The use of information theory to determine the language character type of Pictish symbols

Abstract

Pictish symbols are found on stones, cave walls and portable items (e.g. silver metalwork). A detailed pictorial corpus of all the images found on these materials has been created. Using this pictorial corpus, a catalogue of possible symbol types has been drawn up and a second, comparative visual corpus for each of these symbol types produced. The images in the pictorial corpus were then defined using the different sets of symbol types and analysed with an information theory technique that determines the degree of information expressed by small petroglyph corpuses. This quantitative, statistical technique confirms that the Pictish symbols represent a written language. Analysis indicates that it is highly likely that the symbols are words and that the majority are likely to be names. Some basic syntax and possible lines of enquiry for decipherment of this language are described.

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