The Doric Columns |
The Picts - The Romans called this pre-Celtic people Pictii, or "Painted," although Claudius' words are proof that (as claimed by many historians), the ancient Picts actually tattooed their bodies with designs. To the non-Roman Celtic world of Scots and Irish and the many tribes of Belgic England and Wales they were known as "Cruithni" and for many centuries they represented the unbridled fury of a people who refused to be brought under the yoke of Rome or any foreign invader. Aberdeenshire was their heartland. Aberdeenshire, Banffshire, Moray and Kincardineshire are counties in North East Scotland with the highest density of prehistoric and early-historic monuments per square mile in the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland.It is interesting that with so many stone circles that pre-dated the Picts that they did not adopt these ready hoardings for endorsing with their Symbols - or did they? The conjoined circles, zeds, and arcs have graphic and geometric discipline which seem to point a message of tribe or territory. In addition to familiar animals we have heraldic beasts - Elephantine shapes, Seals, and Dolphins morph into each other. Serpents or Adders twine around gusseted right-angles and Zeds. Conjoined Concentric Circles, Half Zeds or Vees with arcs, Puzzle protrusions or notches, Disks and or mirrors look like their modern replicas and the presence of combs would indicate fine skills in bone but why record such a painstaking addition to a Marker Stone. Female vanity respected, recorded and women revered as the obvious source of life? A new generation of Pictii are abroad in our land adorning their flesh in similar manner with familiar and ornate exotic designs that invade areas of semi exposed and ever reducing areas of unadorned skin. The class of archaeological remains, called sculptured stones. These are of 3 kinds: 1 those with incised symbols only, 2 those with in addition Celtic ornament carved in relief, and 3 monuments with Celtic ornament in relief and no symbols. The 1st class is the only one largely represented in Aberdeenshire and a good many representatives are in existence. The symbols most commonly seen are the crescent and sceptre, the spectacles, the mirror and comb, and the so-called "elephant" symbol, a representation of a beast with long jaws, a crest and scroll feet. Another is the serpent symbol. What the symbols signify is still a mystery, but the fact that the stones with symbolism are unusually common in what was known as Northern Pictland seems to point to their being indigenous to that area. Out of 124 stones in the first class Aberdeenshire has 42. It would seem as if the county had been the focus where the symbolism originated. The richness of the locality round Kintore and Inverurie in symbol stones is taken to indicate that region as the centre from which they radiated.
Ploughed up stone in 1978 at a farm Barflat, Rhynie. The Gabbro stone measures 1.78m long and dates between 700 and 800AD. It has an incised figure of a man walking, an axe upon his shoulder and wearing some sort of sleeved garment extending to just above the knee and tied around the waist by cord. His shoes are pointed and he wears some sort of head dress. There are few Pictish carved figures in Scotland and this is the earliest figure carving to date found in Grampian. It now stands in the foyer of Regional Council Offices, Aberdeen.
There are only a few 100 surviving Pictish stones and slabs. Some of them have symbols carved onto them like a relief. Christian motifs, such as a cross, can also be seen on a number of them. There are also several painted pebbles, whose patterns seem particularly perfunctory. Researchers have long grappled with the question of what they represent. Are they mere symbols? Or are they full-fledged texts (albeit un-deciphered) which communicate a written language? A team of language experts, led by Professor Rob Lee of Exeter University, analysed how random the Pictish symbols are. If the symbols didn’t show evidence of any kind of order, then it would be unlikely that they represented a written language, but if the same symbols are being written in the same way over and over again, then there is a good chance that it does communicate written language.
Pictish Stones Distribution The Hilton of Cadboll Stone in the Museum of Scotland.
The "Goose Stone" or Pictish Incised Symbol Stone Tillytarmont 1, was one of the first stones to be discovered in Donaldson Hough between the River Isla and the River Deveron in 1867 by a Mr Hunter. The stone was removed from their and built into the Farm Steading (building) of North Tillytarmont Farm in the late 1800's. It was then removed from there in 1979 for safe keeping to the University Aberdeen and can be viewed there by appointment. The picture was photographed in 1954 showing it's position built into the wall of the Farm Steading. Now while the numbers of Class I stones there must remain impressive, it is possible to offer a statistical argument for a more northerly origin centre. The impressiveness of Aberdeen's numerical lead depreciates considerably when we consider statistics relevant to the more ancient land divisions. Allen attributed 41 stones to Aberdeenshire with its nearest rival Sutherland with 15. The new relevant figures are: Mar and Buchan 54; Moray and Ross 42. Moreover 16 of the 21 examples in "Cathanesia" are in SB. Sutherland. If then, high numbers, together with normal representation in other classes are a criterion of the origin centre, then we can look as justly to the coastal strips round the Moray and Dornoch Firths as to Aberdeenshire. "We may therefore conclude with probability that Class I had not long been introduced into Forfarshire when it was changed into Class II, by the advancement of the art, but that the advanced type took sometime to spread into Aberdeenshire where the primitive type continued to prevail . . .
