Unknown symbols written by the lost 'painted people' of Scotland unearthed

By Laura Geggel published about 16 hours ago

The symbols may represent a naming system.



The geometric Pictish carvings on this stone date to the fifth or sixth centuries A.D. (Image credit: University of Aberdeen )

Archaeologists in Scotland shed "genuine tears" upon discovering a stone covered with geometric carvings that the Picts, the Indigenous people of the region, designed about 1,500 years ago.

The team unexpectedly found the 5.5-foot-long (1.7 meters) carved stone while doing a geophysical survey in Aberlemno, a village with Pictish roots. The stone has several geometric shapes showing abstract Pictish symbols, such as triple ovals, a comb and mirror, a crescent and double discs. Some of the carved symbols overlap, suggesting that they were carved in different time periods, the researchers said.

"It's the find of a lifetime, genuinely," James O'Driscoll, an archaeologist at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland who helped excavate the stone, said in a university video.

It's unclear what all of the symbols mean, but the "best guess is that they are a naming system representing Pictish names," Gordon Noble, excavation leader and a professor of archaeology at the University of Aberdeen, told Live Science in an email.

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