The Taexali Clan

The Taexali are one of the peoples said to have lived in the area described by Roman historians Tacitus, Ptolemy and Ammianus Marcellinus as the home of the Caledonii. With the exception of the Caledonians, the names of these tribes were probably reported second- or third-hand to the Romans by Brythonic or Gaulish speakers. The Caledonii are attested from the AD 230 Romano-British Colchester inscription of a dedication by the nephew, or possibly grandson, of "Uepogenus, [a] Caledonian."

Tacitus reports that Agricola defeated a coalition of Caledonian tribes, among them the Taexali, at the battle of Battle of Mons Graupius (in AD 83 or 84). They were not permanently occupied, however, as they lived beyond the Antonine Wall, which marked the most northern region of the Roman Empire.

In his Geography, published in the mid-second century AD (Rivet & Smith 1979, 103-47), Ptolemy names Devana as the only polis (capital) ascribed to the Taexali, along with Cullykhan, an Iron Age promontory fort in the same region.

Little else is known for certain about the Taexali, other than that they lived in small, undfended farms in today's Grampian and hamlets along the coastal regions of SE Grampian and NE Tayside. They may have also had an important settlement at the mouth of the River Dee. Though they shared much in common with their southern Venicones neighbours, they were a separate clan.

Archaeologolical comparison shows that the settlement and rituals in the Highlands and Islands to the north and west were different to those found in the fertile, lowland regions of the south and east of Scotland. For instance, there is evidence that, unlike the Taexali and Venicones, the the Caledonii rarely made religious offerings of finely crafted metal artifacts.

The Taexali most likely spoke a Brythonic dialect similar to Cornish and Breton, at least until the arrival of the Gaelic-speaking Dal Riata. Proponents of the Insular Celtic Languages theory, however, assert that, due to the language contact phenomenon, partitioning the Brythonic and Gaulish (P-Celtic) languages on one side and the Goidelic languages (Q-Celtic) on the other may be a superficial divide.

Ptolemy describes some of the northern tribes in the Caledonii federation as having Brythonic names, or names similar to certain Gaulish tribes. The Taexali capital Devana may be a form of Devona, the Dee or the Don, which also have several Gaulish parallels. Ptolomy also calls Kinnaird Head, the most northerly point of Aberdeenshire, Taexalorum Promontorium. According to Rivet and Smith, however, Devana is a Roman camp at Kintore in Aberdeenshire.

Though the form and meaning of Taexali have been obscured, Andrew Breeze offers evidence of Middle Irish and proto-Pictish cognates that suggest the name means "blood shedders." He also suggests Devona may mean "great goddess".

Sources

Rivet, A.L.F. and Colin Smith. Place-Names of Roman Britain. B.T. Batsford Ltd: London (1979)

Rivet, A.L.F. 'Ptolemy's Geography and the Flavian Invasion of Scotland,' Studien zu der Militärgrenzen Roms, pp. 45-64, Köln (1977)

Breeze, Andrew. "Scotland's oldest place-names." (2005)

The Native Tribes of Britain

Langauges and Place-names

A Consideration of Pictish Names

British Tribes - Ptolemy's map

Map of Aberdeenshire

Cullykhan Iron Age fort

Maridunum Tagsaliorum, Cullykhan

Devana

Picts