{"id":4304,"date":"2012-05-23T09:37:57","date_gmt":"2012-05-23T15:37:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4304"},"modified":"2012-05-24T08:59:33","modified_gmt":"2012-05-24T14:59:33","slug":"pictish-writing-discovered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4304","title":{"rendered":"Pictish Writing Discovered?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some researchers now think that decorative carvings on Pictish <\/a>memorial stones in Scotland may actually represent a form of writing.<\/a><\/p>\n

The highly stylized rock engravings, found on what are known as the Pictish Stones, had once been thought to be rock art or tied to heraldry. The new study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A<\/em>, instead concludes that the engravings represent the long lost language of the Picts, a confederation of Celtic tribes that lived in modern-day eastern and northern Scotland.<\/p>\n

“We know that the Picts had a spoken language to complement the writing of the symbols, as Bede (a monk and historian who died in 735) writes that there are four languages in Britain in this time: British, Pictish, Scottish and English,” lead author Rob Lee told Discovery News.<\/p>\n

“We know that the three other languages were \u2014 and are \u2014 complex spoken languages, so there is every indication that Pictish was also a complex spoken language,” added Lee, a professor in the School of Biosciences at the University of Exeter.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I have known some people who claimed to be practising Pictish Witchcraft. If the carving is indeed writing and is deciphered, then they will have to go back and revise their greatnth<\/sup>-grandmother’s Book of Shadows.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some researchers now think that decorative carvings on Pictish memorial stones in Scotland may actually represent a form of writing. The highly stylized rock engravings, found on what are known as the Pictish Stones, had once been thought to be rock art or tied to heraldry. The new study, published in the Proceedings of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[20,38,17],"class_list":["post-4304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-archaeology","tag-celts","tag-scotland"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-17q","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1321,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1321","url_meta":{"origin":4304,"position":0},"title":"Picts, Scots, Vikings, King Arthur–the Past is Still Much With Us","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 4, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"An interesting round-up of Scottish and Pictish-themed movies at Codex Celtica, as well as discussion of new pop-historical writing on King Arthur.","rel":"","context":"In \"history\"","block_context":{"text":"history","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=history"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13970,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13970","url_meta":{"origin":4304,"position":1},"title":"The Power and Sorrow of Gododdin","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 27, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Two things arrived together in a package from Amazon: a new Bluetooth mouse, currently in use, and leading Welsh poet Gillian Clarke's new version of Y Gododdin, titled The Gododdin: Lament for the Fallen. I first encountered the poem in my early twenties -- was it while shelving books in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Anglo-Saxon England\"","block_context":{"text":"Anglo-Saxon England","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=anglo-saxon-england"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/gododdin-mouse.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/gododdin-mouse.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/gododdin-mouse.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/gododdin-mouse.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":206,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=206","url_meta":{"origin":4304,"position":2},"title":"Current Reading I will be\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 10, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Current Reading I will be leaving tomorrow for a long festival weekend; paradoxically, I hope to get some reading done, toward the paper that I'm writing for the Bath Spa UC \"Exploring Consciousness\" conference. So it will be a weekend in the woods with some of the old-timers: Jeffrey Burton\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1044,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1044","url_meta":{"origin":4304,"position":3},"title":"The Invention of Scotland…","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 24, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"... or why the kilt was invented for the benefit of factory workers.Ronald Hutton told some of this story in Witches, Druids And King Arthur, but here is a review of a new book on the invention of Scottish-ness, the late Hugh Trevor-Roper's The Invention of Scotland: Myth and History","rel":"","context":"In \"Celts\"","block_context":{"text":"Celts","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=celts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7896,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7896","url_meta":{"origin":4304,"position":4},"title":"Magic in Philadelphia, Worshiping Game Characters, and a Holy Mountain in Scotland","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 11, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"\u2022 If you live in or near Philadelphia, visit the U. of Pennsylvania museum for \"Magic in the Anciet World,\" an exhibit that \"explores some of the magical objects, words, and rituals used in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome.\" \u2022 When a Chinese grandmother left an offering at a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Celts\"","block_context":{"text":"Celts","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=celts"},"img":{"alt_text":"exhibitions_magic1","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/exhibitions_magic1-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12541,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12541","url_meta":{"origin":4304,"position":5},"title":"Putting Paganism in the Streets","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 1, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"In Scotland, the Edinburgh Samhuinn (\"Sah'ween\") fire festival is back after skipping 2020 for the usual reasons. More torches! And catch the costumes \u2014 and stilts \u2014 at about the 7-minute mark.","rel":"","context":"In \"Pagan-ish\"","block_context":{"text":"Pagan-ish","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=pagan-ish"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4304"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4309,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4304\/revisions\/4309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}