The Picts are commonly described today as a group of tribes and/or independent kingdoms who lived in the eastern and northeastern regions of Scotland during the ancient and early medieval period (from 600 BCE through 900 CE). The Picts occupied an area in Scotland that ran from the Firth of Forth in the south to Shetland Island in the north.
Much of the information about the history of the Picts comes from the writings of their enemy: the Romans. The first written mention of the Picts comes in 297 CE when the Roman orator Eumenius reports that the Picts had attacked Hadrian’s wall. In her book Pictish Stones in Dunrobin Castle Museum, Joanna Close-Brooks writes:
“The name Picti first occurs in a document of AD 297, but the Pictish kingdom is only well-attested historically from the mid 6th century onwards, from the reign of Bridei son of Maelcon.”
In their book Caithness Archaeology: Aspects of Prehistory, Andrew Heald and John Barber write:
“The evidence that identifies these people as ‘Picts’ lies in a classical reference from AD 297 and a second, but uncertain, reference from AD 310. From this slender base a whole people have been manufactured. ‘Picti’ was probably a soldier’s term for everyone north of the Forth and it subsumed a range of different peoples under a single name.”
Gordon Noble and Meggen Gondek, in an article in Current Archaeology, write:
“Of all the peoples of Early Medieval Europe, the Picts are among the most mysterious. Made up of a number of tribes that inhabited northern and eastern Scotland, they were described by the Romans as fearsome fighters, while their elaborately decorated symbol stones suggest a sophisticated artistic culture.”
We don’t know what the Picts called themselves: their name seems to have been derived from the Latin picti, which means “painted.” Their name may reflect a practice of painting and/or tattooing their bodies. Some Roman writers suggested that the Pict warriors came into battle naked, with their bodies blue from paint or tattoos. Modern writer Alistair Moffat, in his book Before Scotland, puts it this way:
“Celtic warriors almost certainly stripped off their tunics and leggings so that their gods, their enemies and their comrades could see their tattooed bodies—because the tattoos were powerful magical weapons in themselves, what a modern tattooist has described as ‘psychic armour’.”
When dressed, Pict men generally wore a cloak over a belted tunic. There is some indication that a woven woolen hood may have also been worn. Women wore long skirts and cloaks.
Like other peoples in Britain and Europe at this time, the Picts were farmers who raised grain crops and kept cows, sheep, pigs, and horses.
Part of the archaeological record related to the Picts in Scotland is the Pictish stones which have been found throughout the region. Andrew Heald and John Barber write:
“The Picts are made visible in the archaeological record by the survival of rather wonderful and very enigmatic carved stones.”
These stones, which are inscribed with symbols which seem to have been inspired by Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, and Christian iconography, are the most tangible and distinctive evidence of Pictish society. Joanna Close-Brooks writes:
“The symbols are carved into the stone, generally by ‘pecking’, hammering a punch along the line so it leaves a series of peck marks, which were then more or less smoothed out.”
With regard to Pictish designs, Gordon Noble and Meggen Gondek, in an article in Current Archaeology, write:
“By the later 7th and 8th centuries, these designs had become more elaborate, with their artistic repertoire expanding to include Christian crosses and iconography—as well as scenes of hunting, warfare, and other elite activities, suggesting that the people who commissioned these monuments were likely of high social status.”
Some of them have ogham inscriptions. About 350 of these stones have survived, primarily in the northern and eastern regions of Scotland.
Shown below is the display of Pictish stones in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.