The Arrangement of the Class I Pictish Stones North of the River Tay

By Alan Weir

The 50 or so mysterious Pictish symbols and the stones displaying them have become central to all discussion of the Picts. Generations of scholars have sought to interpret the symbols with little agreement. This book takes an indirect approach to the situation. The present layout of Class I stones hints at an arrangement in chains in which adjacent stones in a chain are linked by a common symbol. This is investigated and the chains identified. Between the River Tay and the Dornoch Firth, virtually all stones belong to a chain and the chains seem to be practically complete. The chains appear to have superseded stones created and positioned independently. The stone pattern is more complicated than isolated chains of stones and special junction stones are used to register the crossing of two or more chains. Auxiliary stones are also identified, which give information about a chain or chains. The identification of the chains and the conventions used in junction and auxiliary stones permit the meaning of more than 20 symbols to be understood as they are used in the chains. These are not suggested to be the original meanings of the symbols but they provide hints to assist in assessing what the original meaning of some symbols might be. This particularly applies to significant symbols called crescent and V rod, Pictish beast, and Z rod. The purpose of the chains can only be hinted at here but Pictish scholarship will soon clarify this.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: May 28, 2021
• ISBN: 9781528972734

Alan Weir

Alan Weir was born in Lanarkshire in 1941 and educated at Airdrie Academy and University of Glasgow, earning a BSc in Electrical Engineering with first-class honours in 1963. His working life was in Test and Quality Engineering in the manufacture of computer peripherals. After retiring, he studied the Synoptic Gospels and was awarded postgraduate diploma in Theology from University of Chichester. He subsequently became interested in the class I Pictish stones and this book is the result of it. Now widowed, he lives in Hampshire close to his two daughters and five grandchildren. His son is a Church of England vicar in Somerset.

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Bibliography

About the Author

Alan Weir was born in Lanarkshire in 1941 and educated at Airdrie Academy and University of Glasgow, earning a BSc in Electrical Engineering with first-class honours in 1963. His working life was in Test and Quality Engineering in the manufacture of computer peripherals. After retiring, he studied the Synoptic Gospels and was awarded postgraduate diploma in Theology from University of Chichester. He subsequently became interested in the class I Pictish stones and this book is the result of it. Now widowed, he lives in Hampshire close to his two daughters and five grandchildren. His son is a Church of England vicar in Somerset.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my sister, Anne, who lives near Tillytarmont and introduced me to the Pictish stones.

Copyright Information ©

Alan Weir (2021)

The right of Alan Weir to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781528950558 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781528950565 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781398418370 (Audiobook)

ISBN 9781528972734 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published (2021)

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd

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E14 5LQ

Acknowledgement

Thanks to Elizabeth Sutherland, Isabel M Henderson, Paul Bouissac and Rob Lee for helpful feedback for earlier versions of the work.

Thanks also to grandson, Jack Veness, for handling the illustrations of stones and symbols, and to son-in-law, Dom Harland-Jones, for helping in the transition from manuscript to book format.

1 – Introduction

There are around 40 to 50 different Pictish symbols. They appear most strikingly on stone slabs, but also on cave walls and small portable objects of different materials. One view, based on artistic relationships with other historical artefacts and documents, maintains that the stones and the symbols carved on them were created in the 7th century CE. Lloyd and Jenny Laing (1993, p102–106) discuss and disagree with this. More likely seems the development of the symbols from their first probable mention as 3rd century tattoos by Latin authors (Laing 1993, p122).

Crudely carved Proto symbols are found on the walls of several caves. Excavation of the floor of the Sculptor’s Cave, Covesea in Moray found not a single item later than the 4th century and concluded that the wall carvings were contemporary with the Roman period occupation (Benton, 1931; Laing, 1993, p107/8). A proto double disk symbol (Fraser ed., 2008 number 171) was found in 6th century alterations to a structure at Pool in Orkney. Also at Pool a bone object (Fraser ed., 2008 number 211.1) radio-carbon dated possibly as early as the 4th century bore a crude double disk and Z rod and part of a rectangular design (Hunter, 1990; Laing, 1993 p106/7).

Laing addresses the initial use of symbols on stones (1993, p111).

