大象传媒 Scotland - 大象传媒 Scotland - 鈥楴ow I actually have friends!鈥� 鈥� how the world聬鈥檚 largest collection of centuries-old Pictish cave carvings changed one woman鈥檚 life

鈥楴ow I actually have friends!鈥� 鈥� how the world聬鈥檚 largest collection of centuries-old Pictish cave carvings changed one woman鈥檚 life

8 August 2018

The Picts were one of the earliest known tribes in Scotland — and they were prolific stone carvers.

The largest collection of their cave carvings anywhere in the world is in Wemyss Caves, Fife, but their creators could never have foreseen the life-changing effect the drawings would have on a young woman called Kirsty, many hundreds of years later.

She knew nothing about the caves, but one day had cause to take photographs there and “fell in love with the carvings.”

“They’re beautiful pieces of art that have been there for thousands of years.

“I got talking to one of the tour guides and they’ve never been able to get rid of me since!”

Kirsty’s transformation

Kirsty, who now volunteers at the caves, “had a lot of issues in high school. It was always because of mental health, like depression and anxiety.”

She met Hannah, another volunteer at the caves, and the two became firm friends. Both went on to study related subjects – History and Archaeology – at university.

“Now I actually have friends! These caves have literally changed my life.

“Wemyss Caves have really upped my confidence and given me that belief in myself again.”

LEFT: 鈥淭his is thought to be a lion by someone who has never seen a lion before but had one described to them.鈥� RIGHT: 鈥淚f you look close enough at this Pictish fish you can still see the little fins coming off of the side of its body.鈥�

How Caving Gave Me Confidence!

The Wemyss Caves in Fife helped Kirsty's mental health.

Known as Picti by the Romans, meaning ‘Painted Ones’ in Latin, these northern tribes constituted the largest kingdom in Dark Age Scotland.

They began carving stone in the 9th Century.

The Picts repelled the conquests of both Romans and Angles, creating a true north-south divide on the British Isles, only to disappear from history by the end of the first millennium, swallowed whole by the history of another group: the Gaels.