Ritva Kurittu Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > What Pictish 'traits' would you consider
> Scythian?
>
>
> Weeeell.... both cultures are very much horse
> centered. They are both identified with fearless
> warriors with painted/tatooed body. Their burial
> customs with a wooden burial chamber under a
> barrow are very similar. Both used women warriors
> in their armies, whereas I think the Celts did
> not. They did not speak Gaelic. Their clothing was
> typically Scythian: trousers and cloacks, not what
> you would expect if they came from the Direction
> of Spain (but something that could obviously be
> linked to riding a horse... so this might not be a
> "Similarity"). And there might even be something
> else, since I have this feeling of forgetting
> something, but can't seem to shoot it from the
> hip.

Hi Ritva,

Leaving some of those apparent similarities aside (personally, they all seem a little 'general', and I'm not sure what evidence there is for Pictish 'warrior women' etc.), and bearing in mind that I don't have access to much material that deals with the question of Pictish origins per se, the only specific references I could find that touch on the alleged Scythian origins of the Picts are the following ...


From The Picts and the Scots at War by Nick Aitchison (2003. Stroud: Sutton Publishing):

"[...] The Picts were traditionally believed to be immigrants from Scythia, a tale first recorded in the eighth century [1]. Later interpretations sought to explain the perceived peculiarities of the Picts, especially their distinctive symbols and strange names, from their origins among the pre-Celtic inhabitants of Britain, who supposedly spoke a non-Indo-European language. More recently, the Picts have been accepted as a Celtic people, or at least one that spoke a Celtic language. The Pictish language belongs to the P-Celtic or Brythonic branch of Celtic languages [2], which also includes Breton, Cornish and Welsh. P-Celtic languages were common across Britain and Gaul when the Romans invaded in the first centuries BC and AD and, although their origins and mechanisms of introduction are unclear, they were probably spoken from the mid-first millennium BC. The linguistic evidence indicates that the Picts originated among the native peoples of the Scottish Iron Age.

"The indigenous origin of the Picts is also apparent from documentary sources. The earliest recorded reference to the Picts is in the anonymous Panegyric of Constantius Caesar of 297, formerly but mistakenly attributed to Eumenius. This refers to the Picti and Hiberni (Irish) as being accustomed to fighting the Britanni (Britons). In 364, the Picts, Scotti, Saxons and the enigmatic Attacotti 'were harassing the Britons with constant disasters'. The aggressors included the 'Picti divided into two peoples, Dicalydones and Verturiones'. The latter peoples have such similar or even identical names to the Caledonii and Verturiones, peoples of north-east Scotland recorded by the Greek geographer Ptolemy in the second century, that they must be closely related. This reveals that the Picts originated among the native population of Iron Age Scotland and probably represented a coalescence of smaller peoples into a larger and more powerful socio-political unit. The social and political processes involved are obscure, but were probably facilitated, if not stimulated, by Roman Britain. This arose partly from the need to mount an effective defence against periodic Roman campaigns in Scotland [...]" (pp. 2-3).


[1] Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, I.12.

[2] Jackson, K.H. 1955. 'The Pictish Language', in Wainwright, F.T. (ed.) The Problem of the Picts (pp. 129-66); Forsyth, K. 1997. Language in Pictland: the Case Against 'Non-Indo-European Pictish (Studia Hameliana 2, Utrecht, de Keltische Draak); Cummins, W.A. 2001.The Lost Language of the Picts (Balgavies, Angus, Pinkfoot Press).

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"[...] The neighbouring peoples of the Picts and Scots possessed shipbuilding technology, naval power and traditions of naval warfare in the centuries before the Vikings. The Anglo-Saxons were accomplished shipwrights and seamen, bringing them from their Germanic homelands and into direct contact with the Picts. The Irish were also renowned for their navigational skills and exploits, their achievements characterised by the seafaring saint, Brendan the Navigator. Given the maritime traditions of these neighbouring peoples, it would be surprising if the Picts and Scots did not also possess comparable skills and technology.

"Indeed, both the Picts and Scots were perceived as gentibus transmarinis, 'peoples from across the sea'. This reflects an enduring southern perspective, first recorded during the first century [3], of Scotland north of the Forth-Clyde isthmus as a separate island, the land seemingly divided by wide estuaries on either side. The Picts and Scots were both perceived to be nautical peoples, as their origin myths emphasise. According to Bede, 'Pictish seafarers' sailed from Scythia 'in a few longships', arriving first in Ireland before settling in northern Britain. Similarly, the Senchus fer nAlban relates how the sons of Erc, the mythical founders of Dal Riata, 'went forth' with a 'ship expedition' from Ireland to found their new kingdom. Although these accounts are mythical, they presumably reflect the contemporary seafaring capabilities, traditions and reputations of the Picts and Scots [...]" (p. 111-112).


[3] Tacitus, Agricola, 23.

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"[...] There are [few] documentary references to Pictish ships, but no reason to believe that they differed significantly in form from those of the Scots. Indeed, Gildas [4] refers to both the Picts and Scots swarming from the currachs (de curucis) in which they had crossed the sea. Pictish vessels are referred to by the same terminology as Scottish ships: those wrecked in 729 are long, the Picts reputedly sailed from Scythia in longae navis, the leader of a Pictish warband arrived in Skye on a navicula and the Picts conducted their naval raids in barc, boats or ships. How these vessels were referred to in the Pictish language is unknown, but the fact that neighbouring peoples used standard terms indicates that Pictish vessels belonged to recognisable types [...]" (p 124).


[4] Gildas, De excidio, 19.1.

**********

There's also this ...

From The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles: Their Nature and Legacy by Ronald Hutton (1993. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing):

"[...] The equivalent Scottish sources, consisting of a few king-lists and chronicles (most of the latter actually kept by the Irish), have not featured much in the work of those interested in the Celts. But they were used to support a scholarly belief which, like that regarding the ancient Irish oral tradition, lasted about a hundred years until it was shattered in the 1980s. This one concerned the Picts, and stated that these northern Scottish tribes were remnants of the pre-Celtic population of Britain and that as part of this greater antiquity they were matrilineal, passing on kinship through the female line. Late Victorian scholars were enthused by the idea that women had possessed more power in early societies. They expected to find evidence that the early British were matrilineal, and in the case of the Picts they thought that they had discovered it. From this sprang the notion that these people were pre-Celtic and preserved customs older than the Iron Age: which, if true, is of obvious importance to the student of religion. But in the 1980s it required only a brief re-opening of the question to reveal that the belief in matrilinear succession probably rested upon a misunderstanding of a few entries in early medieval texts [5]. It now seems that the Picts were probably another set of Celts, indistinguishable in their culture from the other tribes of Britain [...]" (p. 149).


[5] Alfred P. Smyth, Warlords and Holy Men: Scotland AD80-1000, London, 1984, pp. 57-72.