There Will Be Facepaint: Picts vs Romans on the Antonine Wall
By Adrián Maldonado
So it’s World Heritage Day next week, and to mark the occasion, Dig It! 2017 and EventScotland are hosting Scotland in Six, unique celebrations on all six Scottish World Heritage Sites. Much to my nerdy glee, one of these will be Pictish themed, on the Antonine Wall at Callendar House, Falkirk.
I have kind of an unhealthy fascination with the Picts. I will definitely be going.
The Event
The big event is a Romans vs Picts 5k race, for which participants will be given free blue facepaint or Roman helmets. To sweeten the deal, this will be followed by a Great Roman Bake Off (what, no Pictish cakes?). Medals will be won, costume prizes will be awarded. The event is free but ticketed so make sure to sign up online. Did I mention there will be cake? Why haven’t you registered yet? What kind of monster are you?
Who Were the Picts?
The Picts inhabited large swathes of modern-day Scotland from at least AD 297, when the Romans first started to grumble about them, to around AD 900 when they re-branded as the more inclusive kingdom of Alba. They started off as one of the Roman Empire’s least favourite dinner guests, yet they carried on inviting themselves over to dinner at Hadrian’s Wall until the Romans eventually found it easier to just move out. They later became notorious for their tattooing and graffiti skills, and left their mark by tagging numerous ancient standing stones in northeastern Scotland.
Since then, they have become one of history’s most colourful stock characters, spontaneously generating from behind any depiction of a Roman wall, appearing in thinly-veiled form in movies about any part of the Iron or Middle Ages, and even popping up in fantasy and sci-fi visions of the past and future. I used to complain about historical inaccuracies in their portrayal in pop culture, but now I just go hoovering these appearances up (in the name of research). They are timeless and weird and Scottish and great.
Stand By for a Message from Prof Buzzkillington
If you’ll excuse the interruption, I have to put in a word from my stuffy academic side here. Of course, the Antonine Wall was built, staffed and abandoned well over a century before the first mention of the Picts in historical sources. As such, there is no real evidence that a Roman ever chased a Pict (or vice versa) across the Antonine Wall. That said, it is also the case that the Antonine Wall remained visible in the landscape after its abandonment, as it does in places like Rough Castle nearly two millennia later, and it would have been well known to any Picts living there in later years. Indeed, it was for a time considered to be the border between the Pictish and Northumbrian kingdoms, and Bede reports local Pictish names for the wall in the 8th century. So there. You can read my very serious thoughts about the wall’s curious afterlife here, as I stuff Prof Buzzkillington back in his box.
How To Go Full Pict
Mostly what I want to see next week is glorious anachronism, like the movie Brave, but in trainers. Not enough Picts on Instagram, folks. I know there’s plenty of Roman love out there but I do hope there will be enough facepaint to make them think again. So to help things along, here follow some of my favourite Picts and pseudo-Picts to use as your inspiration for next Tuesday.
1. The Noble Savage
The classic way of depicting the Picts is to graft tattoos and symbols onto a stock Native American archetype. This smashing together of the ‘primitive’ from different continents has a long pedigree, from the famous 16th-century watercolours by John White just after his first visit to colonial Virginia, straight the way through to more recent neo-colonial action films such as Centurion and The Eagle (above). Pros: may include trousers. Cons: all that cultural insensitivity.
2. The Ginger Maniac
The kind of Pict that appears when all you need is a herd of howling, naked antagonists in a battle sequence. The name comes from a classic Blackadder special (above) in which we go back in time to Hadrian’s Wall just in time for a raid, with hilarious consequences. Pros: keeping cool during a race is easier when naked. Cons: being arrested for public indecency.
3. The Braveheart
The most anachronistic, and yet most beloved, use of Pictish-style facepaint in pop culture is not even on a Pict at all, but on the late medieval army of William Wallace according to history expert Mel Gibson. No reason was given for the facepaint other than, you know, Scotland? Pros: just look like you’re going to a Scotland football match. Cons: the sound of history crying.
4. The Goth
The type of pseudo-Pict often used in contemporary fictional allegories for the Roman walls, from Game of Thrones’ scarified cannibal Thenns to the hyper-Goth biker-Picts of the film Doomsday (above; they are also cannibals, natch). Pros: stylish leather trousers. Cons: think of the chafing.
5. The Superpict
My newest favourite depiction of a Pict is Saltire, the Scottish superhero from Diamondsteel Comics, set in a pseudo-historical Pictish past. According to creator John Ferguson, “He’s big, he’s blue and he’s ginger”. Nuff said. Pros: looking like a badass. Cons: that’s gonna take a lot of body paint.
Next post will be reporting from the event - and there will be facepaint.
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This is a collaborative post with Dig It! 2017.
Already signed up for Romans vs Picts, or any of the other World Heritage Day celebrations? Shout about it on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram using the hashtags #WorldHeritageDay and #ScotlandinSix to join the conversation!
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