There is no reason at present to date any of the stones earlier than the fifth century. At this time the idea of carving them on slabs may have been acquired by copying the memorial stones with Latin inscriptions that were being set up in southern Scotland, Wales and south-west England, themselves in imitation of Roman tombstones. This does not necessarily mean all symbol stones were tombstones, though it is possible that a good many were.

And (1993, p122)

The most logical interpretation of the symbols is that they are identifications of the dead, or personal inscriptions where they occur on portable objects or cave walls. They were, in effect, names and/or titles, giving cultural identity/ancestry or history. Thus far, most interpretations of the symbols are in agreement: there is less agreement on how they should be read.

Laing (1993, p123–5) summarises three prominent proposals as follows. Charles Thomas (1963) attempts to provide explanations for individual symbols. Symbols fall into two main groups – animals and abstract designs. He sees animal symbols as the totemic creatures of tribal groups and the abstract as indicators of status. Ross Sampson (1992) suggests the symbols are hieroglyphs, each a component of a name. He suggests that ancient Irish and Welsh personal name frequencies appear to match the frequencies with which symbol combinations occur on the stones. Anthony Jackson (1984) believes that stones register marriage alliances between dynasties. Class I stones generally display two principal symbols, one above the other. Often there is a third element beneath these two consisting of a mirror or a mirror and comb. He sees the mirror and comb as a special symbol indicating that the two principal symbols relate to a woman. Definitions of Class I and Class II stones are given in Appendix 1.

No theory has gained significant support. Iain Fraser (ed. 2008, p1) remarks:

Over the centuries the significance of these symbols has been lost: the element of mystery, however, only renders research and speculation into their meaning and function all the more compelling.

The proposals above focus on symbol pairs as individual entities. Attempts have been made to identify collective features. Suggestions that the stones are territorial markers have gained little support, since individual symbols cannot be related to particular localities (Laing 1993, p101,125). Rob Lee and his colleagues (2010) suggest that the symbols as a group may embody a written language. They use a mathematical process known as Shannon entropy to study the order, direction, randomness and other characteristics of each stone symbol. Their results suggest that information is encoded in the symbol stones, but analysis gives no assistance with regard to what that information might be.

Consideration of the symbols as a whole does seem to be a useful approach. Isabel M Henderson (1958, p55, 57) reflects on the historical aspect.

It is exceedingly difficult to imagine what sort of historical circumstances could initiate a symbolism so exact and so rigorously observed from Pabbay in the W., to Shetland in the N. and to the Forth-Clyde line in the S. To give the symbolism the prestige of a national system requires…a leader wielding wide authority…we have the evidence of the Irish annals, Adamnan and Bede for the activities of Brude son of Maelchon (c 555–84). In many ways Brude fills the role of initiator of the symbolism well. He was a rex potentissimus whose check of the Irish must have given him immense prestige. He reigned at a time when we know that the Picts controlled the Western Isles. He had considerable authority in Orkney.

Accepting the timescale suggested above, the symbolism embodied in the class I Pictish stones was probably developed and displayed on stones in the 5th century, earlier than Brude’s 6th century reign. Mrs Henderson suggests that Brude may have been responsible for the consistency in the representation of the symbols. It is suggested here that, more than this, he may have been responsible for which symbols were portrayed in each place and arranged that stones and their symbols were displayed in accordance with an overall plan. It is suggested that an overall pattern of symbols was imposed on stones in the areas of Pictland from Perth to Aberdeenshire to the Western Isles to Orkney. The objective of this study is to identify this pattern. The quotation from Laing on page 12 may be taken to well represent the purpose of the stones as initially erected, but over time they began to be arranged in chains and a century after their initial appearance a powerful king commandeered the stones and symbols for his own purposes.

On page 54 Mrs Henderson indicates that mountain passes south of clusters of stones at Rhynie and Inverurie in Aberdeenshire form the natural paths of southward extensions of stones from those locations. The suggestion of paths for stone extensions leads to the thought that an overall pattern of symbols might be exhibited by long-distance chains of stones in which adjacent stones are linked by related symbols. Stones erected earlier than this planned pattern of chains of stones may have been included in the plan, but it is suggested that earlier stones which could not be fitted into the pattern and would cause confusion with the pattern were fragmented or had confusing symbols erased.

