"Revisiting British Early Medieval Battles: Nechtansmere" Topic

…. The Aberlemno Stone and the Battle of Nechtansmere

"The next episode of my attempts to revisit the British early medieval battles I wrote about in Miniature Wargames between 1983 and 1986 will be about the battle of Nechtansmere in 685. Since the 1980s there have been two whole books on this battle. Interest in Pictish history and (especially) archaeology has blossomed since I wrote about Nechtansmere in 1984 and to some extent those books come out of that. Another key development, in the 1990s, was the linkage of the Aberlemno Stone (well, the rear side of the Aberlemno Cross, or Aberlemno 2 to be exact: figure 1, below) and the battle of Nechtansmere. A couple of articles in Northern History, by Craig Cessford and Nicholas Hooper discussed whether the depiction of a battle on this stone was or was not evidence for ‘Anglo-Saxon cavalry' and suggested that the scene depicted the battle of Nechtansmere. If it did, then it is a precious piece of information, but does it? I honestly can't decide. I appreciate that this sort of indecisiveness drives many wargamers mad, but if it's certainty you want, either wargame a different period or don't claim you're doing historical wargaming!…"

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Armand

thanks

Very interesting.

Druzhina
Picts on Pictish Stones

Fascinating!

It surely must depict the Picts fighting another culture as the two sides are depicted as uniformly different to each other, especially with regard to hair and clothing. The ‘Picts' seem to wearing something like a kirtle, while the ‘Anglian' leader has something that looks like a hauberk, he also appears the only ‘Anglian' whose horse isn't nag-tailed and wearing a large (ornate?) saddle cloth.

Trying to make out a sequence is really hard without knowing whether the Picts had a convention for this. Didn't they use Ogham which goes bottom to top? This would make the top the pursuit which looks more likely given the depiction as a chase with discarded arms. The problem here is that the ‘Anglian' leader appears to be dead at the bottom, which surely isn't the start – do the accounts say he was killed early? If so who is running away?

Unfortunately, I know nothing about Nechtansmere like whether there was more than one important leader on the losing side.

A votre service mes amis…

Armand

Dang, the "Scots" lose again!!!

Curse those flatlanders!!!

(Interesting article!!)

The problem here is that the ‘Anglian' leader appears to be dead at the bottom, which surely isn't the start – do the accounts say he was killed early? If so who is running away?

It wouldn't be unusual for the same character to appear multiple times, compare images of the Legend of Saint Ladislaus of the 14th & 15th Centuries, where a character can appear 4 or so times.

Druzhina
Illustrations of Hungarian Costume & Soldiers

Thanks

Armand