Óengus son of Fergus was king of the Picts from 732 until his death in 761. His reign can be reconstructed in some detail from a variety of sources. The unprecedented territorial gains he made from coast to coast, and the legacy he left, mean Óengus can be considered the first king of what would become Scotland.
Escomb Church, County Durham. The stone churches built for Nechtan, and perhaps Óengus's church at St Andrews, are presumed to have been similar.
St Andrews Sarcophagus
Pictish is an extinct Brittonic Celtic language spoken by the Picts, the people of eastern and northern Scotland from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages. Virtually no direct attestations of Pictish remain, short of a limited number of geographical and personal names found on monuments and early medieval records in the area controlled by the kingdoms of the Picts. Such evidence, however, shows the language to be an Insular Celtic language related to the Brittonic language then spoken in most of the rest of Britain.
Picture by Joseph Ratcliffe Skelton (1865–1927) depicting Columba preaching to Bridei, king of Fortriu in 565
Personal names of Roman-era chieftains from the Pictish area, including Calgacus (above) have a Celtic origin.
Difficulties in translation of ogham inscriptions, like those found on the Brandsbutt Stone, led to a widely held belief that Pictish was a non-Indo-European language.
