What the stones are
Scattered across eastern and northern Scotland are several hundred carved stones that bear a repertoire of designs found nowhere else in the same form. They are the best-known physical legacy of the Picts. Their central fact is plain and often misunderstood: nobody has deciphered the symbols. Scholars can describe them, date many of them roughly and propose what they might have meant, but no reading has won general agreement.
Three classes
The standard way of sorting the stones dates from a survey published at the start of the twentieth century and is still widely used, though it is a modern convenience rather than an ancient category.
- Class I stones are rough, unshaped boulders or slabs with incised symbols and no Christian imagery. They are generally thought to be the earliest, perhaps from about the sixth or seventh centuries CE, though dating is difficult.
- Class II stones are carefully shaped slabs, often with a large cross on one face and symbols and scenes on the other, carved in relief. They are usually placed in the seventh to ninth centuries.
- Class III stones have Pictish-style carving, such as animals and figures, but no symbols from the main set.
Famous examples include the cross-slabs at Aberlemno in Angus and the Hilton of Cadboll stone in Easter Ross, the latter now partly in a museum and partly on the original site, where a replica stands.
The symbols
Around forty different designs are recognised, depending on how they are counted. Some are animals: the so-called Pictish beast, whose species is unclear, as well as the eagle, the bull, the salmon, the wolf and the snake. Others are abstract, such as the crescent with a V-shaped rod, the double disc with a Z-shaped rod, the arch and the rectangle. Everyday objects such as a mirror and a comb also appear, usually below other symbols.
The symbols often occur in pairs, with the mirror and comb added in some cases. That regularity suggests a system with rules, rather than random decoration. This is part of why people have long hoped to read it.
What do they mean?
Several interpretations have been proposed, and none is proven.
- Names or titles. Some scholars suggest that each pair or group records a person’s name, rank or lineage, perhaps for a memorial.
- Marriage or alliance. Another idea is that pairs record an alliance between families, linked to the Pictish pattern of royal descent through women.
- Territory or property. A less popular view sees the stones as marking land claims.
- A form of writing. Because the set is small and repeats, some argue it is a form of notation, though that does not mean it records speech. A number of stones also carry inscriptions in ogham, an Irish alphabet of notches, and the Pictish ones are mostly unreadable too.
The problem is similar to the Indus script debate: a short, repeated set of signs on durable objects, with no long text and no bilingual key. The kind of aid that allowed the Rosetta Stone and decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs does not exist for the Picts. Without such a key, a convincing translation is unlikely. Any claim of a complete decoding should be treated with caution.
What recent archaeology adds
The stones were long studied on their own, as isolated works of art. Newer work tries to set them in their settings, and that has changed the picture in several ways.
Excavations at Rhynie in Aberdeenshire, where a carved stone showing a figure with an axe was found in the late twentieth century, have revealed a high-status settlement of the early medieval period. This helps connect symbol stones with the elite sites where power was exercised. Work at Portmahomack on the Tarbat peninsula has revealed a monastery, which shows that Christian communities were producing carved stones and other crafted objects. At Burghead on the Moray coast, carvings of bulls on stone slabs have been linked to a major fort.
Scientific dating techniques such as radiocarbon dating on associated material help place these sites, though the stones themselves cannot be dated directly in this way. As a result, a few older assumptions have been questioned, including how early the symbols began and how sharply the classes divide. The picture is becoming more detailed, though it is still unfinished.
Style, craft and context
The art of the Picts belongs to a wider early medieval world in the British Isles and Ireland, known as Insular art. The cross-slabs use interlace and spiral motifs related to those found in illuminated books such as the Book of Kells, and the beautiful metalwork, including silver chains and brooches, matches patterns seen in Celtic torcs and brooches elsewhere. The Picts therefore drew on shared styles while keeping a distinctive repertoire of their own.
Class II stones also show hunting scenes, riders and Christian subjects such as David and the lion, indicating a culture in touch with the wider Christian world. The symbols continue on these stones for a time, which shows that older and newer traditions coexisted.
What is still not known
What can be said is limited but real. The stones are a deliberate, structured system used by Pictish society roughly between the sixth and ninth centuries, and they appear to relate to rank, identity or kinship. What cannot yet be said is what any specific stone says. Careful scholars admit this openly, and that candour is the best guide to the field.