparable objects in Ireland and Northumberland, areas where scholars still struggle with problems of date. Henderson and Henderson 2004 is the only attempt at a holistic reinterpretation of Pictish art; this is the key book on the subject and represents the current state of the discipline. The authors leave many questions open, not the least of which is the thorny problem of dating, which they barely touch, and they do not deliver a final conclusion to the issue of the symbols. They ask much wider questions dealing with function, purpose, Christian meaning, and artistic individuality. They also construct the essential intellectual framework within Pictland, from which this sophisticated art could develop, filling in the manuscript gaps with liturgical requirements and biblical knowledge. The sculpture makes it quite clear that the Picts enjoyed a Christian hinterland with international connections but were innovators and exporters, not simply remote recipients of foreign ideas.
  48.  
  49. Allen, J. Romilly, and Joseph Anderson. The Early Christian Monuments of Scotland. Balgavies, UK: Pinkfoot, 1993.
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  51. Facsimile edition of the 1903 edition. The only book to list the monuments in a systematic way. It remains the first port of call because of its convenience and analysis but lacks hundreds of stones discovered since 1903. Illustrations are variable, from line drawings to plate-glass photos. Stones are divided according to class, which means stones from a single site are separated from each other. Includes an introduction by Isabel Henderson.
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  53. Curle, Cecil L. “The Chronology of The Early Christian Monuments of Scotland.” Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 74 (1939–1940): 60–116.
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  55. This surveys the full range of Pictish sculpture in order to devise a chronological sequence. This is done by comparisons with comparable Irish and Northumbrian art. Curle dates the Pictish cross-slabs beginning in the early 8th century with the more complex designs evolving in the early 9th century.
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  57. Henderson, George, and Isabel Henderson. The Art of the Picts: Sculpture and Metalwork in Early Medieval Scotland. London: Thames & Hudson, 2004.
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  59. Comprehensive coverage of the Pictish artistic achievement, with metalwork fully integrated with the sculpture. Pictish art is savored for its own specialties (symbols, realism) and related to its Insular context. Best book for newly taken photographs (black and white). Wide-ranging intellectual background and overarching structure make this a difficult book for beginners and difficult to dip into for quick answers. First paperback edition printed in 2011.
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  61. History
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  63. Some historical background is essential to understand the basic chronological development of Pictish art: Society is beginning to cohere when uniform symbol stones appear over wide tracts of eastern Scotland; Christianity arrives, and cross-slabs carved in relief develop; the Scots take over from the west, and the distinctive Pictish forms of art, principally the symbols, eventually cease to be made. These fundamental changes are the result of political and ecclesiastical activity, but Pictish history is an inscrutable subject. The minimal evidence consists of some intractable king lists and then remarks from chroniclers and annalists outside the country. Within these parameters great kings ruled, fought, prayed, and paid for art to be made, but connections between the art and the history are seldom direct. Bede 1992 and Adomnán of Iona 1995 provide the most useful contemporary vignettes about Pictland. Woolf 2007 and Fraser 2009 are the two relevant volumes for the New Edinburgh History of Scotland. These comprehensively reassess the exiguous documentary evidence, populating the period of Pictish hegemony with names, battles, saints, and missionaries. Their more expansive format allows the authors to cover a wider range of cultural and dynastic issues than the earlier standard history for this period (Smyth 1995, originally published in 1984). Woolf 2006 makes a forceful argument to place Fortriu, the documented Pictish heartland of unknown locality, in the north, thereby aligning a center of power with the apparent origin center for the symbol stones (see Henderson 1957–1958, cited under Pictish Symbols). The Pictish church was strongly influenced by both Iona and Northumbria in terms of liturgical development and the style of art. Bannerman 1993, an account of relics and reliquaries, demonstrates the potency of material culture within the church, particularly emanating from these two sources. Clancy 1996 and MacQuarrie 1992 unpick key episodes in ecclesiastical history, which provide the context for church patronage.
  64.  
  65. Adomnán of Iona. Life of St. Columba. Translated by Richard Sharpe. London: Penguin, 1995.
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  67. Includes a description of Columba’s mission to Bridei, king of the Picts near Inverness, meeting the Loch Ness monster on the way. Explanations of liturgy and popular beliefs that are relevant for iconography.
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  69. Bannerman, John. “Combara Coluim Chille and the Relics of Columba.” Innes Review 44.1 (1993): 14–47.
  70. DOI: 10.3366/inr.1993.44.1.14Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  71. Historical account of early Irish relics and reliquaries, their location, form, use, and terminology. Bannerman thereby places the Pictish Monymusk reliquary within its typological context. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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  73. Bede. Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Edited by Bertram Colgrave and Roger A. B. Mynors. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992.
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  75. The standard text, but other editions are available. Bede reports what he is told about the north and provides the exact correspondence between King Naiton and Abbot Ceolfrith on advice about organizing the Pictish church. Originally published in 1969.
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  77. Clancy, Thomas. “Iona, Scotland and the Céli Dé.” In Scotland in Dark Age Britain: The Proceedings of a Day Conference Held on 18 February 1995. Edited by Barbara Crawford, 111–130. St. Andrews: St. John’s House Papers 6. Aberdeen, UK: Scottish Cultural Press, 1996.
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  79. Discusses the comings and goings of the clergy between Iona and Pictland during the period of reform by the Céli Dé. This affected the movement of relics and the conduct of the church.
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  81. Fraser, James E. From Caledonia to Pictland: Scotland to 795. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009.
  82. DOI: 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748612314.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  83. A clear narrative of events, with excursus into cultural developments, the conversion to Christianity, and the advance of the church. Versions of the mythical histories are disentangled, and the emergence of Pictish society during the Roman period is explored. Includes time line and family trees.
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  85. MacQuarrie, Alan. “Early Christian Religious Houses in Scotland: Foundation and Function.” In Pastoral Care before the Parish. Edited by John Blair and Richard Sharpe, 110–133. Leicester, UK: Leicester University Press, 1992.
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  87. A concise account about how churches and their districts were set up in Pictland, an important issue when assessing the significance and distribution of the cross-slabs.
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  89. Smyth, Alfred P. Warlords and Holy Men: Scotland AD 80–1000. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995.
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  91. A standard history text covering the emergence of a Pictish identity against the Romans, the coming of Christianity, the Scots, and the Vikings. Originally published in 1984.
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  93. Woolf, Alex. “Dún Nechtáin, Fortriu, and the Geography of the Picts.” Scottish Historical Review 85.220 (2006): 182–201.
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  95. A fundamental article for art history. Fortriu was the “homeland” of the Picts, and its unknown location was suspected in southern Pictland. Woolf locates it in northern Pictland in the area of Inverness, which begins to explain why the symbol stones seem to emerge first from the north.
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  97. Woolf, Alex. From Pictland to Alba, 789–1070. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007.
  98. DOI: 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748612338.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  99. Covers a period of major changes, from the incursions of the Vikings in the west to the “last days of the Pictish kingdom,” with the Scots taking over the east of Scotland. Clearly set out; easy to dip into for answers.
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  101. Historiography
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  103. Pictish art began to attract antiquarian interest in the 18th century with travelers like Alexander Gordon, Thomas Pennant, and Charles Cordiner (Cordiner 1780, Cordiner 1788–1795) noticing curious stones in the countryside. Their perceptions gradually became more scientific and systematized, while their early drawings are both important evidence for stones now lost and an indicator of the artist’s own awareness of what he was seeing. Patrick Chalmers recognized the cultural coherence of stones within his own county of Angus and made the first attempt at a systematic survey accompanied by lavish though sometimes careless illustration (Chalmers 1848). John Stuart extended the survey across other regions of Scotland, sometimes repeating Chalmers’ mistakes but also improving on the drawings (Stuart 1856–1867). The Rhind Lectures (Anderson 1881) extended the survey of Pictish antiquities to metalwork and other artifacts with drawings that inspired artists of the 19th-century Celtic Revival, such as John Duncan. Accounts of the changing techniques for recording stones are discussed in Ritchie 1998 and Borland 2005, highlighting the role of the artist as interpreter. As appreciation and understanding increased during the 19th century, the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland began to accumulate stones at its collection in Edinburgh, both removing stones from their find spot and taking casts of vulnerable stones in situ. The Society of Antiquaries bequeathed its collection to the National Museum of Scotland, and this has resulted in the large collection of stones displayed in the purpose-built museum in Edinburgh. This removal from the countryside also created a visual dislocation for very important sites like Burghead, where the surviving plaques of carved bulls originally from the ramparts of the town are displayed in the British Museum London, National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, and a remnant at Burghead itself. On the Tarbat peninsula, a significant inscribed stone and the Hilton of Cadboll cross-slab are in Edinburgh, while the remainder of stones from the Portmahomack monastery and the Hilton of Cadboll lower portion are displayed locally. There has thus been an upsurge of literature and research concerned with the “biography” of the stones and the importance of their original location and continuing meaning for the modern community. At Hilton of Cadboll, a community initiative resulted in the creation of a replica cross-slab to represent the original. At Brough of Birsay in Orkney, there is also a replica in situ, meant to evoke a sense of place and scale, which is lacking in Edinburgh. Foster 2001 discusses the philosophy behind the removal and display of stones in a broad context, while Jones 2005 deals with the heated case of the Hilton of Cadboll stone removal, and recreation.
  104.  
  105. Anderson, Joseph. Scotland in Early Christian Times. 2 vols. Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1881.
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  107. The Rhind Lectures for 1879 and 1880. Deals with buildings, manuscripts, bells, crosiers, reliquaries, brooches, monuments, and inscriptions. Illustrated. Preparation for the author’s writing of Part 1 of ECMS in 1903.