In a broad stretch of country between the river Tay in Perth and Kinross and the Dornoch Firth, the northern boundary of Ross and Cromarty, these chains of stones can be identified or reconstructed to a very considerable extent. Skye and the Western Isles are part of this region of stones. In this area, only two stones bearing a pair of identifiable symbols cannot be explained within the concept of an imposed overall scheme of chains of stones.

The following discussion identifies the chains of stones and hence the overall pattern. In Sutherland and Caithness and in Orkney only a portion of the stone pattern remains, but the symbols on existing or recorded stones appear to follow the same conventions as in other areas. Too few symbols remain or are recorded in Shetland for any meaningful analysis. The chain pattern does not extend south of the river Tay in Perth and Kinross or into Fife, suggesting that Brude’s power ended at the Tay.

Many of the symbol conventions observed in the long-distance chains seem to have been present in symbol stones apparently erected earlier than the great chains. The normal stone display of one symbol above another is seen to predate the chains of stones. The idea of arranging stones into chains may have been inspired by the personal chains worn by Pictish kings and the decorated distance slabs along the Antonine Wall. Two suggested chains of stones earlier than the great arrangement of chains of stones are described in section 12.

In the creation of chains of stones the display of one symbol above another was used opportunistically as a mechanism to link adjacent stones in the chain. In the extant chains the top symbol of a pair on one stone forms a link to the same symbol in the bottom principal position on the next stone in the chain. The change from individual stones with their own meaning and significance to an arrangement of stones in chains with top to bottom linkage of adjacent stones is a large one and appendix 8 highlights three probable contemporary examples of the transition including the chains mentioned above. An example of the method of linkage used in the great chains may be offered from the western end of a suggested west to east chain.

t1

Gairloch, stone number 122 (number reference is explained below) is on the Atlantic coast of Ross and Cromarty opposite the north end of Skye. Strathpeffer 129 is about 5 miles west of Dingwall. Cullaird 107 is south of Inverness near the north end of Loch Ness. The eagle on top at Gairloch links to that on the bottom at Strathpeffer. The arch on top at Strathpeffer links to that on the bottom at Cullaird. The link from Gairloch to Strathpeffer seems straightforward, but that from Strathpeffer to Cullaird is less obvious. The pattern of stones is more complicated than isolated chains of stones. Where the path of one chain crosses that of another, additional or unusual forms of symbols have been employed to register the crossing. For the example offered, stone 120 at Dingwall registers the crossing of the west to east chain with a south to north chain from Drumbuie in Inverness to Edderton in Ross and Cromarty.

Link stones in a chain account for only about a third of the stones in the overall arrangement. Some symbol stones such as that at Dingwall indicate junctions between chains while other, auxiliary, stones advise of the proximity of a chain path or provide other information about a chain or chains. The conventions used in symbol combinations on junction and auxiliary stones are consistent in all areas. The identification of the chains of stones and the discovery of the symbol conventions used on auxiliary stones uncover the meaning of more than 20 symbols as used in the chains and shed light on the original meaning of several key symbols. This particularly relates to the crescent and V rod, the Pictish beast and the Z rod.

Another significant general feature of class I stones is a subsidiary mirror and comb or mirror symbol frequently displayed beneath or beside the two principal symbols. Mirror and comb and mirror symbols can, to a large extent, be related to the importance within the chain of the stone locations at which they appear or conform to a pattern within the chains in which they appear. Several stones in significant locations have been re-used and chain reconstruction involving 2 main phases of chain erection agrees with earlier physical interpretation of stone re-use. Suggestions from the phases of chain erection match present understanding of Pictish history. The pre-eminence of the Pictish stronghold of Burghead on the coast of Moray near Elgin seems to be confirmed by the fact that the most significant chains terminate close to it.

Stone information is taken from Fraser ed. (2008) referred to in the text as Pictish Stones. This includes stone reference numbers, which are given after the first mention of each stone. Stone names are sufficient reference to the appropriate drawings or information in Stuart (1856 and 1867) and Mack (1997). Illustrations are generally taken from Canmore, the electronic data base initiated by the Royal Commission on the