Preserving the Picts
Last updated | 01/09/2010
In the first thousand years AD the country we now call Scotland was dominated by changing groups of Celtic peoples, most notably the Picts. From AD 250-900 they controlled most of Scotland north of the Forth. We do not know what they called themselves. The Picts - meaning "the painted ones" – is the name the Romans gave them. Their language has disappeared and no Pictish manuscripts are known to have survived. But their art does survive on over 300 pieces of carved stonework and a much smaller number of portable objects such as jewellery.
The photographic collections of Perth Museum & Art Gallery include a number of important images of Pictish sculptures taken between 1880 and 1920.
Some of these photographs are displayed here both as works of art in their own right and as important historical records, preserving much artistic detail now lost on the actual stones. Recently taken photographs of some of the stones help to highlight this continuing threat.
A series of display panels (PDF: 5.22Mb) features major stones in Perthshire and the bordering counties of Fife and Angus.
A leaflet details information about the Kettins Cross Slab (PDF: 497Kb).
