Heraldic badge found at Scottish battlefield
A heraldic badge showing the Scottish crown has been found at the site of the Battle of Flodden. The badge may have been worn by someone closely affiliated with King James IV.read more
View ArticleA tour of the Border Abbeys
Planning a trip to Scotland? You may want to visit the four Border Abbeys, Melrose, Jedburgh, Dryburgh and Kelso, founded by King David I of Scotland in the 12th Century. A recent BBC article looks at...
View ArticleScots mercenary tradition
Since the Middle Ages, Scottish men have been involved in military pursuits, often on foreign soil. Fierce fighters, especially from the western islands, were particularly prized by the armies of...
View ArticleExperts use mathematics to study Pictish language
A new study, presented to the Royal Society A, by Rob Lee, Philip Jonathan and Pauline Ziman describes the Pictish inscriptions found on stones in Scotland as a language apart from Celtic Ogham. The...
View ArticleScottish "wall" built fifty years before Hadrian's
BBC History Magazine reports that archaeologists have identified a first century Roman defense system that extended 120 miles across Scotland. The series of forts, watchtowers and defensive ditches...
View ArticlePerthshire community pitches in to excavate Pictish longhouse
Residents of Perthshire, Scotland will have a unique opportunity in June 2013 to re-discover their own heritage when archaeologists will undertake the excavation of a Pictish longhouse. In addition to...
View ArticleArchaeologists search for the body of James IV at Flodden
On 19 September 1513, Scottish King James IV was killed at the Battle of Flodden in Northumberland, England, along with 10,000 other Scots. Now archaeologists are scouring the battlefield, hoping to...
View ArticleSpooky Rait Castle still mystifies
Rait Castle, on an island in a loch near Naim, Scotland, is haunted, or so say some of its admirers, by the ghost of a handless girl, killed by her father for loving a son of the enemy.read more
View ArticleArchaeologists seek lost Pictish kingdom
A team of archaeologists from Aberdeen are looking for a lost kingdom -- not in some exotic country, but in their own backyard. The experts are seeking Fortriu, "one of the most powerful Kingdoms of...
View Article"Dear Edward, Leave the Scots alone!"
A copy of a previously unknown letter from Robert the Bruce to King Edward II has been discovered at the British Library. The letter, written in 1310 during the build-up to the Battle of Bannockburn,...
View ArticleFort search hopes to change perception of Romans in Scotland
"People are always surprised when I tell them about the Roman occupation of the area - they think the Romans never got any further than the Antonine Wall or even Hadrian's Wall which simply isn't...
View ArticleThe faces of Mary, Queen of Scots
In conjunction with a new exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland, the BBC has created a website which offers a gallery of portraits and artifacts relating to Mary, Queen of Scots, including...
View ArticleWinter storms may point experts to 13th century Cromarty
The 2012 winter storm surge has been a boon for archaeologists working near Cromarty in the Scottish Highlands. The storms washed away part of the shore, revealing what may be part of the 13th century...
View ArticleRenaissance satire takes on Scottish independence
The Satire of the Three Estates by Sir David Lyndsay is considered Scotland's only surviving Renaissance play. Now the six-hour-long political satire is being performed at Linlithgow Palace in West...
View ArticleDrum Castle's "chamber of secrets"
For centuries, a secret medieval chamber, complete with its own guarderobe, lay hidden behind the walls of Drum Castle near Banchory, Scotland, but now all has been revealed. The room appears to have...
View ArticleModelling Mary
The team who created the 3D face of Richard III, have now been comissioned to produce a virtual face of Mary, Queen of Scots as she would have looked in her 20s. The image is part of the new exhibition...
View Article500th anniversary of the Battle of Flodden marked
14,000 individuals -- 10,000 Scots and 4,000 English -- lost their lives in the Battle of Flodden which took place in 1513 in Northumberland, England. Among them was King James IV of Scotland. This...
View ArticleArchaeologists search for graves at Flodden
In September 1513, thousands of bodies were buried on or around the battlefield of Flodden in Northumberland, England. Now, 500 years later, excavation has taken place to locate and protect the remains...
View ArticleArchaeologists consider meaning of Mingary Castle arrowhead
Mingary Castle, overlooking the Sound of Mull in Scotland, may have had a more violent past than once believed, according to experts pondering the discovery of an iron arrowhead. (photo)read more
View ArticleMedieval handbell re-created
Archaeologists know what early medieval handbells looked like from the "rusty shadows in the museum case" that still exist, but not what these bells sounded like. Now a team of experts from the...
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