The Picts: Rulers of the North

The Ancients

History Hit

History

4.7 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 21 September 2025

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Tristan Hughes journeys up to windswept Scotland to uncover the secrets of the Picts — fierce warriors, skilled artisans, enemies of Rome and rulers of the North.

In this special episode of The Ancients - recorded on site at East Lomond hill fort and National Museums Scotland - Tristan is joined by Professor Gordon Noble and Dr. Martin Goldberg explores how the Picts lived, fought, and thrived in Britain’s wildlands. From mysterious symbol stones and silver hoards to rare warrior artefacts, discover how archaeology is rewriting the story of Scotland's most famous warrior people.

Tristan's new TV documentary 'Enemies of Rome: In Search of the Picts' is out now on History Hit. To watch, sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.

Presented by Tristan Hughes. Edited and produced by Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.

All music courtesy of Epidemic Sounds

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello everyone, just a quick message from me before we get into the episode.
0:03.5	Thank you once again to everyone who came to our live show a couple of weeks back.
0:07.3	And you can now listen to the audio from that event all about ancient Carthage with Dr. Eve MacDonald.
0:14.0	You can listen to it now if you are a subscriber of the ancients,
0:17.3	because we have just released it as a special bonus episode for our subscribers.
0:22.3	If you're interested in that and would like to become a subscriber, there is a link to press
0:26.1	in the show notes. Now, on with the episode.
0:44.3	What you can hear around me now is the sound of discovery. I'm in the far north of the British Isles at East Lomond Hill, the site of an ancient hill fort,
0:50.3	filming for a new history hit documentary.
0:53.3	Once a bustling hive of Iron Age settlement and activity, East Lomond Hill has lain dormant for thousands of years,
1:00.0	that is, until now.
1:03.0	Since 2017, this hill fort has been the subject of several archaeological digs, like the one I'm visiting today.
1:10.0	Their aim is to uncover traces of a people woven into the legends and stories of ancient Britain.
1:15.6	A people famed for their hardiness and fearsome brutality, but also their sophisticated artistry, their symbol stones and silverworking.
1:24.6	They are the Picts, the scourge of Rome and rulers of the North.
1:29.6	But who were they really? How much can we know of them? And what was everyday life like for
1:35.1	one of Britain's fiercest peoples? Join me in this special episode of the ancients as we embark
1:40.9	on a northern odyssey to discover just how the Picts survived in Britain's ancient wild lands.
1:51.0	The Picts were an ancient people who inhabited what is now northeast Scotland, north of the fourth river,
1:58.0	during the late Roman and early medieval periods.
2:01.6	But deciphering who they were and where they came from is a fiendish exercise.
2:07.6	Very little that the Picts wrote down about themselves has survived the rigours of time.
	...

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