Talk:Pictish stone

message: Shouldn't the title of this page be Pictish stone.  When in doubt wikipedia policy prefers the singular. Hadrianheugh (talk) 03:12, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think stones is prolly the better title, if for no other reason it is about Pictish stones rather than the abstraction "the Pictish stone". Regards, Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 03:27, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree. The article Carrot is really about carrots (not just an individual carrot) per your logic. Cheers. Hadrianheugh (talk) 04:47, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  You're not really being fair to my logic. Pictish stones, unlike carrots, don't have the same dna. :p Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 04:51, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Fair enough. But less comically check out the pages: Dolmen, Henge, Menhir, Orthostat, Stone circle, Stone ship, Headstone, Tomb, Chamber tomb, Standing stone, Cromlech etc. which do not share the same DNA and are ancient stone structures. Cheers. Hadrianheugh (talk) 15:51, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  I do think Pictish stones are so specific and have problems of classification that make them different from those. Pictish stone for me formalizes and abstracts it to an unacceptable degree ... for me at least. Let's see what others say ... Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 16:05, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Put me on the fence - I can see both sides of this argument... :-) Le Deluge (talk) 11:48, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Singular

message: Poking around the RCAHMS site it has lots of useful info including grid references, rock types, sizes etc. I've tidied up Clach an Tiompain with an infobox, coords etc, people like might to do the same with some of the others using that as a template. Le Deluge (talk) 11:48, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Locations and infoboxes

message: We can by all means report the claims that the symbols qualify as "writing". But we certainly cannot take this as a fact that is taken for granted by anyone other than the people proposing it. 
These will need to qualify what exactly they mean by "writing". 
If it turns out that the claim is simply that the symbols have semantic content, they should more properly be considered a form of proto-writing. If the claim that this is positively about writing, i.e. records containing linguistic information, as opposed to mere proto-writing, I would be rather interested what exactly that claim is based on. So far, the claim seems to be based simply on statistics (entropy), which is good enough to prove that the symbols are "not random", but the jump from "not random" to "written language" would need some elaboration. --dab (𒁳) 09:38, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think there's anything controversial, or indeed novel, about the suggestion that the stones were intended to impart some sort of information. A writing system though? The Picts obviously didn't have a lot to say. Catfish Jim and the soapdish (talk) 11:08, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

text: I notice that Lees team used complete language systems for their test data, eg: Chinese, Egyptian hierogpyphs, etc., they haven't considered whether it is a language subsystem or even signage. They score the  probability by looking at predictable non-random events, take for example the English language, if you have a series of Roman characters with the letter 'Q' in them, you could predict that the letter 'u' would follow , which would indicate a high probability that it was a written language. I would like to know how they would score road signs, using their system, as road signs do have an element of predictability about them, and are certainly not random. Wilfridselsey (talk) 10:06, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Someone has now added published critiques. The one from Computational Linguistics looks like it entirely demolishes the earlier claims. Angus McLellan  (Talk) 22:10, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

text:  Thanks Angus, copy of one critique here  Wilfridselsey (talk) 09:09, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

text: I am surely no scholar, but having a look at http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/details/1080173/ (brandsbutt stone at inverurie) does suggest no writing or even proto-writing to me, even though this brandsbutt stone is supposed to be some ogham 'Rosetta' stone. Although I'm not sure exactly where any composite image starts classifying as proto-writing, all I see is a reflection of the moon in the river Don south of Inverurie (typically west of Kemnay). For this you need to consider a snake to signify a river and the Z sign to be a compass with the arrow pointing north. The V sign through the moon would be the arrow representing its reflection. I'd say this convays a time and place, like a map rather than a message. It would still be a transfer of information but not (proto-)writing, I think.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.84.150.13 (talk) 23:38, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Writing

message: It may well be the tallest in the British Isles (or Britain and Ireland, if you prefer), but the best reference I could find was that it's the tallest early medieval sculpture in Scotland, so I've toned down the claim a little. Catfish Jim & the soapdish 09:45, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Good job on this, and other recent improvements. I think the more moderate claim is more appropriate unless anyone can find a source for the original.--SabreBD (talk) 09:51, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

text: I have a soft spot in my heart for this article, I don't know why. Thanks for the edits. Gwen Gale (talk) 09:58, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: And thanks from me. Can we remove the sources tag? I don't see why it needs more now, and there's no discussion here. Dougweller (talk) 10:25, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. Gwen Gale (talk) 10:40, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: It has been done. But I am not convinced that the article has enough sources. Particularly, the Purpose and Meaning section has some major claims and no citations for two paragraphs. Can anyone help support those statements?--SabreBD (talk) 11:37, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: For what it's worth, I looked into some of the inline citations and although they could be shuffled about some, most of the text seems supported by them. The shreds of text I found which I couldn't easily verfiy in the cited sources, I was able to quickly verify through a web search, though those sources, while ok, were not great, so I didn't bother to put them into the article. Gwen Gale (talk) 12:45, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

text: I've added a couple more references... I think Jackson (1984) would cover the unreferenced analysis of the occurrence of symbols in pairs, but I'll have to check tonight. Catfish Jim & the soapdish 13:44, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I think its pretty much there now, so thanks to everyone for their efforts. I am doing a summary of this article for elsewhere, so if I find more relevant and useful references I will feed them back into here. Thanks to all for your efforts. Its really the sort of response you pray for from a tag and so very rarely get.--SabreBD (talk) 14:23, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sueno's stone tallest in British Isles 

message: We're not sure what to make of this, and could use some eyes on it. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 10:48, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I've taken the bull by the horns, thus Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pictish Mithraism. Dougweller (talk) 13:47, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Pictish Mithraism]] 

message: Does this deserve a mention ? I've raised it on the Runestone page as well. They're similar in many ways. I think given Scotland's geographical proximity to the Scandinavian and Nordic countries it certainly deserves a small piece. Should also note that some Pictish Stone incsriptions have been translated using Old Norse, written in Ogham script. They were names and dates likely commemorating fallen warriors and kings, just like Norse runestones.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.104.200.243 (talk) 17:32, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Similarity to Runestones 

message: I've changed the citation for the Allen and Anderson book to refer to the original 1903 edition, which is now available as full-text on IA. Is there any value in also listing the facsimile edition? I think not, unless there is a modern introduction or notes. If so they should be referred to explicitly. Happy to discuss. Kognos (talk) 12:11, 13 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  The early Christian monuments of Scotland