The Picts inhabited Pictavia or Pictland - Caledonia is the Latin name of a region corresponding approximately to modern Scotland. ...Caledonia ( Scotland (Scottish Gaelic: Alba) is a country or nation and former independent kingdom of northwest Europe, and one of the four constituent parts of the United Kingdom. ...Scotland), north of the The River Forth meanders over fertile farmlands near Stirling The River Forth, 47 km (29 miles) long, is the major river draining the eastern part of the central belt of Scotland. ...River Forth _ prior to the Scotticisation of the area.

The name Pict first appears in a A Panegyric is a formal public speech delivered in high praise of a person or thing, a generally high studied and undiscriminating eulogy. ...panegyric written by Eumenius in 297 AD. Although Picti is usually assumed to mean painted or tattooed (as in Latin _ Wikipedia /**/ @import /skins/monobook/IE50Fixes. ...Latin) it may have a Celtic origin. The Goidelic is one of two major divisions of modern_day Celtic languages (the other being Brythonic). ...Goidelic Celts called the Picts cruithne and the Brythonic is one of two major divisions of Insular Celtic languages (the other being Goidelic). ...Brythonic Celts knew them as prydyn, whence The word Britain is used to refer to the United Kingdom (UK) the island of Great Britain, which consists of the countries of England, Scotland, and Wales sometimes the Roman province called Britain or Britannia The word British generally means belonging to or associated with Britain in either of the...Britain.

History

Many archaeological remains in the form of buildings and jewelry have survived to indicate the society of the Picts but little in the way of writing. Their society seems to have comprised a number small kingdoms which occasionally clashed.

Scholars believe that Pictland comprised all of modern Scotland north of the The River Forth meanders over fertile farmlands near Stirling The River Forth, 47 km (29 miles) long, is the major river draining the eastern part of the central belt of Scotland. ...Forth and Categories: UK geography stubs | Glasgow | Scottish rivers ...Clyde except for Argyll, sometimes called Argyllshire, is one of the traditional counties of Scotland. ...Argyll. It appears that two over_kingdoms existed: one north of the The Mounth is the range of hills on the southern edge of Strathdee in northeast Scotland. ...Mounth with its core in Morayshire or Elginshire is one of the traditional counties of Scotland, bordering Nairnshire to the west, Inverness_shire to the south, and Banffshire to the east. ...Moray, the other to the south with the capital at Forteviot. Irish sources recorded that seven ancient Pictish kingdoms existed:

1. Cait — situated in modern Caithness is a traditional county in northeast Scotland. ...Caithness and This article is about the Scottish county of Sutherland. ...Sutherland
2. Ce — situated in modern This article discusses the historic area of Scotland known as Mar. ...Mar and Buchan comprises a traditional area and earldom of north_eastern Scotland. ...Buchan
3. Circinn — situated in modern This article is about the region in Scotland. ...Angus and Kincardineshire, also known as The Mearns (from A Mhaoirne meaning The Stewartry) is a traditional county on the coast of Northeast Scotland. ...the Mearns
4. Fib — situated in the modern This article is about the area in Scotland. ...Fife and Kinross is a burgh in Perth and Kinross, Scotland, though traditionally in Kinross_shire. ...Kinross (Fife remains known to this day as 'the Kingdom of Fife')
5. Fidach — situated in modern Moray, one of 32 unitary council regions in Scotland, lies in the north_east of the country and borders on the regions of Aberdeenshire and Highland. ...Moray and Categories: Stub | Traditional Counties of Scotland | History of Scotland ...Ross
6. Fotla — situated in modern The Highlands district of Atholl or Athole in the north of Perthshire in Scotland lies between Braemar, Badenoch, Breadalbane and Lochaber. ...Atholl and Gowrie otherwise the Carse of Gowrie consists of a stretch of low_lying country in Perthshire in Scotland, stretching for about 24km along the north shore of the Firth of Tay between the Perth and Dundee. ...Gowrie
7. Fortriu — situated in modern Strathearn (or Strath Earn) is the valley of the River Earn. ...Strathearn and Menteith or Monteith, a district of south Perthshire, Scotland, roughly comprises the territory between the Teith and the Forth. ...Menteith (also known as 'Fortrenn' and as the Verturiones to the Romans)

However, good archaeological evidence and some written evidence suggests that a Pictish kingdom also existed in The Orkney Islands form one of 32 unitary council regions in Scotland, and are a Lieutenancy Area. ...Orkney.

Christian missionaries completed the conversion of Pictland in the 7th century, having converted southern Kingdoms in the 5th or 6th centuries. Although the Britons of southern Scotland and then the Northumbria is primarily the name of an Anglian or Anglo_Saxon kingdom which was formed in Great Britain at the beginning of the 7th century, and of the earldom which succeeded the kingdom. ...Northumbrian church played a part, the Celtic church of Saint Saint Columba (7 December 521 - 9 June 597), the Latinized version of the Irish name Colmcille (Old Irish Columb Cille) meaning Dove of the church, was an Irish missionary monk who helped re-introduce Christianity to Scotland and the north of England. ...Columba and his successors proved the most influential in this work. They established strong and enduring links between Pictland and Alternate uses: see Iona (disambiguation). ...Iona.