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  109. Borland, John. “Understanding What We See, or Seeing What We Understand; Graphic Recording, Past and Present, of the Early Medieval Sculpture at St. Vigeans.” In Able Minds and Practised Hands: Scotland’s Early Medieval Sculpture in the 21st Century. Edited by Sally M. Foster and Morag Cross, 201–214. Society for Medieval Archaeology Monograph 23. Leeds, UK: Maney, 2005.
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  111. An analysis of techniques of recording in antiquarian publications compared with modern methods. The different results are due not just to different media but also to the developing understanding of the artists.
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  113. Chalmers, Patrick. The Ancient Sculptured Monuments of the County of Angus. Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1848.
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  115. Published at imperial size (73 × 53.5 cm), this book is hard to find and difficult to use, but it is the first systematic survey of a defined area. The drawings and text have many inaccuracies but often provide the first published record of a monument. Illustrations now digitized on Canmore (cited under Reference Works).
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  117. Cordiner, Charles. Antiquities and Scenery of the North of Scotland. London: n.p., 1780.
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  119. Cordiner was one of the earliest travelers to appreciate and record Pictish antiquities within the context of ancient Scotland.
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  121. Cordiner, Charles. Remarkable Ruins and Romantic Prospects of North Britain. London: Taylor, 1788–1795.
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  123. Cordiner recognized the difference between the incised boulders and relief cross-slabs and began to appreciate the geographical extent of these monuments. The author was an early obsessive about the meaning of the symbols. Illustrated in order to compare motifs.
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  125. Foster, Sally M. Place, Space and Odyssey: Exploring the Future of Early Medieval Sculpture. Groam House Lecture. Rosemarkie, UK: Groam House Museum Trust, 2001.
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  127. An account of the history of thought and practice about where sculpture ought to be preserved, centrally or locally. A slim essay on the politics of preservation and the conflicts of conservation.
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  129. Jones, Sîan. “‘That Stone Was Born Here and That’s Where It Belongs’: Hilton of Cadboll and the Negotiation of Identity, Ownership and Belonging.” In Able Minds and Practised Hands: Scotland’s Early Medieval Sculpture in the 21st Century. Edited by Sally M. Foster and Morag Cross, 37–54. Society for Medieval Archaeology Monograph 23. Leeds, UK: Maney, 2005.
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  131. Where Anderson 1881 claims Pictish sculpture as a sign of national identity, seeking to collect stones for the museum in Edinburgh, more recent developments emphasize the importance of stones staying in the location where they originated, creating a sense of local belonging.
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  133. Ritchie, J. N. Graham. Recording Early Christian Monuments in Scotland. Groam House Lecture. Rosemarkie, UK: Groam House Museum Trust, 1998.
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  135. Compares the illustration of Pictish stones from the 18th century to the present, with useful illustrations of results in different media.
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  137. Stuart, John. Sculptured Stones of Scotland. 2 vols. Aberdeen, UK: Bennett, 1856–1867.
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  139. These volumes cover the whole country, with good-sized illustrations and text. Volume 2 aims at greater accuracy. Places Pictish art in the context of manuscripts from other countries, establishing dates from the 7th to the 9th centuries. Illustrations now digitized on Canmore (cited under Reference Works).
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  141. Reference Works
  142.  
  143. In spite of recent demands to produce a “new ECMS,” such a comprehensive book has not yet appeared. Allen and Anderson 1993 (cited under Academic Accounts) remains indispensible. However, the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments for Scotland (RCAHMS) has created an online database of all monuments, Canmore, which fulfills many requirements. This National Monuments Record provides a register of all known stones, in the field and in museums, with grid references, brief descriptions, excerpts from relevant publications, a full bibliography, and updates of recent inspections. One click produces the selected site on a map with indications of adjacent recorded features. A systematic campaign to record all the stones with both modern photographs and drawings is almost complete. Material online includes images from many antiquarian sources, while more photographs are in the archive. Scran, another digital database hosted by RCAHMS, is aimed as a teaching tool, with study packs on aspects of Pictish art and plenty of illustrations. Many organizations can sign up to Scran and submit their own material, so it may provide a different range of images from Canmore. Both Canmore and Scran images can be downloaded for free. PASTMAP is a different face of the RCAHMS database. It identifies and retrieves sites through digital mapping, so the site requested is initially presented on a map with all the adjacent sites—whether archaeological or architectural—visible. Whereas the database format makes comparisons difficult, RCAHMS has also published a full survey with drawings and photographs of all the stones with symbols (Fraser 2008). This provides an up-to-date and comprehensive survey of all the symbol stones; it is illustrated but on a frustrating scale, which leaves many images almost illegible. Its advantage over ECMS is that Class I and Class II stones from the same site are illustrated together.
  144.  
  145. Canmore.
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  147. This database works best searching by place name but can also be searched by object types through the thesaurus, or start with the key search word “Pictish.” It is free to search and download pictures, and high-resolution images are available for purchase. One click leads through to PASTMAP. Users are now invited to contribute their photos and comments.
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  149. Fraser, Iain, ed. The Pictish Symbol Stones of Scotland. Edinburgh: Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments for Scotland, 2008.
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  151. Arranged by modern administrative boundaries, with brief description and bibliography, nearly all the symbol stones are illustrated on a scale of 1:15. This permits useful comparisons, but many of the images too small and dark for legible study. Excludes early sculpture without symbols, like incised crosses. A good historical introduction on the historiography of Pictish art.
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  153. PASTMAP.
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  155. This identifies all the Pictish monuments on maps, where they can be seen in the context of other archaeological sites and geographical features. It includes information on statutory designations of sites and local authority information. PASTMAP also leads through to historical maps of the area.
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  157. Scran.
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  159. Easy to use, with simple metadata and learning packs for teachers. A wide range of digital images are free to search, but full facilities (larger images and full captions) come with registration. High-resolution images can be bought.
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  161. Guides and Museums
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  163. Much of Pictish sculpture remains outdoors even if it has moved from its original site. Several guides are designed to help researchers create a touring trail and eventually find monuments in a field or wood. They generally have an introduction with the author’s agenda, mapping advice, and a short description. Sites with the greatest concentration of Pictish art are the National Museum of Scotland, St. Andrews Cathedral Museum, St. Vigeans, Meigle Museum, and Groam House Museum. The Tarbat peninsula combines monumental cross-slabs in the landscape and a collection in the Tarbat church (see Churches). Jackson 1989 gives road directions and sketch maps linking suitable groups of stones for tours. Sutherland 1997 groups the stones by county, with sketch maps, and locates the stones by grid references. Mack 1997 provides touring details and locates each symbol. Whereas these latter three are out of date but interesting for their introductions, Pictish Stones gives information on the most popular stones and museums with full route-planning facilities.
  164.  
  165. Groam House Museum.
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  167. Features the intricate Rosemarkie stone and the collection of work by George Bain, author of Celtic Art: The Methods of Construction (Glasgow, UK: William MacLellan, 1944). Inspired by the local designs, Bain was a master of Celtic art, applying it particularly to drawings and carpets.
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  169. Jackson, Antony. The Pictish Trail: A Traveller’s Guide to the Old Pictish Kingdoms. Kirkwall, UK: Orkney, 1989.
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  171. Selected routes leading to clusters of stones and museums. Not always accurate. The introduction contains a summary of the author’s controversial theory that the symbols depict marriage alliances.
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  173. Mack, Alastair. Field Guide to the Pictish Symbol Stones. Balgavies, UK: Pinkfoot, 1997.
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  175. The most comprehensive touring guide, with maps and directions. Distribution maps for each symbol. Now unreliably out of date and needing a revised edition.
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  177. Meigle Museum.
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  179. Assembled from Meigle kirkyard, a similar type of collection to St. Vigeans, with imposing cross slabs and a range of recumbent tomb covers. Lively variety of animals and figures.
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  181. National Museum of Scotland.
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  183. The national collection of Pictish sculpture, metalwork, and other artifacts. The display shows the Pictish art emerging from quantities of Roman sculpture and silverware. Highlights are the Hilton of Cadboll slab, the inscribed stone from Portmahomack, the Monymusk casket, and the Pictish brooches and silver chains.
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  185. Pictish Stones.
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  187. Provides up-to-date, interactive maps to indicate the most significant stones and museum collections.
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  189. St. Andrews Cathedral Museum.
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  191. This collection from the Cathedral precincts and environs highlights the St. Andrews Sarcophagus and includes a range of crosses and cross-slabs, featuring some figurative scenes and many varieties of interlace. In the context of later medieval architectural sculpture.
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  193. St. Vigeans.
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  195. A dramatic church site and museum with a carved stone collection. Key monuments are Drosten’s stone with its imagery and inscription, the house shrine, and cross-slab with the bull sacrifice and SS Antony and Paul. Clearly preserved details of daily life and natural observation.
  196. Find this resource:
  197. Sutherland, Elizabeth. A Guide to the Pictish Stones. Edinburgh: Birlinn, 1997.
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  199. Small sketch maps locate the stones while the entries provide grid references and short description. Useful for planning a tour, but readers need an Ordnance Survey map.
  200. Find this resource:
  201. Bibliographies
  202.  
  203. Pictish Art is well served by Nicholl 1995, which provides an overarching bibliography for Pictish history and culture. The preliminary essays emphasize that, particularly with the paucity of documentary and archaeological evidence, progress in any particular field needs to be interdisciplinary. Citations can be accessed by reference to author, location, and topics like animal art, chronology of art, and symbols. This is updated by the Short Reference Bibliography in Henderson and Henderson 2004 (p. 248; cited under Academic Accounts). A concise classified bibliography is added to Allen and Anderson 1993 (cited under Academic Accounts). Because Foster and Cross 2005 (cited under Conference Transactions) is a book of essays dedicated to early medieval Scottish sculpture, its combined bibliography includes most of the important reading material, but it is arranged by author, not topic. Fraser 2008 both summarizes the historiography and provides a concise bibliography of more recent work. Since Isabel Henderson has been the most prolific of all recent scholars in the field of Pictish art, the list of her publications in Henry 1997 provides a defining body of one author’s research. Geddes 2011, while not devising a comprehensive bibliography, summarizes key developments in Pictish art studies since 1955.
