The Dupplin Cross: an interdisciplinary examination of a Pictish sculptured stone monument
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The Dupplin Cross is an Early Medieval monument erected near Forteviot, Scotland. It is now generally dated to the first quarter of the 9th century; evidenced by an inscription that commemorates Custantín son of Uirguist (Constantine son of Fergus), king of the Pictish kingdom of Fortriu, who died in 820AD. This tight date range and the royal association makes this monument a prime candidate with potential to hold information on the nature of kingship and how this institution was presented. This study considers three main aspects of the cross. Firstly, the sculptural qualities, including the form and carved elements, are analysed by producing a detailed description, followed by a thorough analysis and comparative study, incorporating a literature review. This study shows that both the form and the elements are very much connected with the wider assemblage of Pictish sculpture along with a few significant links to the sculpture of the other Insular regions. Two particular connections of note are the group of sculptures displaying similar horsemen, termed the ‘static riders’, and the group that includes a particular form of key-pattern. Secondly, the stone itself was studied by means of a literature review, map-based analysis and fieldwork. This identified an outcropping of sandstone, close to the cross’s location, that is a possible source for the stone out of which the monument was manufactured. Lastly, since the original location of the monument is known, the landscape it stood in is considered by means of field observation along-side mapand GIS-based analysis. This shows that the locational choice was quite deliberate in order to maximise the view both to and from the monument. This study has furthered our knowledge of the Dupplin Cross. Its results contribute to the wider understanding of Pictish sculpture and the Early Medieval institution of Kingship in Pictland.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.009 | 0.008 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.005 | 0.005 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.005 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".