The Strathearn Environs and Royal Forteviot (SERF) project was an ambitious decade-long programme of excavation and research into a historically-recorded Pictish and early Scottish royal and ecclesiastical centre within its wider landscape. Despite its title, this book concerns not only ‘royal Forteviot’ but presents results from the late Bronze Age onwards, including chapters on a later prehistoric square enclosure and Roman Iron Age material, the medieval and later church and a medieval ringwork at Invermay. A companion volume reports on the prehistoric archaeology of Forteviot (Brophy and Noble Reference Brophy and Noble2020) and forthcoming ones cover prehistoric sites at Dunning and the hillforts of Strathearn. This project and its publications represent a landmark in Scottish archaeology, presenting an unparalleled breadth and depth of research into a lowland landscape, its monuments and the peoples associated with them.

Assisted by an impressive range of specialist contributors, Royal Forteviot is strongest when presenting and interpreting excavation results and the sculptural assemblage. A distinctive feature of Forteviot is its time-depth, where a complex of prehistoric ritual monuments formed the focus of early medieval ritual activity, including two cemeteries and pits containing cremated human bone and charred cereals. Although inhumations did not survive, the character and structures of the Pictish cemeteries, comprising round and square barrows, was established. The sculpture studied is not only from Forteviot but lower Strathearn as a whole, presenting an authoritative catalogue. The opportunity to draw wider lessons for Scottish archaeology is missed. Excavation reveals the loss of up to 0.5m of archaeological deposits to ploughing, making a powerful case for the protection of such sites and/or their investigation before they disappear. Separately, the chapter on sculpture is a reminder of the continued absence of a corpus of early medieval sculpture in Scotland, which lags woefully behind England and Wales in this respect.

Although these chapters put some flesh on the bare bones of a Pictish ritual centre, the (relative) richness of the funerary and sculptural evidence contrasts with continued uncertainty concerning the location and nature of the early medieval church and palacium recorded at Forteviot. This is where both the excavation strategy and this volume are weaker, displaying a tendency to assume and speculate in the absence of evidence. It is presumed that the site of the secular buildings must lie beneath the modern village, which could not be investigated archaeologically, leaving this key issue unresolved. An enclosure at Forteviot is known from aerial photography, but the grid reference recorded is wrong and the site cannot be identified. This enclosure may not belong to the early medieval period, but, given its potential significance, it seems surprising that it was not located and investigated. Separately, the sculptural fragments displayed in the parish church at Forteviot, most of which are unprovenanced, are claimed to have been found in the graveyard, implying that the early medieval church was located on the same site. However, four of these fragments belong to a high cross that formerly stood at Invermay, 2.3km away, demonstrating that this assemblage includes material sculpture from a wider area than Forteviot, let alone its churchyard. The authors speculate that the early medieval sculptured megalithic arch from Forteviot, now in the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, was incorporated into a late medieval or early post-medieval church before being removed and disposed of, possibly as late as the eighteenth century. This stretches credulity and contrasts with the traditional view that the arch came to rest in the bed of the adjacent Water of May, where it was found in the nineteenth century, as a result of the river eroding the site of an early medieval church. The changing course of the May is central to understanding the former extent of the royal centre and location of its church but did not feature in the SERF project, for reasons that are not explained. The limited and fragmentary material still leaves many issues unresolved and open to interpretation. Although uncertainty is sometimes acknowledged, the volume does not explore competing narratives and its five concluding ‘research recommendations’ are very slight and specific. The political context of Forteviot and the identity and nature of the kingdom it was a power centre of are also unclear and more discussion of this is required.

There are some bibliographical anomalies, requiring greater care and cross-checking when consulting references. SERF data structure and specialist reports, available on the University of Glasgow website, are listed separately in the bibliography but are not distinguished in the text. Bibliographical entries with names in Mac-, Mc- are listed alphabetically, not at the start of the Ms, as is standard convention. Inconsistently, names in Ó-, O’- appear at the start of the Os.

This is an attractive volume, produced to a high standard and with many colour illustrations. It represents an enormous amount of analysis and research, diligently obtained and expertly synthesised. Notwithstanding the shortcomings identified above, this is a very important publication. Its relevance to the study of Pictish kingship and ritual cannot be overstated and it represents a valuable contribution to the wider study of early medieval Insular kingship.