  204.  
  205. Fraser, Iain, ed. Pictish Symbol Stones of Scotland. Edinburgh: Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments for Scotland, 2008.
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  207. In addition to a useful overview of the history of recording Pictish art, a concise bibliography lists the essentials.
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  209. Geddes, Jane. “The Problems of Pictish Art, 1955–.2009” In Pictish Progress: New Studies on Northern Britain in the Early Middle Ages. Edited by Stephen T. Driscoll, Jane Geddes, and Mark A. Hall, 121–134. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2011.
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  211. A discursive survey of the major landmarks in Pictish art publications since Wainwright 1980 (cited under Conference Transactions), which was first published in 1955.
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  213. Henry, David, ed. The Worm, the Germ and the Thorn: Pictish and Related Studies Presented to Isabel Henderson. Balgavies, UK: Pinkfoot, 1997.
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  215. Isabel Henderson is the foremost scholar working in the field of Pictish art. This book contains a bibliography of all her published works between 1957 and 1997, but many notable works have followed since. See pages 188–190.
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  217. Nicholl, Eric H., ed. A Pictish Panorama: The Story of the Picts and a Pictish Bibliography. Balgavies, UK: Pinkfoot, 1995.
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  219. This volume of over 800 annotated citations, up to 1995, was compiled by Dr. J. R. F. Burt. It consists of three parts: a detailed subject index, not just of place names but of all relevant topics; an author index in which each item is annotated; and short, preliminary essays covering Pictish history, language, place-names archaeology, and art. An invaluable checklist.
  220. Find this resource:
  221. Periodicals
  222.  
  223. Historically the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland has championed the cause of Pictish art studies with articles about new discoveries, analysis, and donations appearing from the early days. Discovery and Excavation tends to produce a short note, the first published record soon after the find appears. The Pictish Arts Society Newsletter is more of a forum for members, with some articles, current news, and information about events and recent publications. The Tayside and Fife Archaeological Journal covers all aspects of local archaeology, but it happens to be in the center of Pictish settlements, which therefore feature regularly. The Picts are not mainstream for Medieval Archaeology, but it has recently published articles on dating, symbols, and The Book of Deer, while its parent, the Society for Medieval Archaeology, published the anthology Able Minds and Practiced Hands (see Foster and Cross 2005, cited under Conference Transactions).
  224.  
  225. Discovery and Excavation in Scotland.
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  227. Pictish sculpture and metalwork keeps turning up in fields and old walls. More recently, excavated objects have received a brief notice in this journal, online from 1947 to 2008.
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  229. Medieval Archaeology.
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  231. The “archaeology” in this journal’s title covers a wide remit outwith Scotland, but it includes articles on the dating of Pictish sculpture (Laing 2000, cited under Particular Artistic Questions), The Book of Deer (Marner 2002, cited under the Book of Deer), and symbol stones (Clarke 2007, cited under Pictish Symbols).
  232. Find this resource:
  233. Pictish Arts Society.
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  235. Publishes a quarterly newsletter for members, holds two conferences or study days per year, and publishes an occasional journal of papers. It also provides a forum for all those interested in Pictish art, from artists and art historians to archaeologists and local historians. Its membership supports publications through Pinkfoot Press in Balgavies, UK, whose memorable books include the reprint of ECMS and Pictish Panorama.
  236. Find this resource:
  237. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.
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  239. Historically, most discoveries of Pictish art have been published in this journal, now free and online (after five years). Five indexes for the whole series back to 1851 are also online, but they are not searchable, so the query facility is quicker to use. An essential source, particularly because it goes back to the beginnings of scientific inquiry and is well illustrated.
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  241. Tayside and Fife Archaeological Journal.
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  243. Because its remit covers an area replete with Pictish material, this journal frequently features studies of Pictish sculpture. Articles are not available online, however.
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  245. Conference Transactions
  246.  
  247. Conferences have tended to follow two themes, one examining particular problems through an interdisciplinary approach and the other concentrating on art. Wainwright pioneered the first approach with his 1953 summer school and publication on The Problem of the Picts in 1955 (see Wainwright 1980). These were early days, and the papers read more as discrete essays but were at least assembled in one volume. Pictish art was represented by Stevenson (see Stevenson 1980, cited under Particular Artistic Questions). This was such a benchmark that subsequent gatherings have built on that author’s method, including Small 1987 and Driscoll, et al. 2011, updating the state-of-play. Barbara Crawford (Crawford 1996) has hosted a number of early medieval gatherings for the St. Johns House Papers on Dark Age Britain, particularly discussing the effects of religion on society, an essential component for understanding the art. Groam House Museum, Rosemarkie, which houses a notable collection of Pictish stones, hosts the annual Groam House Lecture Series. The out-of-print lectures are available free online, while the others can be ordered online. The Insular Art Conference is held periodically around the Insular orbit (see Insular Art). It allows old practitioners and newcomers to exchange ideas within the wider focus of art in the British Isles and Ireland. It is through these open forums that new approaches take shape (for Pictish art, see particularly Ryan 1987; Spearman and Higgitt 1993; Redknap, et al. 2001). The Able Minds and Practised Hands conference held in 2003 (Foster and Cross 2005) celebrated the centenary of the publication of ECMS, with a wide range of detailed essays on sculpture, ending in a plea from John Higgitt to persevere with a new published corpus of Scotland’s early sculpture. Though not a conference, the essays presented to Isabel Henderson (Henry 1997) are another eclectic anthology of recent research in Pictish art.
  248.  
  249. Crawford, Barbara E., ed. Scotland in Dark Age Britain. St. John’s House Papers, No. 6. St. Andrews, Scotland: University of St. Andrews, 1996.
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  251. Papers on demarcating sanctuary space and religious influences from the Irish reformers, Céli Dé.
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  253. Driscoll, Stephen T., Jane Geddes, and Mark Hall, eds. Pictish Progress: New Studies on Northern Britain in the Early Middle Ages. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2011.
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  255. This book is shaped by three overview essays on the progress of Pictish studies since 1955 in history, art, and archaeology, followed by current developments and discoveries. Part 2 deals with artistic issues.
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  257. Foster, Sally M., and Morag, Cross, eds. Able Minds and Practised Hands: Scotland’s Early Medieval Sculpture in the 21st Century. Society for Medieval Archaeology Monograph 23. Leeds, UK: Maney, 2005.
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  259. Essential for a wide range of current thinking about Pictish art. Essays on context, iconography, inscriptions, geology, and interpretation, with the role of the monuments today. Well illustrated, with a substantial combined bibliography.
  260. Find this resource:
  261. Henry, David, ed. The Worm, the Germ and the Thorn: Pictish and Related Studies Presented to Isabel Henderson. Balgavies, UK: Pinkfoot, 1997.
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  263. Essays on the Picts in Shetland; Pictish homes; inscriptions; the sites of Abernethy, Mugdrum, Fortingall, and Applecross; and depictions of the Pictish harp. Well illustrated with several specially taken photographs.
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  265. Redknap, Mark, Nancy Edwards, Susan Youngs, Alan Lane, and Jeremy Knight, eds. Pattern and Purpose in Insular Art: Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Insular Art. Oxford: Oxbow, 2001.
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  267. The Pictish papers deal with shrine fragments from Kinedar (Moray) and the date of the Aberlemno churchyard stone.
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  269. Ryan, Michael, ed. Ireland and Insular Art, A.D. 500–1200: Proceedings of a Conference at University College Cork, 31 October–3 November 1985. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 1987.
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  271. Mainly about Irish art but includes Pictish papers on animal styles, the Book of Kells, and snake-boss motifs in Pictish sculpture and the Iona sculpture.
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  273. Small, Alan, ed. The Picts: A New Look at Old Problems. Dundee, UK: Graham Hunter Foundation, 1987.
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  275. Another response to Wainwright 1980. Papers on distribution patterns of symbol stones, drawings of plain cross-carved stones. Excavation of Portknockie and Clatchard Craig forts.
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  277. Spearman, Michael R., and John Higgitt, eds. The Age of Migrating Ideas: Early Medieval Art in Northern Britain and Ireland: Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Insular Art. Stroud, UK: Alan Sutton, 1993.
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  279. Key papers on the meaning of interlace in Insular art, symbols, animal art, Norrie’s Law hoard of Pictish silver, brooches and their making and meaning, Sculpture is covered by papers on the Class 1 animals, cave art, cross-slabs, and snake bosses.
  280. Find this resource:
  281. Wainwright, Frederick T., ed. The Problem of the Picts. Perth, UK: Melven, 1980.
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  283. Wainwright’s new interdisciplinary approach, bringing together history, archaeology, place names, and art. Starts to use distribution maps in a meaningful way. Originally published in 1955. See pages 97–128.
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  285. Sculpture
  286.  
  287. Sculpture represents the greatest legacy of the Pictish people and their culture. It is found on cave walls and incised on occasional pebbles, church furnishings, and principally on major monuments in the landscape (see also Buildings). Allen and Anderson 1993 (cited under Academic Accounts) created three categories that shaped all academic inquiry until recently, when the authors’ system began to seem inadequate. Class I consists of rough boulders incised with a limited range of about fifty-six to sixty symbols, found predominantly in northeast Scotland. Class II consists of dressed stones carved in relief with a cross, symbols, and other motifs. Class III consists of carved stones without the symbols. While Class I is a useful shorthand for “boulder with incised symbol,” the numbered classification implies a technical, chronological, and ideological sense of progress, which may not be accurate. Class II defines a substantial number of stones, principally in southeast Pictland, that are clearly Christian and commissioned by a Pictish elite who eventually stopped requesting a display of their symbols. Class II may well overlap with Class I and represent different functions, both secular and Christian. Class III is not helpful because it covers too many types of monuments, from crudely incised stones marked with a cross to types of monument that are clearly Pictish but do not employ symbols, such as recumbent tombs and a number of free-standing crosses. Class III in Allen and Anderson 1993 (cited under Academic Accounts) also covers the many types of sculpture outwith Pictland. Thus, in the East, Class III stones could range from the earliest Christian witness of traveling missionaries to gigantic stele like Sueno’s stone at Forres carved in the Pictish slab format but clearly after the period of Pictish hegemony. Increasingly, the way forward with this material is to focus on a single monument with an interdisciplinary team; art history deals with only a small part of the evidence.
