Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 12, 2019 17:41:00 GMT -5
We know the Picts only through their material culture, symbol stones, jewellery, pottery, archaeological sites and the few written sources which have been passed down to us by others. Romans, Irish King lists, annals and the writings of Clerics like Adomnan, Gildas and Bede basically sum up our entire knowledge of them. We know they were militarily, politically and socially well organised, spoke a form of P Celtic and carved beautifully elaborate symbol stones and I cannot believe they were incapable of producing written documents.
Any thoughts you might have as to why would be most welcome.
|
|
|
|
Post by Windischer on Sept 12, 2019 18:20:58 GMT -5
Are we really sure they spoke a Brythonic Celtic language? They left no written sources of their own, like you said, only ornaments carved in stone. I've seen claims of them being speakers of a pre-Indo-European language but it seems any guess is as good as the other.
Whem exactly did the Picts cease to exist as an identity? Wasn't Alba created by merging a Pictish and an Irish (Gaelic) kingdom and then the Gaelic identity became more dominant?
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 12, 2019 19:07:45 GMT -5
Are we really sure they spoke a Brythonic Celtic language? They left no written sources of their own, like you said, only ornaments carved in stone. I've seen claims of them being speakers of a pre-Indo-European language but it seems any guess is as good as the other. Whem exactly did the Picts cease to exist as an identity? Wasn't Alba created by merging a Pictish and an Irish (Gaelic) kingdom and then the Gaelic identity became more dominant? Hi Windischer, historians are reasonably sure the Picts spoke a form of Brythonic mainly due to place name and personal name evidence. The prefix Aber found mainly in The North East of Scotland, for example Aberdeen, Aberlour and so on are mirrored in Welsh place names such as Abergevenny, Aberfan etc and as they all are associated with river mouths the linguistic connection seems hard to ignore. As to your second question the jury is still out as to exactly when Pictish culture ceased to exist. We know a joint force of Picts and Gaels along with their Kings were slaughtered by the Vikings somewhere in the North East of Scotland in, I think it was 839 and my own view Is Kenneth MacAlpine, who was given credit for unifying the two peoples may have been the last man of any note left standing. We don't even know if he was a Gael or a Pict so this alerts us to the complexity of stating with any confidence as to whether it was a hostile or welcome takeover. As to the disappearance of Pictish culture we can assume it would have been a slow process, but we do have the evidence of a Tenth Century Anglo Saxon cleric, I forget his name, who states that the Picts were gone by his time. No simplistic answers I am afraid. |
|
|
|
Post by Rex Monoculus Midiensis on Sept 13, 2019 7:34:35 GMT -5
The Dál Riata of north Antrim, associated with the province of Ulaid, was the Gaelic kingdom that expanded into Scotland and was traditionally thought to have created the kingdom of Scotland by gradually merging with the Picts. The Dál Riata seem to have expanded into Scotland at a very early date, with the sixth century often suggested. Cinaed mac Ailpín, or Kenneth MacAlpine, is accepted by most, but not all, to have been a member of Dál Riata. However, there is disagreement about whether his reign marks the 'merging' of Dál Riata and the kingdom of the Picts, with some more modern historians arguing that instead the power of Dál Riata broke around his time and his descendants re-cast his reign to justify their own dominance. According to this interpretation, Pictish identity did not disappear until c. 900.
The Irish word for the Picts, cruithin, was also applied to a number of different minor peoples and kingdoms in Ireland, including the Dál nAraide and Conaille Muirthemne, both of which belonged to the province of Ulaid, like the Dál Riata. Later, the leading dynasties of these kingdoms would abandon cruithin genealogies, adopting a closer relationship with the leading dynasty of the province of Ulaid, Dál Fiatach. It is not certain, however, whether 'cruithin' suggests a real link with the Picts and these people of north-eastern Ireland. 'Cruithin', the etymology of which has been established as deriving from 'Preteni' and therefore equivalent to 'British', is more likely to have been a general term encompassing both the Picts and some pre-Gaelic inhabitants of Ireland.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 13, 2019 8:58:25 GMT -5
The Dál Riata of north Antrim, associated with the province of Ulaid, was the Gaelic kingdom that expanded into Scotland and was traditionally thought to have created the kingdom of Scotland by gradually merging with the Picts. The Dál Riata seem to have expanded into Scotland at a very early date, with the sixth century often suggested. Cinaed mac Ailpín, or Kenneth MacAlpine, is accepted by most, but not all, to have been a member of Dál Riata. However, there is disagreement about whether his reign marks the 'merging' of Dál Riata and the kingdom of the Picts, with some more modern historians arguing that instead the power of Dál Riata broke around his time and his descendants re-cast his reign to justify their own dominance. According to this interpretation, Pictish identity did not disappear until c. 900. The Irish word for the Picts, cruithin, was also applied to a number of different minor peoples and kingdoms in Ireland, including the Dál nAraide and Conaille Muirthemne, both of which belonged to the province of Ulaid, like the Dál Riata. Later, the leading dynasties of these kingdoms would abandon cruithin genealogies, adopting a closer relationship with the leading dynasty of the province of Ulaid, Dál Fiatach. It is not certain, however, whether 'cruithin' suggests a real link with the Picts and these people of north-eastern Ireland. 