Imagine cracking open a glossy tome on ancient Scotland, expecting tales of tattooed warriors clashing with Romans under Highland mists, only to find a cast of characters that looks like it wandered off the set of a modern NHS diversity ad. Black monks chanting in fog-shrouded abbeys? Brown-skinned Pictish queens plotting with druids who sport pronouns? Welcome to Carved in Stone: A Storyteller's Guide to the Picts, the 2025 fever dream that's got historians facepalming and X ablaze. Penned by a crew of gamers and archaeologists with a side hustle in identity politics, this "resource" for Dungeons & Dragons enthusiasts doesn't just fictionalise the seventh-century Picts, it airbrushes them into a multiracial utopia to soothe today's mass immigration sensibilities.
No, the Picts weren't black. They were Iron Age Brits with a flair for symbols and stubborn resistance to empire. And this revisionist romp? It's less about history and more about greasing the wheels for unchecked migration by pretending the past was always a rainbow coalition. Spoiler: It wasn't. But hey, in 2025's culture wars, why let facts spoil the narrative?
Carved in Stone, published in partnership with the tax-funded Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, bills itself as a "storyteller's guide" to the Picts, those enigmatic folk who dominated northern and eastern Scotland from roughly 300–900 AD. Born as a role-playing game pitch four years back, it ballooned into a 200+ page illustrated extravaganza, blending solid archaeology (hillforts, symbol stones) with whimsical Ghibli-esque art for gamers itching to LARP as Celtic barbarians. Kudos for accessibility, kids from 14 up get a crash course in Pictish life: feasting halls, enchanted forges, multilingual markets buzzing with Gaels, Britons, and Northumbrians.
But then, the illustrations hit like a plot twist from a bad fanfic. Black villagers tilling fields? Brown bishops blessing brochs? The creators crow that it's to prove "the land that is now Scotland was just as multicultural, multilingual and socially diverse as it is today." They even flag the cast upfront: "gay and straight, cisgender and transgender, gender non-conforming, polyamorous and monogamous, disabled and non-disabled, religious and irreligious, local and immigrant." Woke intent? Sure, if your goal is inclusive fantasy. But slapping sub-Saharan features on Iron Age Scots while nailing every other detail (woad tattoos? Check. Symbol stones? Spot-on.), reeks of agenda over accuracy. As one Amazon reviewer seethed: "A bizarre rewriting of history with the Picts depicted as sub-Saharan Africans. The book is presented as historically accurate which is anything but the case."
The backlash? Swift and savage. The Telegraph dubbed it a "diversity drive" gone rogue, GB News howled "woke madness," and X erupted with memes of Pictish warriors demanding reparations for "cultural erasure." Comedian Leo Kearse torched it on air: "Absolute nonsense... indoctrinating children that the Picts were black!" Even Reddit's UK subreddit lit up: "There's no need to just make stuff up; surely later finding out the Picts were not black would be upsetting to a black kid?" The Society's response? Crickets, save for vague nods to "dispelling misconceptions." Because nothing says "rigorous scholarship" like retrofitting the past for pronouns.
Let's ground this in actual evidence, because unlike woke whimsy, history doesn't bend to boardroom DEI quotas. The Picts (Latin Picti, "painted ones") weren't exotic invaders from Scythia or Thrace, as medieval mythmakers like Bede spun. They were homegrown: Descendants of Britain's Iron Age Celts, hunkered in hillforts from Orkney to Fife, tattooing (maybe) and carving cryptic symbols that still baffle us.
Genetics seals the deal. A bombshell 2023 PLOS Genetics study sequenced seven Pictish genomes from sites like Lundin Links and Balintore. Verdict? "Close genetic affinity to Iron Age populations from Britain," with "broad affinities" to modern western Scots, Welsh, Northern Irish, and Northumbrians, but zilch with southern England or exotic hotspots. Lead researcher Adeline Morez: "Our findings support... a local origin of the Pictish people." No sub-Saharan spikes, no North African influx. Just continuity from Bronze Age locals, spiced with minor Viking or Anglo-Saxon drips later on.
Archaeology echoes: Pictish stones scream Celtic vibes, swirling beasts, ogham script akin to Irish/Welsh. Trade? Sure, with Rome (Etruscan pots, Gaulish glass), but that's Mediterranean trinkets, not mass migration. Bede nailed the real diversity: Five tongues in Britain, Pictish (Brittonic-ish), Gaelic, Welsh, Old English, Latin, blending via marriages and monasteries, not melanin maps. Stray African traders? Plausible, per the book's own far-fetched eagle-baby yarns. But a "significant black population"? "Wilfully absurd," as Spiked's Dolan Cummings nails it.
This isn't harmless fan service; it's ideological sabotage. By force-fitting modern "myriad experiences" into Pictland, the book doesn't celebrate diversity, it erases the actual one: A white-skinned, Celtic-rooted mosaic of tribes forging identity amid Roman shadows and Gaelic waves. As Cummings laments, "The idea that you can't call this diversity if everyone had white skin reveals a tragic lack of imagination." It's the same script as Brilliant Black British History (2023), which falsely crowned black builders for Stonehenge before DNA debunked it, or BBC's King and Conqueror (2025) diversifying 1066 Anglo-Saxons like a corporate retreat.
Why? Power plays. In an era of "decentre whiteness" mantras (Villanova's cheeky St. Augustine tweak), rewriting the past justifies the present: "See? Your ancestors were always 'us,' so embrace the replacement migration!" X users smell the rat: "They hate our history. They lie to our children. They must be stopped." Another: "The Picts were not black! This cr*p must be stopped!" It's Great Replacement fanfic, where ancient homogeneity gets Photoshopped to prop up open borders. Tax-funded, no less, UK quid greasing the grievance grind.
The creators' defence? "Pictland was a rich and diverse place... international connections to... North Africa." Vague nods to "inconclusive evidence" on tattoos, but zilch on skin tone swaps. Charitable take: It's for gamers to self-insert. But skipping hijabs or wheelchairs? Selective wokeness exposes the game, it's racial recasting, not radical inclusion.
Carved in Stone is a gem for Pictish lore, until the illustrations trigger the cringe. It proves scholarship can sparkle without the sparkle-dust of revisionism. But peddling this as "accurate" history? It's a disservice to kids, a slap to Scots, and a blueprint for more distortions. The Picts were fierce locals, not a launchpad for 2025's migration debates.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/11/24/no-the-picts-were-not-black/