  288.  
  289. Pictish Symbols
  290.  
  291. The enigmatic symbols have intrigued scholars from a wide range of disciplines, all seeking to “crack the code.” The terminology and distribution was set out by Allen and Anderson 1993 (Vol. 1, Part II; cited under Academic Accounts). The signs are repeated with remarkable uniformity of execution and proportion in varying combinations, generally two together. The signs are a selection of powerfully naturalistic animals with completely abstract motifs like the notched rectangle, double-disc, and Z-rod; hybrid animals like the Pictish beast; and artifacts from daily life like the sword, mirror, and comb. Several questions surround them: When and where did the symbols come into being? Why do they employ these specific forms, particularly the unique abstract designs? Do the abstract forms relate to stylized objects? Do they, in some way, represent the most normal information on other contemporary inscriptions and that found on Latin and ogham inscriptions in Pictland, that is, names? What was the function of the stele and why are they placed in particular spots? What caused their production to begin and end? The next step forward in understanding is likely to come from an intense survey of the landscape and immediate archaeological context of the stones. Thomas (Thomas 1961, Thomas 1963, Thomas 1984) sees the symbols beginning as early as the 2nd century AD, reducing their exotic nature by placing them within a European Iron Age context. Henderson 1971, Samson 1992, and Forsyth 1997 examine how the symbols work semantically and as signifiers, while Jackson 1984 tries too hard to apply anthropological theory to the dubious record that the Picts had a matrilineal system of inheritance. Clarke 2007 separates the development of symbols from their placement on marker stones, only one of many locations and functions for the symbols. Where Clarke juxtaposes the symbol stones against Christian missionary activity, Driscoll 1988 sees them as signs of political evolution. Henderson 1957–1958 locates their possible origin in northern Pictland, artistic evidence that has been followed by historical interpretation (also see Woolf 2006, cited under History).
  292.  
  293. Clarke, D. V. “Reading the Multiple Lives of Pictish Symbol Stones.” Medieval Archaeology 51.1 (2007): 19–39.
  294. DOI: 10.1179/174581707x224642Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  295. Some symbol stones demonstrate evidence for multiple lives within the Early Historic Period. These stones are reviewed together with their implications for the wider corpus of Pictish stones. The idea that the stones are burial markers is rejected. Instead, it is suggested that they were created in response to, and as a rejection of, Christian missionary activity. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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  297. Driscoll, Stephen T. “Power and Authority in Early Historic Scotland: Pictish Symbol Stones and Other Documents.” In State and Society: The Emergence and Development of Social Hierarchy and Political Centralization. Edited by John Gledhill, Barbara Bender, and Mogens Larsen, 215–236. One World Archaeology 4. London: Unwin, 1988.
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  299. A theoretical account of symbol stones being used to support the establishment of new social positions in a period of early state formation. Cross-slabs represent the church participating in this growing political order and hegemony.
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  301. Forsyth, Katherine. “Some Thoughts on Pictish Symbols as a Formal Writing System.” In The Worm, the Germ and the Thorn: Pictish and Related Studies Presented to Isabel Henderson. Edited by David Henry, 85–98. Balgavies, UK: Pinkfoot, 1997.
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  303. A carefully argued proposal to construct the symbols and their combinations as a type of alphabet that underpins a system of writing and probably refers to names.
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  305. Henderson, Isabel. “The Origin Centre of the Pictish Symbol Stones.” Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 91 (1957–1958): 44–60.
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  307. Looks at the “purest forms” of the symbols compared with their more elaborate later development and produces distribution statistics to show the most pure examples are found in the Inverness-Moray Firth region; with distribution corridors following mountain passes to bring the Class I symbols to southern Pictland. Distribution maps.
  308. Find this resource:
  309. Henderson, Isabel. “The Meaning of the Pictish Symbol Stones.” In The Dark Ages in the Highlands: Ancient Peoples, Local History, Archaeology. Edited by E. Meldrum, 53–67. Inverness, UK: Inverness Field Club, 1971.
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  311. The symbols refer to systems rather than people. They could be territorial notice boards and statements of ownership or even of dues.
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  313. Jackson, Anthony. The Symbol Stones of Scotland: A Social Anthropological Resolution of the Problem of the Picts. Stromness, UK: Orkney, 1984.
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  315. Complex and flawed theory that the stones record matrilinear marriage alliances.
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  317. Samson, Ross. “The Reinterpretation of the Pictish Symbols.” Journal of the British Archaeological Association 145.1 (1992): 29–65.
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  319. The symbol pairs represent dithematic personal names. Analyzes the frequency of symbols and symbol combinations in comparison with the frequency of personal names and name elements among the neighbors of the Picts, Samson sees the symbols as a type of language rather than a group of ideas. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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  321. Thomas, Charles. “The Animal Art of the Scottish Iron Age and its Origins.” Archaeological Journal 118 (1961): 14–64.
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  323. Seminal paper in which Thomas demonstrates Pictish animal art is rooted in a prolonged tradition of insular La Tène style and the objects that appear on 6th- and 7th-century stones are survivors from an earlier age.
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  325. Thomas, Charles. “The Interpretation of the Pictish Symbols.” Archaeological Journal 120 (1963): 31–97.
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  327. Analyzes the way the symbols are used as a means to decode them. They are ideograms, commemorating the dead with common basic messages about rank and tribal affiliation. Thomas saw the arrangements as types of statements following a type of grammatical rule.
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  329. Thomas, Charles. “The Pictish Class I Symbol Stones.” In Pictish Studies: Settlement Burial and Art in Dark Age Northern Britain. Edited by John Gerard Paul Friell and W. G. Watson, 169–187. British Archaeological Reports, British Series 125. Oxford: BAR, 1984.
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  331. Still believes the symbols are primarily grave memorials, in spite of the lack of graves associated with most stones and the use of symbols on other objects such as jewelry. The symbols themselves are much older than their appearance on stones: They probably began as tattoos. Animals refer to tribe; nonanimal symbols refer to occupation or status.
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  333. Landscape and Location
  334.  
  335. Recent work has begun to focus on exploring the immediate archaeological context of the monuments as well as understanding their wider landscape setting (e.g., in relation to Pictish land use and boundaries). This opens up much wider discussion about the nature of patronage and evolving centers of power. Forteviot and the surrounding Strathearn have benefitted from a number of studies because the area has prehistoric origins, Pictish sculpture, and an historical record. Alcock 2003 describes early surveys begun there in the 1980s, followed by Driscoll (Driscoll 1991 and Strathearn Environs), who has used the area to develop an understanding of both state formation and, through archaeology, the longevity of its political importance. Aitchison 2006 particularly looks at the sculpture with its royal and historic connotations. Noble and Gondek (Gondek and Noble 2011 and the Northern Picts Project) are making similar inroads to understanding the high-status complex being excavated at Rhynie. Inglis 1987 and Alcock 1988–1989 examine the geographical context of the carved stones, looking for historical and environmental explanations. Shepherd 1993 provides an overview of the considerable archaeological remains of the Picts in Moray, with Armit, et al. 2011 highlighting the unusual context of Pictish symbols found in a cave with much earlier ritual activity. Fraser and Halliday 2011 summarizes the Pictish elements in a sweeping survey (see In the Shadow of Bennachie, cited under RCAHMS Topographical Surveys). Forsyth 2008 (cited under the Book of Deer) on Pictish carved stones that relate to property record provides one of the few textual connections between Pictish stones and boundaries.
  336.  
  337. Aitchison, Nick. Forteviot: A Pictish and Scottish Royal Centre. Stroud, UK: Tempus, 2006.
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  339. Forteviot provides archaeological evidence for a royal center, witnessed by the monolithic carved arch from a church. With color and black-and-white illustrations, one-third of this book is about the sculpture.
  340. Find this resource:
  341. Alcock, Elizabeth. “Pictish Stone Class 1: Where and How?” Glasgow Archaeological Journal 15 (1988–1989): 1–21.
  342. DOI: 10.3366/gas.1988.15.15.1Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  343. One of the early studies to examine the distribution of Class I stones in relation to natural and other archaeological features. Available online by subscription.
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  345. Armit, Ian, Rick Schulting, Christopher J. Knusel, and Ian A. G. Shepherd. “Death, Decapitation and Display? The Bronze and Iron Age Human Remains from the Sculptor’s Cave, Covesea, North-East Scotland.” Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 77 (2011): 251–278.
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  347. An intriguing cave at Covesea, carved with Pictish symbols but earlier used for grisly ritual child killing. Art in an ancient historic landscape. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  348. Find this resource:
  349. Driscoll, Stephen T. “The Archaeology of State Formation in Scotland.” In Scottish Archaeology: New Perceptions. Edited by W. S. Hanson and E. A. Slater, 81–111. Aberdeen, UK: Aberdeen University Press, 1991.
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  351. Using aerial surveys, excavation, and place-name evidence, Driscoll links later documentary evidence about land administration with existing Pictish sites.
