Entropy study suggests Pictish symbols likely were part of a written language
Thursday, June 10, 2010 - 05:40
in Paleontology & Archaeology
(PhysOrg.com) -- How can you tell the difference between random pictures and an ancient, symbol-based language? A new study has shown that concepts in entropy can be used to measure the degree of repetitiveness in Pictish symbols from the Dark Ages, with the results suggesting that the inscriptions appear be much closer to a modern written language than to random symbols. The Picts, a group of Celtic tribes that lived in Scotland from around the 4th-9th centuries AD, left behind only a few hundred stones expertly carved with symbols. Although the symbols appear to convey information, it has so far been impossible to prove that this small sample of symbols represents a written language.