'Cruithin', the etymology of which has been established as deriving from 'Preteni' and therefore equivalent to 'British', is more likely to have been a general term encompassing both the Picts and some pre-Gaelic inhabitants of Ireland. Aye General that is a pretty good summary of the traditional history as presented by the Irish Annals and Bede which has been more or less accepted by historians until recent years. Of late however historians like Jenny Wormald have rejected the thesis of a Dal Riatan conquest of Argyle on the grounds that the archaeological evidence simply does not support this conclusion. Had there been an influx of migrants from Antrim one would expect to find traces of it on the ground in the form of native Irish Raths and Jewellery, but as yet absolutely no archaeological evidence has been found supporting the Irish sources. Indeed Wormald even goes so far as to say the migration could just as easily have gone the other way from Argyle to Antrim. On your point about the Cruithnie and the seven provinces of Pictland historians argue that the evidence of the Irish Annals is so similar to the seven ancient Earldoms of Scotland created in the later medieval period it is highly suspicious. It is known that the Irish Annals went through the hands of several Scottish scribes and they may have tampered with the evidence in order to manufacture an Irish origin for the Scottish Kingdom for sound political purposes. Good to see you on here GMC, but I wish someone would attempt to answer the OP LOL |
|
|
|
Post by Rex Monoculus Midiensis on Sept 13, 2019 9:31:52 GMT -5
Hey VR, good to see you as well. As regards the OP, I wouldn't have thought it was much of a surprise that the Picts left no written documents. The various Viking nations, who are known to have used runes in certain circumstances, left virtually no written documents of their own that could help elucidate their history. The Picts are surely only one of many peoples in early medieval Europe who have bequeathed no documents to posterity. Of course it is a shame, considering their matrilinear succession is regarded as a great curiosity - especially in a local context.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 13, 2019 10:21:00 GMT -5
Hey VR, good to see you as well. As regards the OP, I wouldn't have thought it was much of a surprise that the Picts left no written documents. The various Viking nations, who are known to have used runes in certain circumstances, left virtually no written documents of their own that could help elucidate their history. The Picts are surely only one of many peoples in early medieval Europe who have bequeathed no documents to posterity. Of course it is a shame, considering their matrilinear succession is regarded as a great curiosity - especially in a local context. Fair point, but do you not think the very fact that the Picts left no written sources in the Pictish language suggests a deeper cultural and psychological motive? We know they were not illiterate as some of the Christian class 2 stones have both Latin and Ogham inscriptions. A tentative theory may be that they consciously chose to accentuate their own pictorial culture to distinguish themselves from the Britons, Angles and Gaels who were their neighbours and competitors. Either that or any documents they did have written in Pictish were burned by the Vikings along with the only Pictish Monastery that was recently excavated at Portmahomack. Not knowing is damned annoying GRRR. |
|
|
|
Post by Rex Monoculus Midiensis on Sept 13, 2019 11:52:32 GMT -5
Of course it may have been as you suggest. Personally, I would doubt that there was a conscious purpose behind the non-adoption of written records. I think it is more likely to have been a question of culture - i.e. it just did not really 'catch on' in the way it did elsewhere. That is also related to environment - In Ireland (and elsewhere) the monasteries were effectively the only places in which documents were produced. If the culture of writing did not exist in Pictish ecclesiastical centres, that could explain an overall lack of surviving written records. That, of course, is only my opinion and supposition. By the nature of the matter, we don't know and won't know for certain.
|
|
|
|
Post by Windischer on Sept 13, 2019 12:25:20 GMT -5
Slavs didn't leave anything written behind either, until they were Christianised and the need for church service in the local language arised. Before that they had centuries to adopt writing from the Byzantines or the Germans but they didn't, as far as we know. Their pagan temples were completely destroyed, a lot of them in a way all too similar to what the Spanish did in America. So who knows, right? Might be a stupid question, but I don't know much about the Picts. Did they adopt Christianity and who Christianised them? What were their important centres and did they get disrupted by outsiders?
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 13, 2019 14:08:34 GMT -5
Of course it may have been as you suggest. Personally, I would doubt that there was a conscious purpose behind the non-adoption of written records. I think it is more likely to have been a question of culture - i.e. it just did not really 'catch on' in the way it did elsewhere. That is also related to environment - In Ireland (and elsewhere) the monasteries were effectively the only places in which documents were produced. If the culture of writing did not exist in Pictish ecclesiastical centres, that could explain an overall lack of surviving written records. That, of course, is only my opinion and supposition. By the nature of the matter, we don't know and won't know for certain. I think, given the sparsity of sources available, your opinion is as valid as mine on this matter and unless we unearth a Pictish version of the Book of Kells at some point in the future we can only speculate. Sad state of affairs General, but that's history for you. |
|