The stone was found built into a dry stone dyke on Redhill Farm, Rothiemay by George, the grandson of farmer Alex Anton, in the middle of the 1800's. It was removed from it's location early in the 1890's and used as a Sundial Stand in the Gardens of Rothiemay Castle. In 1955 as the Castle was falling into disrepair, the stone was removed, and placed with Tillytarmont 2 & 3 in the garden of Whitestones House Rothiemay.
The stone known as Tillytarmont 5 was the 2nd of 2 stones that were ploughed up by Mr Allan Milne of Nth Tillytarmont Farm, Nr Huntly, Aberdeenshire on the 28th of March 1974. The stone again was found while deep ridging at a depth of 28in in the place known as Donaldson Hough, which lies between the River Isla and the River Devron at at Rothiemay. Upon his retirement in 1981 both stones were removed to his house at Boyndie, Nr Whitehills, Banffshire and both stones, were built into a wall in his garden. By 1996 the stones had been removed and were purchased from him and are now in the University Museum Aberdeen. The only representation available of the stone is this drawing Depicting the Serpent and Zed Rod the Crescent, Comb and Mirror.
These remaining stones depicting what is now known as the ‘Burghead Bulls’ were thought to have adorned the ramparts of the fort or possibly around the forts gates and are thought by some to be a symbol of strength. Of the remaining stones, which are known, Burghead 3 and 4 can be seen at the Burghead Library, Burghead 2 and 6 are in the Elgin Museum, Burghead 1 is in the Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh and Burghead 5 is in the British Museum. There is no doubt that Burghead Fort played a dominant part in Pictish society and must have been an important stronghold in the North for the Picts. The fort may well have been a ‘Pictish Capital’ of Northern Pictland. If only they had Patented the Teething Ring, Mirror, Comb or the Brassiere
Brandsbutt Symbol Stone - About one mile north west of InverurieAn important, if enigmatic, type of ceremonial object which was well represented in the North-east around 2500 BC, is the carved stone ball. Of the more than 400 known, most have been found in the North East of Scotland between the Rivers Dee and the Deveron - the heartland of Aberdeenshire. The size of a tennis ball, usually with 6 protruding knobs, they are sometimes more elaborately decorated with spirals or plastic ornament which is similar to Grooved Ware, a type of late Neolithic pottery not known in the north-east but common in Orkney and Fife. They were clearly well-looked after by their owners to whom they must have conveyed status and prestige.
Could these have been a respected and widely accepted commercial weight standard for a balance, perhaps a rope or leather thong swung weapon - but then any suitably shaped beach stone would do. A highly prized unit of exchangeable wealth? Ceremonial Orbs?
The Celts The Celts, those mysterious denizens of the Iron Age, buried prominent people with wagons along with other goods. Wagons dating from about the 800 BC to 500 BC have been found throughout Europe in places like France, Germany, Austria and the former Yugoslavia. Artwork of the time also featured images of wagons, which the Celts outfitted with iron tyres and pivoted axles. This includes engravings on a couch found at the burial site of a Celtic Chieftain, on which the dead reclined. The couch, known as the Hochdorft kline, shows a 4-wheeled wagon drawn by a pair of horses. Seated on the wagon is a man carrying a shield and a sword, which leads historians to believe that wagons were used during times of war. The Hochdorf kline is housed at the Hochdorf Celtic Museum in Germany. Along with proving helpful in warfare, wagons during the Iron Age of the Hallstatt period (8th to 6th centuries BC) were used for transporting goods such as mined salt. Several carriages have also been found whose purpose appears to have been exclusively ceremonial. The carriages feature animals and symbolic objects rather than providing room for passengers. Rodney's Stone
Rodney’s Stone is a Class II Pictish symbol stone, probably carved in the 8th century. Along 3 corners runs the longest known Scottish Ogham Inscription, extending for over 3m. Reused as a recumbent grave marker in perhaps the 16th or 17th century, it was rediscovered in 1781 during the excavation of foundations for a new parish church in the village of Dyke. Having been erected in Dyke the following year, it was subsequently moved to its present position in the 1820s/30s. Deri Jones Associates undertook a 3-D laser scan of the entire stone, with further, higher resolution scans of the ogham text/s and of strategic areas to act as a baseline for condition monitoring between March–December 2010. Data processing by Archaeoptics Ltd is ongoing; it is hoped that the high resolution data will allow a more complete transcription of the ogham to be created, elucidating some of the more heavily eroded letters.
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