Cross slab, Groam Museum, Rosemarkie
Cross slab, Groam Museum, Rosemarkie
grand tour of the middling sort
About a couple who quit their jobs, sold their stuff, threw off the bowlines and got on a plane to travel the world.
Cross slab, Groam Museum, Rosemarkie
grand tour of the middling sort 
Hello Emma.
The museum looked an interesting place because of its collection of Pictish artifacts. We do not have many records of their civilization. The Roman historian, Tacitus, wrote about them, but that was mainly in relation to battles with the Roman Governor of Britain, Julius Agricola. Agricola was the father-in-law of Tacitus, so the writer was more likely to praise the Romans rather than the Picts. He wrote that Agricola defeated the Picts, led by Calgacus, at ‘mons graupius’. The place was later misspelled as ‘grampians’ which became the name for the mountain range in Scotland and later for the range in western Victoria. The cross slab shows that they had been converted to Christianity at some time after the Romans had been there, most likely by monks originally from Iona. Unfortunately the Picts did not leave written records like the Romans, so their stone carvings are almost all that is left of their presence in Scotland.