Civilized Picts
Thursday August 14, 2008
The Picts -- a Celtic tribe that settled in what is today Scotland -- have long been considered a fierce but somewhat primitive people, resisting Rome's legions and posing a serious threat to the burgeoning British society of the fifth and sixth centuries. But were they really just savages? The recent examination of a monastery at Portmahomack on the Tarbat peninsula suggests otherwise. Already known for their superb stone carvings, the Picts evidently possessed extraordinary architectural skills. And evidence at the monastery indicates they may also have produced books similar to the Book of Kells as well as religious artifacts. For more information on this new view of the Picts, check out the in-depth article by Ian Johnston at The Independent.
Comments
Has anyone ever wondered at the coincidence? the Picts (Pictori)were a fierce warrior people covered in blue paint/ tatoos; the berserkers were a fierce warrior people covered in blue paint.
Oh no, it’s the matriliny idea, springing up at the tail there! Looks like the journalist did some independent research and picked up the lunatic fringe there. The rest of it’s pretty good though and I’ll clearly have to get hold of Professor Carver’s book even if his theories do get wilder with time…
the matrilinial stuff is pretty normal although not sure they are the last of the matrilinial cultures (there are still a number of European and middle Eastern groups that use it) remember you can always tell who the mother is but not the father especially in times of war. Depending on the point in time Celtic societies were either martriarchal, matrilinial (the woman’s husband ruled but the line went down through the females) or patriarchal (mostly after Romanisation – they hated dealing with women altogether – learnt it from the Greeks). Sepending on the district too inheritance would go to the woman after a specific number of generations with no male relatives (in Wales it was 16 which took it back to the great great grand father’s living male decendents – if none existed then the woman inherited; in the Irish based ones – it was only four generations and in some points of time the woman could inherit outright.) Not much is known about the Picts except they are Brythonic (hence related to Welsh, Cornish and Bretons) by the language features they have found whereas the Scoti were Gordelic speakers (like the Ancient Irish, and Manx). Some scholars use the P-Q distinction iwth P being Brythonic and Q being Goidelic as is shown in the use of the word for son – Map/ Mab and Mc/ Mac. All gets a bit complicated when you haven’t looked at it for a while.
Well, I did in fact look at it in some detail once, which is how I know how little evidence there is for matrilineal practice among the Welsh or the Picts or indeed the Irish. The danger is that one argues from one sliver of practice among one group and another among another to impose a beautiful Celtic matriarchy on people who show no actual signs of it in the evidence. Anthropology suggests that almost no society contains the whole set of possible matrilineal practices; the evidence for the Picts’ matriliny is really pretty marginal even at the royal level that the evidence is concerned with.
Actually Celtic societies, and I’d assume Picts as well, were highly advanced long before the Romans came along. They were skilled metal-workers, artisans, had road systems, had equal laws for both men and women, and most interesting, a working lunar calender.
I suggest reading some of Peter Beresford Ellis’ books.
You are right they were highly evolved but the Ogham script is derived from the Greek. Roman civilization meant Papa familia, women as childbearers or slaves, land areas which could raise an immediate force of 100 men… Celtic society still has some blanks – the easiest and maybe the more pure is Ireland (unpoluted by Roman governance which did impact on Britain south of the wall.) And don’t forget the different ages of celiticism – Beker people, Halstadt, Le Tene etc in the art movement; and the tribes did have local variations in their tuatha. women’s rights were best in Ireland especially their marriage laws and they could inherite but in Britain it was more difficult for them to inherit – they would trace back up four generation for a link to a surviving male heir (Wales area). As Scotland came under the sway of the Scoti (an Irish tribe – it may be assumed that is where their wonderful laws relating to children come from.)
forgot to mention that the equal laws weren’t that equal – it was dependent on what class in society you came from to what your entitlements under the law were and what your responsibilities were. EG if you were one of the upper classes (knights, royalty etc) and you killed a pleb – you had to pay the blood price at a rate of three times higher than if another pleb did it because you were expected to set an example of proper behaviour. Now don’t forget that the Celts did have slaves and an inordinate love of wine (they were known to trade six prime female slaves for one big amphora.)