PICTISH ARTS SOCIETY LECTURE SYLLABUS 2024–25
Lectures are held on Fridays at 7.30pm (UK time), on Zoom
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Friday 17 January 2025
Pictish Stirlingshire, the Fords of Forthín and the Old Kilmadock Stone
Dr Murray Cook
Bede described the Forth as the frontier between Pictland and Northumbria. This geopolitical boundary is assumed to date from 685 and the battle of Dún Nechtain. But what did it mean at Stirling? It is clear that Clackmannanshire was a hybrid zone between speakers of Pictish and British, and this is also assumed for Stirlingshire.
Dr Cook will discuss new early medieval dates obtained from the forts at Abbey Craig and Dumyat and other less well-known sites. These findings will be combined with new insights into how the Forth was crossed before a bridge existed at Stirling, as well as the discovery of a cross-slab at Old Kilmadock which features both Pictish-style carvings and an ogham inscription.
Finally, Dr Cook poses the question of whether we should divorce our thinking about Pictish art and culture from our thinking about the polity of Fortriu and political control of Pictland.
About the speaker
Murray Cook is Stirling Council’s Archaeologist, giving archaeological advice to Stirling, Clackmannanshire and North Lanarkshire Councils. He conducts research excavations into later prehistoric settlement sites in Stirling, East Lothian and Aberdeenshire. In 2015 he gained a PhD from the University of Edinburgh for a study of the later prehistoric settlement record of the Don Valley in Aberdeenshire, combining key-hole excavation with commercial mitigation excavations. Murray publishes a twice-weekly newsletter with archaeology news and research at https://stirlingarchaeology.substack.com/.
Friday 21 February 2025
The Pictish-Norse Transition in Orkney
Professor David Griffiths
[abstract to follow]
Friday 21 March 2025
Pictish Dress and Textiles in Insular Context
Dr Alexandra Makin
[abstract to follow]
Friday 18 April 2025
Early Insular Music and Depictions of Lip-Vibrated Instruments in Insular Art
Dr Emma Holmes Mackinnon
[abstract to follow]