  352. Find this resource:
  353. Fraser, Iain, and Stratford Halliday. “The Early Medieval Landscape of Donside, Aberdeenshire.” In Pictish Progress: New Studies on Northern Britain in the Middle Ages. Edited by Stephen T. Driscoll, Jane Geddes, and Mark A. Hall, 245–280. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2011.
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  355. In this article the authors of In the Shadow of Bennachie produce an analysis of the later medieval territorial divisions that can be imposed over the presumed Pictish boundaries (and boundary stones).
  356. Find this resource:
  357. Gondek, Meggen, and Gordon Noble. “Together as One: The Landscape of the Symbol Stones at Rhynie, Aberdeenshire.” In Pictish Progress: New Studies on Northern Britain in the Middle Ages. Edited by Stephen T. Driscoll, Jane Geddes, and Mark A. Hall, 281–306. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2011.
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  359. The ongoing Rhynie excavations have produced evidence that a symbol stone stands within a Pictish high-status (royal?) enclosed settlement.
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  361. Inglis, Jim. “Patterns in Stone, Patterns in Population: Symbol Stones Seen from Beyond the Mounth.” In The Picts: A New Look at Old Problems. Edited by Alan Small, 73–79. Dundee, UK: University of Dundee, Department of Geography, 1987.
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  363. Focusing on symbol stones between the Dee and the Spey, the paper analyzes their location in relation to good soil and signs of habitation as well as earlier monuments in the landscape.
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  365. Northern Picts Project.
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  367. Two substantial projects of excavation are taking place, one at Rhynie, Aberdeenshire, and one at Forteviot Perthshire.
  368. Find this resource:
  369. Shepherd, I. A. G. “The Picts in Moray.” In Moray: Province and People. Edited by W. D. H. Sellar, 75–90. Edinburgh: Scottish Society for Northern Studies, 1993.
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  371. A useful survey of Pictish occupation within a region that still retains a cultural distinctiveness, including sites like Burghead, Covesea, Kinneddar, and Sueno’s stone.
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  373. Strathearn Environs and Royal Forteviot.
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  375. An ongoing project exploring the Forteviot Pictish/Scottish royal palace complex, with its monumental and architectural Pictish sculptures and its landscape context.
  376. Find this resource:
  377. RCAHMS Topographical Surveys
  378.  
  379. The great survey gazetteers of the RCAHMS listed all types of ancient monuments in the landscape, categorized by period and structure type. Entries tend to be purely descriptive and short, but the maps, plans, and illustrations provide a baseline for all further work. The data feeds into Canmore (cited under Reference Works). These general surveys are being phased out in favor of more targeted publications like Fraser 2008 (cited under Reference Works). Where they exist, the surveys are excellent, but coverage is patchy (e.g., North-East Perth [1990], Sutherland [1911], Caithness [1911], Orkney [1946], Shetland [1946]). The most useful are In the Shadow of Bennachie and Corser 1994. South-East Perth (Corser 1994) covers the archaeological landscape up to the early modern period, as far as castles and doocots, whereas In the Shadow of Bennachie continues to the present. The meticulous maps and plans of these volumes show the continuity of cultural developments in particularly favored areas, wherein the Pictish remains are a passing episode. They emerge from a deeper context, followed by people and artists who were themselves conscious of the Pictish heritage. Early Medieval Sculpture in Angus Council Museums and Scott and Ritchie 2009 assemble groups of stones from areas where important new discoveries have been made fairly recently. Fisher 2001 provides the complementary material for Pictish studies, namely sculpture from the western or Gaelic side of the country. At its core is the monastery of Iona whose missionaries played a key role in the conversion of the Picts but whose sculpture is distinctly different in many though not all respects.
  380.  
  381. Corser, P. South-East Perth: An Archaeological Landscape. Edited by G. S. Maxwell and S. P. Halliday. Edinburgh: Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, 1994.
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  383. Similar approach to In the Shadow of Bennachie; good drawings and maps but all black and white. A good area for cross-slabs, featuring the collection at Meigle, and the topography of Scone.
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  385. Early Medieval Sculpture in Angus Council Museums. RCAHMS Broadsheet 11. Edinburgh: Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, 2003.
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  387. Brings together hard-to-find, newly discovered, or locked-away slabs and fragments in a useful compilation. Simply a collection of excellent drawings, a map and location of the finds.
  388. Find this resource:
  389. Fisher, Ian. Early Medieval Sculpture in the West Highlands and Islands. Edinburgh: Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, 2001.
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  391. Contemporary to Pictish art but from the west of Scotland; meticulously drawn, recorded, and classified. Provides the western counterpoint to Pictish art but includes, for example, Applecross, influenced by the Picts.
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  393. In the Shadow of Bennachie: A Field Archaeology of Donside, Aberdeenshire. Edinburgh: Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 2007.
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  395. This region contains the densest distribution of the incised symbol stones. Layer by layer, this survey builds up the occupation of the landscape from geological times onwards. Outstanding for its clarity of text, colored distribution maps, photos, and drawings.
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  397. Scott, Ian G., and Anna Ritchie. Pictish and Viking-Age Carvings from Shetland. Edinburgh: Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, 2009.
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  399. Over one hundred stones from Shetland, fully illustrated for the first time, with commentary and context.
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  401. Tarbat Peninsula
  402.  
  403. The monuments in this area have undergone close scrutiny in recent years due to the spectacularly productive excavations around the churches at Portmahomack and Hilton of Cadboll. The locality, which includes the monuments at Nigg and Shandwick, is now understood as an integrated liturgical landscape that flourished at the highest levels of intellectual and artistic sophistication before a devastating raid at Portmahomack destroyed the flourishing monastic center. Carver 2008 (cited under Churches) provides an account of excavating the premier monastic site, amplified by the website Tarbat Discovery Centre (cited under Churches). The excavations produced evidence of preparing vellum for making manuscripts, an activity amply attested by the stone inscription analyzed in Higgitt 1982 (cited under Inscriptions and Place Names). Further excavations at Hilton of Cadboll nearby revealed both the missing lower portion of the slab and the thousands of fragments of its destroyed face (James, et al. 2008, cited under Studies of Individual Monuments). One enigma on the surviving face is the noble horsewoman, whose identity and function is debated in both James, et al. 2008 and Meyer 2009. Henderson 2001 (cited under Studies of Individual Monuments) explores the sources and meaning of the Nigg stone, while Meyer 2011 (cited under Particular Artistic Questions) specifically addresses its scene of Saints Antony and Paul as evidence for developments in early medieval liturgy.
  404.  
  405. Meyer, Kellie S. “The Lady and the Vine: Putting the Horsewoman on the Hilton of Cadboll Cross-Slab into Context.” In Poetry, Place, and Gender: Studies in Medieval Culture in Honor of Helen Damico. Edited by Catherine E. Karkov, 171–196. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute, 2009.
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  407. The horsewoman wearing a brooch is an enigmatic and unique figure in Pictish art, not only as a single figure but within the context of the many other symbols displayed on the Hilton of Cadboll stone.
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  409. Particular Artistic Questions
  410.  
  411. Christianity promoted an expansion of artistic patronage for commemorative and liturgical purposes. It also exposed artists to a wide range of new iconography from outside Pictland, which the Picts avidly absorbed and enhanced. It is generally accepted that the development of carving in relief was the result of Northumbrian influence in the early 8th century, and low relief gradually progressed to high relief. Dressed slabs, whether for crosses or church furnishings, provided an ample surface for developing a wide variety of additional motifs and themes. These ranged from pure ornament to vivid hunting scenes and other detailed original compositions of daily life, both human and animal. The Pictish penchant for creating hybrid animals, already begun on the symbol stones, expanded to a wide menagerie. Henderson and Henderson 2004 (cited under Academic Accounts) provides a panoramic summary and review in chapter 5 of themes and programs found on the monuments. Symbols continued to be used within this functionally Christian context, but their form began to elaborate and “decline.” This development is seen as a means to establish a relative chronology for the symbol form, subjects tackled in Stevenson 1980 and Murray 1986. The relationship between the developing free-standing crosses at Iona and the cross-slab forms in Pictland produce a significant question of influence, particularly with regard to the snake-boss motif, which is also found in the Book of Kells. This is explored by Henderson 1987, although subsequent authors (Carol Farr and Heather Pulliam, see Insular Manuscript Illumination) have been noticeably reticent about Pictish influence on the Book of Kells. Recurrent iconographic themes of the vine-scroll, David, monsters, and the Virgin Mary are given focused treatment in Henderson 1983, Henderson 1986, Henderson 1997, and Trench-Jellicoe 1999. Éamonn Ó Carragáin (see Ó Carragáin 2005, Ritual and the Rood, in the Oxford Bibliographies article Insular Art) has pursued the development of liturgy as a means of understanding early medieval sculpture, particularly in Anglo-Saxon England, and Meyer 2011 applies this method to stones in the “liturgical landscape” of the Tarbat peninsular. Stevick 2011 applies a geometric analysis to the composition of the cross-slabs. Laing 2000 provides a useful summary of current dating theories and includes the author’s own, pushing much relief sculpture from the 8th into the 9th and 10th centuries. One topic that still needs a thorough reexamination is the interlace and key pattern, last analyzed thoroughly in ECMS (see Allen and Anderson 1993, cited under Academic Accounts).
  412.  
  413. Henderson, Isabel. Pictish Monsters: Symbol, Text and Image. H. M Chadwick Memorial Lectures 7. Cambridge, UK: Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, University of Cambridge, 1997.
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  415. Only a pamphlet but full of information about the sources, meaning, and function of the monsters in Pictish art.
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  417. Henderson, Isabel. “Pictish Vine-Scroll Ornament.” In From the Stone Age to the ’Forty-Five: Studies Presented to R. B. K. Stevenson. Edited by Anne O’Connor and D. V. Clarke, 243–268. Edinburgh: John Donald, 1983.
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  419. A comparison of the relatively few examples of Pictish vine-scroll with manuscripts and Northumbrian sculpture.
