%0 Journal Article %T The development of the Pictish symbol system: inscribing identity beyond the edges of Empire %A Noble, Gordon; Goldberg, D Martin; Hamilton, Derek %8 2019-01-08 %I Cambridge University Press %J Antiquity %V 92 %P 1329-1348 %U http://aura.abdn.ac.uk/handle/2164/11368; http://www.nms.ac.uk/about-us/collections-departments/scottish-history-and-archaeology/; https://antiquity.ac.uk/open %X The date of unique symbolic carvings, from various contexts across north and east Scotland, has been debated for over a century. Excavations at key sites and direct dating of engraved bone artefacts have allowed for a more precise chronology, extending from the third/fourth centuries AD, broadly contemporaneous with other non-vernacular scripts developed beyond the frontiers of the Roman Empire, to the ninth century AD. These symbols were probably an elaborate, non-alphabetic writing system, a Pictish response to broader European changes in power and identity during the transition from the Roman Empire to the early medieval period. %[ 2024-03-28 %9 Journal article %~ Hyku %W National Museums Scotland