The Pictish Arts Society Conference
Saturday 4 and Sunday 5 October 2025, online via Zoom
We are delighted to present the agenda for this year’s Pictish Arts Society Conference, held online via Zoom on the afternoons of Saturday 4 and Sunday 5 October 2025. ​This year's conference theme is Metal and Metalwork in Pictland for Day 1 and New Research on Pictish Art and its Context on Day 2.
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We hope to see you there!
Tickets
Tickets are £12 members/£15 non-members, plus a small booking fee. Click the button below to buy them from Ticketsource (our ticketing app).
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Conference Agenda
Saturday 4 October: Metal and Metalwork in Pictland
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13:40 - 13:45
Log on
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13:45 - 13:50
Welcome
Professor Jane Geddes, President, Pictish Arts Society
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13:50 - 14:40
Roman Silver and Early Medieval Metalwork: A Complex Relationship
Dr Martin Goldberg, National Museums Scotland
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​14:40 - 15:30
Bespoke Beasts: Pictish Metalworking at Rhynie
Dr Gemma Cruickshanks, National Museums Scotland
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15:30 - 15:50 Break
15:50 - 16:40
From Stone to Steel: Pictish Weaponry Decoded
Paul Macdonald, Macdonald Armouries
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16:40 - 17:30
Crafting Burghead: Making and Wearing – The Story So Far
Leanne Demay, National Museums Scotland
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17:30- 17:35
Closing Remarks
Professor Jane Geddes, President, Pictish Arts Society
Sunday 5 October: New Research on Pictish Art and its Context
13:40 - 13:45
Log on
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13:45 - 13:50
Opening Remarks
Professor Jane Geddes, President, Pictish Arts Society
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13:50 - 14:40
Northern Picts Project - Latest Updates
Professor Gordon Noble, University of Aberdeen
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14:40 - 15:30
The Conical Structure on Sueno’s Stone, Forres
Professor Jane Geddes, University of Aberdeen
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15:30 - 15:50 Break
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15:50 - 16:40
Christ, Lions, and Dragons: The Cross-Slabs from Skinnet and Ulbster
Dr Victoria Whitworth
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16:40 - 17:30
Carving Pictish Beef
Dr Susan Youngs
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17:30- 17:35
Closing Remarks
Professor Jane Geddes, President, Pictish Arts Society
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Abstracts and Speakers’ Details
Dr Martin Goldberg: Roman Silver and Early Medieval Metalwork: A Complex Relationship
Silver was an important material for expressing status, power and wealth across early medieval Europe. The precious metal itself originated within the Roman Empire and so it can also tell us about relations with the Late Roman world, both beyond the frontiers and beyond the lifespan of that imperial power. In Scotland, silver is crucial in understanding the emergence of the Picts and their neighbours. This paper will summarise what we can learn about this transitional and formative period in European history from the precious material of silver.
Martin Goldberg has been curator of Early Medieval and Viking collections since 2008. He has worked closely with Professor Gordon Noble on the (Re)discovery of the Gaulcross hacksilver hoard and on the dating of Pictish symbols. With Alice Blackwell and Fraser Hunter he was co-author of 'Scotland's Early Silver', a 2017 book that accompanied an exhibition, which toured Scotland from 2017-2019. Their forthcoming book (with co-editor Andreas Rau) Silver Beyond Empire: the transition between Late Roman and Early Medieval Europe will present over a decade of research on Scottish and related hacksilver hoards, with detailed catalogues and papers written by a network of experts from across Europe, situating the Scottish material in a wider international context.
Dr Gemma Cruickshanks: Bespoke Beasts: Pictish Metalworking at Rhynie
Excavations at Rhynie, Aberdeenshire, produced a rich artefact assemblage dating to between the 4th and early 7th centuries AD. Over a thousand fragments of metalworking debris indicate intensive non-ferrous metalwork production took place on site. Exquisite clay moulds for jewellery and a range of enigmatic beasts, along with stone ingot moulds, ceramic crucibles and stone metal-refi ning vessels reveal the metalworkers were highly skilled innovators.
Gemma Cruickshanks runs the post-excavation service at National Museums Scotland, where she has been a fi nds specialist for 15 years. Her key areas of research include the development of ironworking across Scotland, early medieval non-ferrous metalworking and broader patterns of craft technology and workshop traditions between different regions and periods. She has contributed to several recent and forthcoming major excavation publications, including Sculptor's Cave, High Pasture Cave, Mine Howe and Rhynie.
Paul Macdonald: From Stone to Steel: Pictish Weaponry Decoded
This illustrated presentation identifi es various types of indigenous weaponry evident across Pictish carvings. We shall examine what makes many of these armaments appear to be quite unique in their historic context. As well as this, considerations given to reproducing these weapons as realistically as possible in terms of materials and form shall be covered. We shall even take up replica weaponry in back-engineering effective martial techniques that can be practised once again today.