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  421. Henderson, Isabel. “The ‘David Cycle’ in Pictish Art.” In Early Medieval Sculpture in Britain and Ireland. Edited by John Higgitt, 87–123. British Archaeological Reports, British Series 152. Oxford: BAR, 1986.
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  423. King David is one of the most prominent subjects of biblical iconography found on the stones, which otherwise show relatively few Bible stories.
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  425. Henderson, Isabel. “The Book of Kells and the Snake-Boss Motif on Pictish Cross-Slabs and the Iona Crosses.” In Ireland and Insular Art, A.D. 500–1200: Proceedings of a Conference at University College Cork, 31 October–3 November 1985. Edited by Michael Ryan, 56–65. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 1987.
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  427. Links Pictish sculpture and metalwork with the crosses of Iona and Book of Kells through the snake-boss motif. Pictish art had an impact on the development of sculpture on Iona.
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  429. Laing, Lloyd. “The Chronology and Context of Pictish Relief Sculpture.” Medieval Archaeology 44.1 (2000): 81–114.
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  431. Provides a useful summary of existing arguments about dating. Compares the depiction of various artifacts like swords and brooches with the real thing (well illustrated). Concludes that many monuments dated to the 8th century should be dated to the 9th and 10th centuries. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  432. Find this resource:
  433. Meyer, Kellie. “Saints, Scrolls and Serpents: Theorising a Pictish Liturgy on the Tarbat Peninsula.” In Pictish Progress: New Studies on Northern Britain in the Early Middle Ages. Edited by Stephen T. Driscoll, Jane Geddes, and Mark A. Hall, 169–200. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2011.
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  435. Analyzes the procession of great stones on the Tarbat Peninsula, including Nigg, to suggest a varied liturgical function.
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  437. Murray, Gordon. “The Declining Pictish Symbol: A Reappraisal.” Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 116 (1986): 223–253.
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  439. Summaries the theories of Stevenson and Henderson that the symbols began with an original form and then became more elaborate toward their decline. This theory provides a chronological sequence and points to places of origin for the first designs. Maps and plenty of illustrated examples.
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  441. Stevenson, Robert B. K. “Pictish Art.” In The Problem of the Picts. Edited by Frederick T. Wainwright, 97–128. Perth, UK: Melven, 1980.
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  443. Stevenson is among the first to produce distribution maps for the symbols. He explores the evolution and “decline” of the crescent and V-rod symbol. First published in 1955.
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  445. Stevick, Robert D. “The Forms of Two Crosses on Pictish Cross-Slabs: Rossie Priory Perthshire and Glamis No. 2.” In Pictish Progress: New Studies on Northern Britain in the Early Middle Ages. Edited by Stephen T. Driscoll, Jane Geddes, and Mark A. Hall, 201–220. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2011.
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  447. An example of Stevick’s work on the coherent geometry of cross design, showing how the dimensions are reached through simple proportional relationships.
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  449. Trench-Jellicoe, Ross. “A Missing Figure on Slab Fragment No 2 from Monifieth, Angus, the a’Chill Cross, Canna, and Some Implications of the Development of a Variant Form of the Virgin’s Hairstyle and Dress in Early Medieval Scotland.” Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 129 (1999): 597–647.
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  451. Any New Testament iconography is notable by its absence in the Pictish art world. The author identifies images of the Virgin Mary, both solo and with the Magi, thus adding an important female element to the artistic vocabulary.
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  453. Studies of Individual Monuments
  454.  
  455. Wainwright 1980 (cited under Conference Transactions and first published in 1955) began to assemble a range of scholars to examine Pictish society from different angles. Current research is benefitting from a much tighter integration of the various disciplines, which now focus on single issues. Models for this are Foster 1998 and Hall, et al. 2000. The St. Andrews Sarcophagus, in many ways the high point of Pictish artistic achievement, amply justifies this spotlight as the articles listed here reveal its extensive cultural links across Europe and its implications about Pictish society. The Crieff Burgh Cross is placed within its historical, archaeological, and social context through specialist investigation. The Hilton of Cadboll cross-slab (James, et al. 2008) also benefits from a multidisciplinary account, prompted by the recent discovery of its lower portion and the thousands of fragments from its shattered face. Modern coverage of other major sites is patchy, with Sueno’s stone (Sellar 1993), Nigg (Henderson 2001), and Aberlemno (Fraser 2006) granted single spotlights. Research on other extremely important sites has lagged behind. Ritchie 1995, a short article on Meigle, begins to explore its historical significance, but an account fully integrated with its sculpture collection is required. The only full description of the St. Andrews collection is from 1931 (Fleming 1931), while St. Vigeans is currently represented by the description of its minister in 1873 (Duke 1873). Only Harden 2010 (cited under Popular Introductions) provides a thumbnail but modern catalog of St. Vigeans and Meigle. A full account of St. Vigean’s sculpture and site is in preparation by Jane Geddes. Following the deciphering of the Dupplin inscription by Forsyth 1995 (cited under Inscriptions and Place Names), Henderson 1999 places this complex monument in the appropriate art historical context.
  456.  
  457. Duke, William. “Notice of the Fabric of St. Vigeans Church, Forfarshire; with Notice and Photographs of Early Sculptured Stones Recently Discovered There, &c.” Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 9.2 (1873): 481–498.
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  459. A scholarly account of the church and catalog of the stones discovered during restoration. The earliest photographs of this important collection.
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  461. Fleming, David Hay. St. Andrews Cathedral Museum. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1931.
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  463. Still the main description of this important collection, which needs to be revisited and revised.
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  465. Foster, Sally M., ed. The St. Andrews Sarcophagus: A Pictish Masterpiece and Its International Connections. Dublin, Ireland: Four Courts, 1998.
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  467. The most complex and esoteric of all Pictish sculpture, with no symbols but a precocious use of motifs drawn from all over Europe. Separate papers place it in contemporary context and provide perspectives from Northumbria, Ireland, Mercia, and the Continent. Well illustrated with comparative material.
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  469. Fraser, James E. The Pictish Conquest: The Battle of Dunnichen 685 and the Birth of Scotland. Stroud, UK: Tempus, 2006.
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  471. Essentially an historical account of 7th-century politics that nonetheless uses the Aberlemno churchyard stone as potentially a “lithic record of the battle of Dunnichen.”
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  473. Hall, Mark A., Katherine Forsyth, Isabel Henderson, Ian G. Scott, Ross Trench-Jellicoe, and Angus Watson. “Of Makings and Meanings: Towards a Cultural Biography of the Crieff Burgh Cross, Strathearn, Perthshire.” Tayside and Fife Archaeological Journal 6 (2000): 155–188.
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  475. The full interdisciplinary approach is summoned to address the archaeology, iconography history, and politics of this monument.
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  477. Henderson, Isabel. “The Dupplin Cross: A Preliminary Consideration of Its Art-Historical Context.” In Northumbria’s Golden Age. Edited by Jane Hawkes and Susan Mills, 161–177. Stroud, UK: Alan Sutton, 1999.
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  479. Given its definitive association with King Constantine (d. 820), Henderson is able to tease out all the different cultural elements on this cross, full of outside influences but ultimately Pictish.
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  481. Henderson, Isabel. “‘This Wonderful Monument’: The Cross-Slab at Nigg, Easter Ross, Scotland.” In New Offerings, Ancient Treasures: Studies in Medieval Art for George Henderson. Edited by Paul Binski and William Noel, 115–145. Stroud, UK: Alan Sutton, 2001.
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  483. The powerful monument at Nigg includes the full Pictish repertoire of cross, symbols, hunt, and a unique depiction of Saints Antony and Paul. Henderson explains the full liturgical implications of this iconography.
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  485. James, Heather, Isabel Henderson, Sally M. Foster, et al. A Fragmented Masterpiece: Recovering the Biography of the Hilton of Cadboll Pictish Cross-Slab. Edinburgh: Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 2008.
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  487. The core of this story is the massive cross-slab displayed in Edinburgh, the lower portion of which was recently discovered in situ and intact along with thousands of fragments hacked off the cross-face in the 17th century. An interdisciplinary, biographical study pieces together the stone’s art and politics.
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  489. Ritchie, Anna. “Meigle and Lay Patronage in Tayside in the 9th and 10th Centuries AD.” Tayside and Fife Archaeological Journal 1 (1995): 1–10.
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  491. A preliminary look at the historical evidence about the patronage of this important collection. A full discussion of the stones here needs to be done, placing them in their local context. Ritchie has also produced a small, illustrated guide to the stones, Meigle Museum: Pictish Carved Stones (Edinburgh: Historic Scotland, 1998).
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  493. Sellar, W. D. H. “Sueno’s Stone and Its Interpreters.” In Moray: Province and People. Vol. 6. Edited by W. D. H. Sellar, 96–116. Edinburgh: Scottish Society for Northern Studies, 1993.
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  495. Explains the many theories about this monument and places its military scenes in possible political contexts, with the convincing inclusion of a royal inauguration ceremony.
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  497. Inscriptions and Place Names
  498.  
