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The Burghead Bull

At Burghead on the Moray Firth, the remains of an important Pictish Fort are to be found on the headland.  In the past they were often wrongly said to have been Roman ruins. 

Burghead was a major Pictish centre. Excavations in the nineteenth century suggested that the fort complex was erected around 400AD and continued in existence until it was destroyed by fire in either the ninth or tenth centuries. 

It is believed that the Vikings under Sigurd the Powerful captured the fort in 884AD.  It was an attractive location for them with both natural defences and easy access to the sea.

In the early nineteenth century some thirty 'Bull Stones' were excavated at Burghead's Pictish Fort.  They are the only ones of their kind and represent beautiful examples of Pictish carvings.

​Only six remain: two at the headland museum in Burghead, two in Elgin Museum, one in the National Museum of Scotland and one in the British Museum in London. 


Picture
The Burghead Bull.  Copyright: The British Museum. 
​This has been used under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license. 

Watch more about Burghead's Pictish Fort

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  • Home
  • Storytelling Workshop
  • 100 THINGS
    • Submit a thing
  • What makes a good story
    • Every picture tells a story
    • Landscape as a storyteller
    • How an object tells a story
    • Spoken Word
  • YOUR STORIES
    • Ardclach Bell Tower
    • The Ghost of Ardvreck Castle
    • Big Grey Man of Ben Macdui
    • The Black Shadow
    • The Brodie Pontifical
    • The Brora Coalfield
    • The Burghead Bull
    • Caithness Dialect
    • Carbisdale Castle Clock
    • The Burning of the Clavie
    • Coinneach: the Brahan Seer
    • Culbin
    • Ghostly Shinty at Dalarossie
    • The Dounreay Dalek
    • The Dwarfie Stane
    • Phantom Train of Dunphail
    • Greenmire
    • Highland Ghost Stories
    • The Highland Pony
    • Hogmanay Bonfire at Pulteneytown
    • The Hydrogen Story
    • Laidhay remembered
    • LS Lowry and Caithness
    • Lochindorb
    • Mary Ann's Cottage
    • The Orkney Energy Community
    • Orkney Sea Monsters
    • Sandwood Bay Legends
    • A simple, happy life
    • The Skaill House Ghosts
    • Skekling
    • Smuggling and Illicit Distilling
    • Teddy Banjo, Teuksy and Wick Wivies
    • The genius of Thomas Telford
    • Traveller Beware
    • White Wife of Watlee
    • Christmas in Wick
    • The Wulver of Shetland