Would highly recommend the new Viking North exhibition at the Yorkshire Museum (York) if you are in the area. Lots to see and thoughtfully presented. #vikingsky

Pictish Queen. Tarbat Discovery Centre.

Went to see the Viking-age ship carving at Pikeing Well, York today. Dating from 10th-11th century.

Stone with Ogham writing originally from County Kerry, now in Trinity College, Dublin.

A trip to Chester and the opportunity to visit the shrine of Werburgh, the patron saint of the city. She lived in the latter half of the 7th century and was Mercian royalty – her grandfather was Penda, the king who fought a series of wars against Northumbria. She died in the year 700.

Pictish stone trail on Moncreiffe Hill, Perth. Battle site from the Pictish civil war in 728.

Model of Roman dice tower at Segedunum Fort museum (Wallsend, Newcastle) which mentions the Picts: "PICTOS VICTOS HOSTIS DELETA LVDITE SECVRI" (The Picts are defeated, the enemy destroyed, play safely). The original was found in Germany in 1985.

In this second picture I have outlined the deer’s head and you can just make out the other symbol above it.

This is the Pictish stone which stands against the graveyard wall in the village of Strathmiglo, Fife. It is very weathered, but you can just about make out the head of a deer and, above it, a rectangular shape, possibly a “tuning fork” symbol.

Carved into the rocks where the sea meets the site of the original Faroese 9th century parliament at Tinganes in the Faroese Capital of Tórshavn, you can find this viking-age sundial. 1/4

Happy Hogmanay everyone! This is the Lapis ("stone") Echodi – along its top is an inscription with those words which some people think could be the oldest surviving memorial to any king in Britain. Eochaid Bude was a Dal Riadan king in the early 7th century. The stone is now in Iona Abbey.

Merry Christmas/Yule to everyone! Thank you for reading my various posts throughout the last year. Since I started the Northern Tapestry in October 2023 I have posted 24 articles on the Wordpress site (www.northerntapestry.com) covering the period from the late 7th century up to the 840s...

Trip to the British Museum to see the fantastic Silk Roads exhibition. So many beautiful artifacts, but I was drawn to the fragments of an amphora from the eastern Mediterranean and found at the Pictish royal site of Rhynie. This vessel would perhaps have carried wine or olive oil to the north.

Thank you to everyone who has followed me since I joined Bluesky a week ago. northerntapestry.com is an attempt to join up the characters, their stories and historical events in an area covering northern Britain, Ireland, Scandinavia, Iceland and the Faroe Islands in the early medieval period.