  499. Not only is the Pictish language an intractable subject, but the Picts have left no manuscripts, so lapidary inscriptions and place names provide the only clues to their language and letter forms. Place names are not directly relevant to art, although they provide evidence about the structure of Pictish society and often indicate religious cult sites. The distribution of places with the prefix “Pit” provides a fair correlation with the distribution of Pictish stones, providing some geographical limits to the culture. Inscriptions were written on stones in four languages and three alphabets: Pictish, Latin, Irish-Gaelic, and Norse, with the Latin alphabet, Pictish ogham, and Scandinavian runes. Some are incomprehensible, while others generally provide a name. Okasha 1985 benefits from a comprehensive bibliography of earlier attempts to read Pictish inscriptions where Diack 1944 more discursively covers inscriptions within their locality. Taylor’s work on Fife (Taylor 2006–2010) provides a fine-grained local study of place-names, while Watson 1993 (first published in 1926) remains useful because it covers the whole country. The Glasgow University project, Commemorations of Saints in Scottish Place-Names picks up the names of saints and associated relic keepers. It is of some use to art history because it links a range of stones from church sites and boundaries into the context of a saint’s cult. Clancy 1993, Forsyth 1995, and Higgitt 1982 apply the authors’ epigraphic skills specifically in order to understand and date works of art. Higgitt’s analysis of the Tarbat inscription produces invincible evidence for manuscript production at Portmahomack, deductions amply justified by subsequent discoveries at the monastery. See Carver 2008 (cited under Churches). With so little evidence for writing in the country, Forsyth 1998 tackles the issue of Pictish literacy. Forsyth’s breakthrough discovery on the Dupplin cross provided Pictish sculpture with its first dateable monument. She provides further subtle analysis of inscriptions in the vicinity of Deer (see the Book of Deer). While Clancy 1993 pins the author’s date of the Drosten stone at St. Vigeans to the reign of King Uuorad, Clancy’s forthcoming work has retracted this confident proposition.
  500.  
  501. Clancy, Thomas O. “The Drosten Stone: A New Reading.” Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 123 (1993): 345–353.
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  503. A detailed account of three names, their spelling and significance, on the cross-slab at St. Vigeans. Concludes it refers to King Uuorad, 839 × 842.
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  505. Diack, Francis C. The Inscriptions of Pictland: An Essay on the Sculptured and Inscribed Stones of the North-East and North of Scotland. Edited by Willam M. Alexander and John Macdonald. Aberdeen, UK: Spalding Club, 1944.
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  507. Comprehensive but dated account of ogham, symbolism, place-names.
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  509. Forsyth, Katherine. “The Inscriptions on the Dupplin Cross.” In From the Isles of the North: Early Medieval Art in Ireland and Britain; Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Insular Art. Edited by Cormarc Bourke, 237–244. Belfast, UK: HMSO, 1995.
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  511. Thrilling discovery of the only dateable Pictish inscription, made through sprinkling chalk and soot on the faint furrows of a cast to reveal the dedication on the Dupplin cross to King Custantin, son of Fircus (pp. 789–820).
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  513. Forsyth, Katherine. “Literacy in Pictland.” In Literacy in Medieval Celtic Societies. Edited by Huw Pryce, 39–61. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
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  515. Given the absence of surviving manuscripts, a case needs to be made for literacy in Pictland, but the range and quality of inscriptions, and not least the requirements of the church, point to a culture confidently literate in several languages.
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  517. Commemorations of Saints in Scottish Place-Names.
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  519. Led by Thomas Owen Clancy. This project, due to complete in 2013, is studying the incidence and distribution of saints’ names. These often provide the earliest evidence of Christian activity, which in turn may shed light on the presence of carved stones.
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  521. Higgitt, John. “The Pictish Latin Inscription at Tarbat in Ross-Shire.” Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 112 (1982): 300–321.
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  523. This inscription is the strongest evidence for fine manuscript production in Pictland, similar to 8th-century work in Northumbria. Higgitt examines every aspect of the lettering, language, context, and comparisons. A model for the success of multidisciplinary approach.
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  525. Okasha, Elizabeth. “The Non-Ogham Inscriptions of Pictland.” Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies 9 (1985): 43–69
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  527. Translations, discussion, and full bibliography for each entry. Art historical comment by Isabel Henderson.
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  529. Taylor, Simon. The Place-Names of Fife. 4 vols. Donington, UK: Shaun Tyas, 2006–2010.
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  531. Detailed linguistic analysis that may often prove useful for art historians in identifying cult sites and the function of particular localities.
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  533. Watson, William J. The History of Celtic Place-Names of Scotland. Edinburgh: Birlinn, 1993.
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  535. The standard reference for place-names and their history, which helps to define the nature of Pictish society and the significance of location for the Pictish stones. Clear and not too technical. Originally published in 1926.
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  537. Metalwork
  538.  
  539. Pictish metalwork, predominantly silver, is exquisitely wrought and shows both the wealth of Pictish society and the emphasis placed on personal adornment. Some of the silver metal may have arrived as ransom money paid by the Romans or as booty, since Roman hoards such as that from Traprain Law show how much metal was available. Pictish metalwork shows some distinct characteristics. The penannular brooches have an ovoid pin head, and many have lobed terminals, different from Irish brooches. The Picts produced quantities of massive burnished silver chains, unlike anyone else, and some of their jewelry is engraved with carefully wrought symbols, filled with red enamel. They make extensive use of the delicate punched pointillé technique. Perversely, the Insular hanging bowls, which are generally found in Anglo-Saxon graves and are adorned with escutcheons of Irish Celtic designs, have no known center of production near their find spots. The only sign of casting an escutcheon was found as a mold at Craig Phadraig by Inverness, corresponding to a bowl found in Argyll. Spectacular hoards of miscellaneous items add considerably to our understanding of the ownership and function of the pieces. These include St. Ninian’s Isle, Shetland (Small, et al. 1973; Barrowman 2011), Gaulcross, Banffshire (Blindheim 1984), and Norrie’s Law, Fife (Graham-Campbell 1993). Debate ranges on the dating of objects and sources of design in a craft world heavily influenced by Ireland. For general surveys of metalwork, see Anderson, who incorporated metalwork in his discussions of Pictish art of 1881 and in ECMS, Vol. I, Part 1 (see Anderson 1881, cited under Historiography and Allen and Anderson 1993, cited under Academic Accounts, respectively). The other books in Popular Introductions also cover jewelry, but Henderson and Henderson 2004 (pp. 87–121, cited under Academic Accounts) do the subject justice both with superb illustrations and by integrating it directly with the art of the sculptors. Further bibliography of metalwork finds is found in Nicholl 1995 (p. 152, cited under Bibliographies). The integrated display at The Work of Angels exhibition (Youngs 1989) of metalwork from all the Insular countries (Britain and Ireland) highlights both the exceptional characteristics of Pictish art and its many cultural affinities with the surrounding areas. The Monymusk reliquary, whose stippled background relates it to bowls in the St. Ninians’ hoard, is discussed by David Wilson and drawn out in Small, et al. 1973, while Blindheim 1984 and Bannerman 1993 (cited under History) place it within a wider context of reliquaries. Eeles 1934 brings it to national attention following its acquisition by the National Museum of Scotland, but Caldwell 2001 questions its identity with the Breccbennach of St. Columba. The religious or secular nature of the St. Ninians’ Isle hoard is contested by Wilson (in Small, et al. 1973) and McRoberts 1961.
  540.  
  541. Barrowman, Rachel C. The Chapel and Burial Ground on St. Ninian’s Isle, Shetland: Excavations Past and Present. Society for Medieval Archeology Monograph 32. London: Society for Medieval Archaeology, 2011.
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  543. Additional excavation and definitive reassessment of O’Dell’s 1955 excavation of the church, with item on an ogham inscribed stone by Katherine Forsyth and evaluation of the bead collection.
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  545. Blindheim, Martin. “A House-Shaped Irish-Scots Reliquary in Bologna and Its Place Among the Other Reliquaries.” Acta Archaeologia 55 (1984): 1–53.
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  547. Pages 36–39 place the Monymusk reliquary in context with the other Insular reliquaries in terms of design and technique.
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  549. Caldwell, David. “The Monymusk Reliquary: The Breccbennach of St. Columba?” Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 131 (2001): 267–282.
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  551. Rigorously examines the documentary evidence relating to the Breccbennach and the historical provenance of the Monymusk reliquary, unsettling the beloved identity of this national icon.
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  553. Eeles, Francis C. “The Monymusk Reliquary or Brecbennoch of St. Columba.” Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 68 (1934): 433–438.
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  555. Gives the full historical background of the reliquary and its presumed association with the relics of St. Columba.
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  557. Graham-Campbell, James. “The Norrie’s Law Hoard and the Dating of Pictish Silver.” Paper presented at the Second International Conference on Insular Art, Edinburgh, 3–6 January 1991. In The Age of Migrating Ideas: Early Medieval Art in Northern Britain and Ireland. Edited by Michael R. Spearman and John Higgitt, 115–117. Stroud, UK: Alan Sutton, 1993.
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  559. The hoard represents an accumulation of Pictish silver containing remnants of Roman inheritance, deposited in late 7th century. Latest, unpublished, forensic work (2011) by Martin Goldberg and Alice Blackwell shows several of the pieces, two with Pictish symbols, were 19th-century replicas.
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  561. McRoberts, D. “The Ecclesiastical Significance of the St. Ninian’s Isle Treasure.” Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 94 (1961): 301–314.
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  563. Wilson (in Small, et al. 1973) sees the collection as secular and the inscription on the chape as not necessarily Christian. McRoberts makes the case for a Christian content.
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  565. Small, Alan, Charles Thomas, and David M. Wilson. St. Ninian’s Isle and Its Treasure. 2 vols. Aberdeen University Studies Series 152. London: Oxford University Press, 1973.
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  567. Twenty-eight silver objects, brooches, bowls, and sword chapes, buried around 800, were found in a box in 1958. The designs relate clearly to Pictish art on the mainland. Each item and pattern are carefully drawn out.
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  569. Youngs, Susan, ed. “The Work of Angels”: Masterpieces of Celtic Metalwork, 6th–9th Centuries AD. London: British Museum, 1989.
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  571. A dazzling show of the best metalwork from Ireland, England, and Scotland. Objects are grouped by type rather than country, so the unity of Insular Art becomes apparent. Excellent essays, color illustrations, and bibliography. The catalog succeeds in explaining all the technical details of manufacture and presents arguments about function and location.
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  573. Buildings
  574.  