Paul Macdonald is a professional custom sword and knife-maker, historical fencing master, martial historian and traditional story-teller. He holds a great passion for the study of our own indigenous weaponry and martial culture, particularly in the fi eld of Pictish history.
Leanne Demay: Crafting Burghead: Making and Wearing – The Story So Far
The monumental promontory fort at Burghead served as a key power centre within the heart of the Pictish Kingdom of Fortriu. Since 2015, archaeological excavations carried out by the University of Aberdeen’s Northern Picts and Comparative Kingship Projects have uncovered extensive fi nds and deposits dating from the 6th to 10th centuries AD. This paper presents initial post-excavation fi ndings from Burghead, with a particular focus on evidence of metalworking and the metalwork discovered at the site. It will examine the role of objects, materiality, and craftworking, and place the site within the broader political landscape.
Leanne Demay works as a post-excavation officer at National Museums Scotland, where she reports on finds from sites across Scotland dating from the Bronze Age to the Medieval period. She is currently undertaking a Carnegie Trust-funded PhD, investigating the development of personal ornaments in north-east Scotland from the Iron Age to the Early Medieval period, focusing on Roman infl uence during key transitional phases.
Professor Gordon Noble: Latest Updates from the Northern Picts Project
In this talk Professor Gordon Noble will give an update on various projects conducted by the Northern Picts project. The University of Aberdeen Northern Picts project aims to uncover the archaeological traces of Pictish society in eastern and northern Scotland.
Gordon Noble is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Aberdeen. He has undertaken landscape research and fi eld projects working on projects from the Mesolithic to Medieval periods. The Northern Picts project run by Gordon won Research Project of the Year 2021 in the Current Archaeology Awards. His latest book, Picts: Scourge of Rome, Rulers of the North, was shortlisted for the EAA and Current Archaeology Book of the Year 2023.
Professor Jane Geddes: The Conical Structure on Sueno’s Stone, Forres
In the midst of all the battle carnage on Sueno’s Stone is an enigmatic conical structure, interpreted in the past as a bell, broch or gateway. This paper argues that it is a furnace, on one level Hell fi re, the theological destination for pagan Vikings as illustrated in the psalms. On a practical level it could also function as an incinerator for cremating the Viking dead according to their own funeral rites. Archaeological evidence is emerging that Viking invaders tried to cremate their dead even on foreign territory, often aiming to repatriate the bones in family graves back home. While this custom was a shock to Christian witnesses, Sueno’s stone also shows sacrifi ce of horses and laying out the dead under a canopy, both attested rituals of Viking burial.
Jane Geddes is professor emerita from Aberdeen University, President of the Pictish Arts Society and author of Hunting Picts: Early Medieval Sculpture at St Vigeans.
Dr Victoria Whitworth: Christ, Lions, and Dragons: The Cross-slabs from Skinnet and Ulbster
This paper identifi es the Skinnet and Ulbster cross-slabs as two of an unusual subset of Pictish cross-slabs where the cross is fl anked by symmetrical inward-facing creatures. It explores this iconography in the context of texts such as Psalm 148 and the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew. It also addresses the historiographical trend to associate such iconography specifi cally with the Canticle of Habakkuk and to suggest that in fact such imagery is part of a much wider matrix of texts and theologies.
Victoria Thompson Whitworth is a graduate of the universities of Oxford and York. She is the author of Dying and Death in Later Anglo-Saxon England (Woodbridge, 2004) and The Book of Kells: Unlocking the Enigma (forthcoming London, October 2025) as well as numerous other books and articles. Her main academic interest is the stone sculpture of Northumbria, Pictland and the Isle of Man, in its social, cultural, and religious contexts.
Dr Susan Youngs: Carving Pictish Beef
Cattle are unique to Pictish monuments. The famous combinations of symbols carved on the earliest Pictish monuments have long attracted attention but other motifs stand resolutely alone, most famously the bulls from Burghead, Moray. But cattle, like the symbols, were also to remain in the sculptors’ repertoires appearing on a wide variety of designs on Christian monuments. Improved understanding of context in several related fi elds has prompted me to take another look at the many public depictions of cattle. They are not seen on the great monuments of Ireland and elsewhere in Britain, with one interesting island exception. As scientifi c techniques improve, we can anticipate new information about the importance of Pictish beef.
Susan Youngs, FSA, FSA (Scot.) studied early medieval Irish and British history under Kathleen Hughes and Dorothy Whitelock and excavated at Monkwearmouth and Jarrow under Rosemary Cramp. She joined the British Museum on the Sutton Hoo Ship-Burial publication team and then worked mainly on the early medieval Celtic collections, editing the Work of Angels catalogue for the exhibition’s curatorial team of Leslie Webster, Michael Ryan, Raghnall Ó Floinn and Michael Spearman. Her published papers have focused largely on early metalwork.