Mysteries of the Picts – Sauna Theatre Summerhall
There is something wonderfully Fringe about sitting in a sauna with 47 other souls while being invited to contemplate whether the Picts were partial to a good steam.
Mysteries of the Picts explores not only Pictish culture but the much longer history of sauna itself, looking at archaeological evidence for sweathouses and communal bathing stretching back thousands of years. When it comes specifically to the Picts, things become rather more speculative. There is no firm archaeological evidence that they used saunas, although the production reasonably suggests that sacred gathering places may subsequently have disappeared beneath churches, civic buildings and other later development.
It is interesting, although the history and archaeology remain somewhat vague. Where the produc...