Historians now question the idea of Pictland coming under pressure from Dalriada or Dál Riata (as it was called in Ireland) was the kingdom of the Scotti, who migrated from County Antrim in Ulster to Argyll and eventually gave their name to Scotland. ...Dalriadan invaders. No evidence exists of Dalriadan dominance in the 8th or 9th centuries. The Pictish Kings Onuist mac Uurgust (fl 729 _ 761) and Caustantin mac Uurgust (fl 789 _ 820) dominated Dalriada. Onuist sacked Dunadd is an Iron Age hillfort near Kilmartin in Argyll, Scotland. ...Dunadd and captured the sons of the King of Dalriada. Caustantin put his son on the throne of Dalriada and his brother, son and nephew succeeded him as Kings of Pictland until Viking (disambiguation). ...Viking invaders defeated the Picts in 839.

The term Norwegian can refer to: From or related to Norway, a country in Europe. ...Norse invaders conquered much of northern Pictland _ Caithness, Sutherland, the Western Isles and Ross. In the south, wars with the Vikings continued until the reign of Constantine II (874?–952) was king of Scotland from 900 to 942 or 943. ...Constantine mac Aeda (900 _ 942/3), grandson of Kenneth I the Hardy (ca. ...Kenneth mac Alpin. Constantine reigned as the first King of Wiktionary has a definition of: Alba The name Alba may refer to — the ancient and modern Gaelic name (pronounced Al-a-pah) for Scotland. ...Alba.

Pictish language

Little definite knowledge survives of the Picts' language, Pictish, its relationships and cognates.

It remains uncertain whether or not we should classify the Picts as This article is about the European people. ...Celts, although most available In geography and cartography, a toponym is a place name, a geographical name, a proper name of locality, region, or some other part of Earths surface or its natural or artificial feature. ...placename evidence tends to support the hypothesis that they spoke a Brythonic is one of two major divisions of Insular Celtic languages (the other being Goidelic). ...Brythonic language. Placenames often allow us to deduce the existence of historic Pictish settlements in Scotland. Those prefixed with "Aber_", "Lhan_", "Pit_" or "Fin_" indicate regions inhabited by Picts in the past (for example: Aberdeen, Lhanbryde, Pitmedden, Pittodrie, Findochty, etc). In support of this hypothesis, Gaelic tradition sees the Picts as identical with or descended from the Brythonic group which the Gaels called, and still call, the Cruithne. Cruithne has a likely Cognates are words that have a common origin. ...cognate in the Welsh Prydain, in which we can see the standard /k/ to /p/ Goidelic is one of two major divisions of modern_day Celtic languages (the other being Brythonic). ...Goidelic to Brythonic sound correspondence (both sounds come from /k^w/). From the Brythonic Celtic Prydain (or rather from its older form Pretani) comes (via Latin) the English word Britain.

However other hypotheses exist. For instance, the scholar of Basque, Federico Krutwig (1921 _ 1998), tried to draw a connection between Picts and This article is about the Basque people. ...Basques based on language similarities. According to this theory, the languages of the Picts and the Basques represent remnants of the The Pre_Indo_European population of Europe included an unknown number of ethnic groups in Europe before the coming of the speakers of Indo_European languages. ...Preindoeuropean population of Europe. However lack of data about the Pictish language makes it difficult to confirm his hypothesis.

Legends about the Picts also include mention of possible Scythia was an area in Eurasia inhabited in ancient times by an Indo_Aryans known as the Scythians. ...Scythian origins _ linking them with another pre_literate people. Again, lack of information about the Pictish language makes it difficult evaluate these legends.

See also

• This article needs cleanup. ...Kings of the Picts
• Pictish stones are to be found all over Scotland and are the most visible remaining evidence of their makers, the Picts. ...Pictish stones
• The title of mormaor or mormaer designated one of the rulers of the seven provinces of Celtic Scotland, i. ...mormaor

Picts as "Painted People"

Linguists generally translate the Latin word vitrum as " Woad plants in their first year A natural blue dye can be produced from the woad plant (Isatis tinctoria). ...woad". The Latin phrase “vitro inficiunt” could very well have meant “dye themselves with glazes” or “infect themselves with glass”. This could have described a scarification ritual which left dark blue scars, or formed a direct reference to This article is about the tattoo, a design in ink or some other pigment, usually decorative or symbolic, placed permanently under the skin. ...tattooing. Subsequent commentators may have displaced the 1st century southern practices (of the Brittani, a tribe south of the Several places exist with the name Thames, and the word is also used as part of several brand and company names Most famous is the River Thames in England, on which the city of London stands Other Thames Rivers There is a Thames River in Canada There is a Thames...Thames) to the northern peoples in an attempt to explain the name Picti which came into use only in the 3rd century AD. This article is about Julius Caesar the Roman dictator. ...Julius Caesar, commenting in his About the Gallic War (De Bello Gallico), sometimes The Conquest of Gaul, is an account written by Julius Caesar about his nine years of war in Gaul. ...Gallic Wars on the tribes from the areas where Picts (later) lived, states that they have “designs carved into their faces by iron”. If they used Woad plants in their first year A natural blue dye can be produced from the woad plant (Isatis tinctoria). ...woad, then it probably penetrated under the skin as a tattoo. More likely, the Celts used copper for blue tattoos (they had plenty of it) and soot_ash carbon for black. We need more Bog bodies, also known as bog people, are preserveded human bodies found in sphagnum bogs. ...bog bodies to elucidate this question.

External links

• Pictish Nation (http://members.tripod.com/~Halfmoon/)
• Cruithne  (http://www.electricscotland.com/webclans/cairney/51.htm)
• Woad and its mis_association with Pictish BodyArt (http://www.hippy.com/albion/woad.htm)