Pictish drip was insane. Look at this choker:
Chances are thats going to be the only thing a Pict warrior is wearing as he charges at you naked covered in blue paint and screaming with a sword in hand
Loveee that illustration on the left with the chain on. Definitely worn by the sexiest bitch above the Antonine Wall circa 400 AD.
Question. Did they really not wear clothes or was that an outsider trying to make them seem subhuman creating a fake reason? (Source: Julius Caesar making impossible shit up about at least one island in the Mediterranean and two in the Atlantic)
They wore clothes but fought naked, generally speaking. They were a people of northern Scotland and they farmed sheep so I assume they dressed warmly and in a lot of wool though depictions of their clothing are scant. They made very beautiful brooches/cloak pins. Fighting naked was an intimidation tactic practiced by many Celtic cultures. The reason Picts are usually depicted as naked and painted is because that was how they went into battle and generally speaking, that was the only time outsiders saw them.
(Detail of a Pictish brooch and a recreation of the piece available on Etsy.)
Right, like Celtic tribes were viewed as barbaric and uncivilized and uncultured for fighting naked but it was genuinely a very effective intimidation tactic, especially in the late Iron Age. Even though the Celts of Anglesey weren’t the same culture as the Picts we have descriptions from Roman sources of Roman soldiers suffering heavy casualties because they were frozen in terror and unable to move at the sight of Celtic soldiers running at them naked and screaming and seemingly without fear. Because when an armed individual runs at you in a murderous frenzy wearing only jewelry, it’s scary as fuck. And it would be in the modern day too.
Clothes would also have been incredibly valuable, and this way, none of it got ruined while fighting
Yeah, I believe there is a Roman source that says the Celts abruptly and violently removed their clothes right before going into battle (instead of like. walking there with their dick out.) so it might have also been a way of keeping their clothes from being damaged and/or keeping clothing fibers from getting in their wounds. Or it could have been a “fuck this, these are getting in my way” type instinct. Many advantages to going to battle nude in the late Iron Age. And they did carry large shields so it’s not like they had absolutely zero protection on the battlefield.
