Rumor has it that Pictish men wore their hair long with full beards (https://classroom.synonym.com/what-is-the-meaning-of-a-celtic-snake-12080580.html). The Celts supposedly introduced the Romans to soap (https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-famous-people/eight-things-you-should-know-celts-0011579), so if the Picts have any relation to the Celts, which I’m going with, then they had soap. Also, based on their stones they had mirrors and combs, so we know they had the tools to groom. I wanted to know if the men favored any particular styles and how the women did their hair. I did a Google search for images of Pictish stones with people to see what I could discover. As you can see from the assortment of images I found, all the men have beards and the weird thing is, they were ALL men. The only picture I could find that looked like a woman is the middle image in #11. That picture I scanned in from “The Art of the Picts” by George and Isabel Henderson. The images from #12 are from “The Book of Kells” which was written between the 7th and 9th century and, according to “The Book of Kells” by Bernard Meehan, they are women.
Why are there no or very few women depicted on the Pictish stones? I don’t know. I find it strange considering it was supposedly a matriarchal society that worshiped a goddess. Many of the figures are in scenes involving hunting or Christianity or battles, although there are some more fanciful ones. Does this mean all the artists were men? I also find it interesting that unlike many other societies, there’s not a lot of sexual innuendo in their art.
Back to hair: most of the images show men with hair past their collars. There are hints of man-buns such as the third image in #7. The beards are depicted as pointy and vary in length from the long one in #1 to nothing in the first picture in #11, but he has a long mustache. #7 is interesting because each man has a different length of beard or perhaps the stone has eroded away.
The pictures of women from the “Book of Kells” show their hair loose or covered. Since the Picts were such creative artists, I’m sure they were more creative than that. There have been hairpins found in at least one archaeological site (https://www.archaeology.org/news/6651-180530-scotland-pictish-fort).
A skull found in Osterby, Germany (a neighbor of the Picts) had his hair done in a Suebian knot. (https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-ancient-traditions/osterby-man-still-has-great-hairdo-nearly-2000-years-007683) I’ve read elsewhere than men wore topknots on their head to make them look taller. Is one or more of my characters getting a man-bun? You bet. And the ladies? I’m guessing they liked to wear their hair long and since Scotland is windy and it’s no fun combing out rats (ask me how I know), they probably braided their hair or pinned it up or just kept it covered.
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