PICTISH CAVALRY: THE “MOUNTING” EVIDENCE:

By Fisher Fine Arts Library Image Database - Camp and audience scenes in late iron age rock drawings from Khawtsgait, MongoliaPD-Art: Non-creative photograph of a two-dimensional work of art in the Public Domain (1st century BCE -1st century BCE), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=95087609

    Copious evidence points to prominent horse cultures in Amazon, Scythian, and Pictish societies. The Amazons, depicted primarily through the eyes of the ancient Greeks, are painted as hard-riding warriors, fighting from horseback, and dying beneath the hooves of their steeds. Scythian gravemounds yield treasure troves of horse gear, as well as the bones of the horses themselves, and the bodies of their riders: Amazonian warrior women, knees bent in the riding position.

    Pictish standing stones present the clearest picture. Their carven cartoons caricature a clear snapshot of Pictish riders – a few female – prancing in formation across a stone canvas, dogs dancing at their feet. While some may have been hunting parties accompanied by hounds, evidence shows that war dogs were known in Irish society and did accompany soldiers to battle. That said, even without that knowledge, some of the stones – such as Aberlemno II, which shows the Battle of Nechtansmere – depict historically acknowledged battles. The close ties between the Picts and the Irish – who were and are famously warlike – enforces the theory that the Picts, like the Amazons and Scythians, employed horses in combat. The appearance of specific horse breeds on the standing stones, some of which were known to and used by the steppe tribes as well as the Picts, also endorses this theory.    

    Does any of this prove that the Picts descended either racially or culturally from the steppe tribes or tradition? No. But however circumstantial, the evidence is beginning to – you should excuse the expression – mount…

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