  575. Pictish building falls more into the realm of archaeology than of art and architecture. Unlike Ireland, where substantial numbers of early stone churches survive, none remain standing in Pictland, and only a few are excavated. These are conveniently summarized by Yeoman 2009 (cited under Churches). It was not until about 710 that King Naiton asked the Northumbrians to send masons with the skill to work in dressed ashlar masonry and build him a church (which does not survive and is not known). A few examples of carved architectural stone work survive, such as the Forteviot arch (Aitchison 2006, cited under Landscape and Location) and possible elements from a lintel or frieze at Meigle and St. Vigeans (Harden 2010, cited under Popular Introductions). Chapter 7 of Henderson and Henderson 2004 (cited under Academic Accounts) illustrates stone church furnishings including an altar frontal, potential reredos, and elaborate corner-post shrines. On the secular side, Alcock 2003 (cited under Secular Sites) made a systematic survey of possible early medieval forts across Scotland, some of which are in Pictland. Burghead is the largest and most important promontory fort, clearly a major seat of power in the Moray Firth before the Viking invasions. Excavations are currently underway at Forteviot and Rhynie, where structures are being uncovered. All these excavations are not directed toward uncovering fine architecture or works of art, but their significance in this area may be more in the discovery of workshops where elite products were made, like the manuscripts at Portmahomack and the jeweler’s equipment at Rhynie.
  576.  
  577. Churches
  578.  
  579. The outstanding Pictish monuments on the Tarbat peninsula (Nigg, Hilton of Cadboll, Shandwick, the Tarbat inscription) already testified to a sophisticated cultural complex, but the excavations at Portmahomack found not only a church with more carved stones (still with paint adhering) destroyed soon after creation in presumably a Viking raid. They also revealed a complete workshop area for metalwork and, more importantly, for preparing leather for parchment, along with equipment for making manuscripts. Carver’s excavations (Carver 2008) showed an active production site in the Pictish era, but Yeoman 2009 questions whether the church fabric itself was perhaps a revival after the Viking raid. The church is now a museum, the Tarbat Discovery Centre. At Dull, Perthshire, on the western edge of Pictland, Will, et al. 2003, a comprehensive survey, links the surviving archaeology with Iona and the cult of St. Colman. Although standing remains of Pictish churches are unlikely to survive, the Corpus of Scottish Medieval Parish Churches, without bespoke excavation, is beginning to reveal how many of the surviving parish churches have a medieval or earlier origin.
  580.  
  581. Carver, Martin. Portmahomack: Monastery of the Picts. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2008.
  582. DOI: 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748624416.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  583. The “popular” but detailed account of excavations that produced a time capsule of the monks arriving, thriving, creating complex sculptures and manuscripts, and then being destroyed in a devastating raid. It also produces the outline of the little church and its interior. Well illustrated and digestible style.
  584. Find this resource:
  585. Corpus of Scottish Medieval Parish Churches.
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  587. This project, led by Richard Fawcett, aims to identify, record, and illustrate all parish churches of medieval origin in the dioceses of Dunblane, Dunkeld, St. Andrews, and Brechin. These include a significant number with Pictish stones in their kirkyards.
  588. Find this resource:
  589. Tarbat Discovery Centre.
  590. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  591. Website for the museum at Tarbat church and the ancillary archaeological activities.
  592. Find this resource:
  593. Will, Robert S., Katherine Forsyth, Thomas O. Clancy, and Gifford Charles-Edward. “An Eighth-Century Cross Slab in Dull, Perthshire.” Scottish Archaeological Journal 25.1 (2003): 57–71.
  594. DOI: 10.3366/saj.2003.25.1.57Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  595. The cross-slab provides an opportunity to investigate the entire early history of the parish, its close connections to Iona and St. Colman. Available online by subscription.
  596. Find this resource:
  597. Yeoman, Peter. “Investigations on the May Island, and Other Medieval Churches and Monasteries in Scotland.” In The Archaeology of the Early Medieval Celtic Churches: Proceedings of a Conference on the Archaeology of the Early Medieval Celtic Churches, September 2004. Edited by Nancy Edwards, 227–244. Leeds, UK: Maney, 2009.
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  599. A useful summary of remains from potentially Pictish churches at May, Portmahomack, and around St. Andrews, compared with excavations in the west at Iona and Inchbrayock.
  600. Find this resource:
  601. Secular Sites
  602.  
  603. Leslie and Elizabeth Alcock made a systematic series of reconnaissance excavations of the great promontory and hill forts of Scotland, including the Pictish sites of Urquhart Castle, Forteviot (Aitchison 2006), Dunnottar and Dundurn, written up in 1989 and 1992 in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. An evaluation of these sites is found in Alcock 2003, which puts them in the context of other comparable sites in England and Wales. Alcock also describes Burghead, whose ramparts were fitted with a series of slabs carved with majestic bulls. Although unique, these wall plaques are a reminder that architectural sculpture may have been more common than currently appreciated. Henderson and Henderson 2004 (p. 208, cited under Academic Accounts) reminds us that a systematic survey of all the sculpture carved on one face only and called Class III by Allan and Anderson 1993 (cited under Academic Accounts) may reveal more architectural pieces. Evidence for a palisade, ring ditch, ceremonial entrance, and metalworking is coming to light at Rhynie, where an elite secular settlement is beginning to emerge. See the Northern Picts Project (cited under Landscape and Location).
  604.  
  605. Aitchison, Nick. Forteviot: A Pictish and Scottish Royal Centre. Stroud, UK: Tempus, 2006.
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  607. An important historical and art historical analysis of a royal site, with architectural sculpture, which remained in use under both the Picts and Scots.
  608. Find this resource:
  609. Alcock, Leslie. Kings and Warriors, Craftsmen and Priests in Northern Britain, AD 550–850. Edinburgh: Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 2003.
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  611. An eclectic book drawing on a lifetime of knowledge, covering all aspects of material culture. Well illustrated with plans, drawings, and color. Particularly valuable for explaining the everyday items shown in the carvings and also surviving in the archaeological record. Easy to use with the index.
  612. Find this resource:
  613. Manuscripts
  614.  
  615. No Pictish manuscripts have survived, and yet the Picts were clearly masters of linear, calligraphic art. There is evidence at Portmahomack that manuscripts were being made and evidence from later documents that a few great books existed, like the personal gospels of St. Ternan (d. 431) enshrined in a gold and silver cover. These Pictish manuscripts might be glimpsed at one remove in illuminated gospels like Durrow and Echternach, whose evangelist symbols are influenced by Pictish animals (Henderson 1987). Pictish design influenced art outside Pictland, like the Iona crosses and even the Book of Kells (Henderson 1982). These designs would either be carried by illuminated manuscripts or by craftsmen on the move. Henderson and Henderson 2004 (pp. 215–217, cited under Academic Accounts) makes a strong case for the existence of a thriving Pictish manuscript culture, even though no books survive.
  616.  
  617. Henderson, Isabel. “Pictish Art and the Book of Kells.” In Ireland in Early Mediaeval Europe: Studies in Memory of Kathleen Hughes. Edited by Dorothy Whitelock, Rosamond McKitterick, and David Dumville, 79–105. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1982.
  618. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  619. Indicates that Pictish artists were able to create manuscripts as complex as the Book of Kells, and some aspects of its design could have come from Pictland.
  620. Find this resource:
  621. Henderson, George. From Durrow to Kells: The Insular Gospel-Books, 650–800. London: Thames and Hudson, 1987.
  622. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  623. A lavishly illustrated book on Insular manuscripts, this links Pictish sculpture with evangelist symbols in surviving manuscripts.
  624. Find this resource:
  625. The Book of Deer
  626.  
  627. There is no conclusive proof that the 10th-century illuminated The Book of Deer, from Deer Abbey in Banffshire, was actually made there. It is a type of Irish pocket gospel, and its origin is not known. However, in the 12th century it was heavily annotated at Deer Abbey with details of land transactions. Not only are these the earliest evidence of written Scots-Gaelic, they provide details of land organization reaching back to Pictish times (available on Gaelic Notes). Located in Cambridge University Library, its study is enthusiastically supported by the Friends of The Book of Deer, based in Aberdeenshire (Book of Deer Project). The Spalding Club edition is on the web with the full Latin text and reproductions of the illuminated pages (Stuart 1869). The illuminations are discussed, with increasing levels of understanding in the course of time, by Geddes 1998, Marner 2002, and Henderson (in Forsyth 2008).
  628.  
  629. Book of Deer Project.
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  631. The Friends of The Book of Deer sustain interest in the manuscript locally. The site provides details about its history and background.
  632. Find this resource:
  633. Forsyth, Katherine, ed. Studies on The Book of Deer. Dublin, Ireland: Four Courts, 2008.
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  635. A multidisciplinary explanation of the book’s history, its text and annotations, and the early church site at Deer. Chapters by Isabel Henderson on the illuminations and Forsyth on the stones in the vicinity.
  636. Find this resource:
  637. Gaelic Notes in the Book of Deer.
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  639. The Gaelic notes are transcribed and translated.
  640. Find this resource:
  641. Geddes, Jane. “The Art of the Book of Deer.” Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 128 (1998): 537–549.
  642. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  643. Discussion of the illuminations.
  644. Find this resource:
  645. Marner, Dominic. “The Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God and the Book of Deer.” Medieval Archaeology 46.1 (2002): 1–28.
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  647. Places the iconography in close relationship to the adjacent texts and argues that this extraordinary book functioned more as a talisman than a piece of devotional literature. Availbale online for purchase or by subscription.
  648. Find this resource:
  649. Stuart, John, ed. The Book of Deer. Aberdeen, UK: Spalding Club, 1869.
  650. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  651. Substantial historical introduction and commentary, full Latin text; illuminated pages reproduced. Superceded as academic authority by Forsyth 2008. Available online.
  652. Find this resource:
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