The Picts
The Ancients
History Hit
4.7 • 4.5K Ratings
🗓️ 18 June 2023
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Emerging around the 3rd century CE and later designated official adversaries of the Roman Empire, the Picts wreaked havoc across the northern fringes of Roman Britain. But due to their limited presence in the archaeological record and the complexities of multiple kings, kingdoms, and languages involved, unravelling the true identity of the Picts and understanding why Rome harboured such animosity towards them can be challenging. So what sources can archaeologists turn to, and what does it show us about ancient Scotland?
In this episode, Tristan welcomes Professor Gordon Noble from the University of Aberdeen to shed light on the enigmatic culture of the Picts. By examining Imperial sources, ancient artwork, and even the earliest known form of daily 'tweets', what insights can we gather about the Picts? And why have they been obscured by the passage of time?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the Ancients from History Hit, to listen to our whole podcast archive |
| 0:05.3 | all new episode ad free and to watch hundreds of history documentaries where you can download |
| 0:10.3 | the History Hit app or go to HistoryHit.com forward slash subscribe. |
| 0:16.8 | That's HistoryHit.com forward slash subscribe. |
| 0:30.0 | It's the Ancients on HistoryHit. |
| 0:32.5 | I'm Tristan Hughes your host and in today's episode, well we're going back to ancient |
| 0:38.5 | Scotland. So talk about one of the most mysterious and enigmatic people of ancient Britain. |
| 0:45.5 | A people that were also considered the bane of Rome in the north. |
| 0:50.3 | I am of course talking about the pics. The pic are associated with striking art such as these |
| 0:56.7 | beautiful carved stones called the Piccadish stones. Just look up piccadish stones and you'll |
| 1:01.6 | see what I mean. They are absolutely stunning. But overall, I think it is fair to say the |
| 1:07.8 | archaeological evidence for the pics is limited. However, more recently these extraordinary |
| 1:15.7 | professors and archaeologists, especially in the north of Britain in Scotland, are |
| 1:20.4 | nothing more information about the pics. And to explain all about our current knowledge |
| 1:27.3 | about the pics, well I was delighted to interview one of the figures right at the forefront |
| 1:32.0 | of this new research. He is Professor Gordon Noble from the University of Aberdeen. |
| 1:38.0 | Now Gordon, he has been leading excavations at striking piccadish sites such as the massive |
| 1:43.1 | hill fort at Taponoth near the village of Riny in Aberdeenshire. This was a fascinating |
| 1:50.1 | chat and I really do hope you enjoy. So without further ado, here's Gordon. |
| 2:00.0 | Gordon, it is wonderful to have you on the podcast today. |
| 2:02.9 | Oh, thanks for inviting me Tristan. That's great to be here. |
| 2:05.3 | You're very welcome and everyone who knows me will know that any chance to talk about ancient |
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