ИСТИНА

One of most interesting aspect of the Pictish cultural heritage is a corpus of Pictish ogham inscriptions (7th-10th centuries) from the North of Scotland, which remain undeciphered. Making inscriptions Pictish people used Irish ogham alphabet, however Pictish ogham inscriptions differ from the traditional (Irish) ogham inscriptions in a variety of epigraphic features: • unlike traditional Irish ogham with the center line on the edge of the stone, Pictish ogham often has a cut line that imitates the edge (similar imitation can be observed in The Book of Ballymote, 14th); • using supplementary ogham characters (Breay Stone) is uncommon, however it cannot be ignored; • frequent doubling and trippling of consonants and vowels (Lunnasting Stone); • mentioning the same Pictish names (Nechtan, Talorc, Drostan…) several times; • some inscriptions are accompanied by Pictish symbols; • using an extinct Pictish language whitch is still unknown. It is necessary to notice that the aim of this report is not to decipher Pictish ogham inscriptions, but to consider in detail typology and epigraphic features of the Pictish ogham heritage. I am going to present a number of interim conclusions that probably could modest contribute to the long and extensive process of search for ways to solve “the problem of the Picts” (Wainwright, 1955).