When did the Picts abandon the chariot?

[Dave Beatty]

Chariot is an odd word in that we, with our military history interest, think of it as a weapon of war but it can also mean a light traveling cart.  This appears to be one of the latter.

Agree.  In the Biblical story of Philip and the Ethiopian, the Ethiopian is riding in a "chariot" (Acts 8:28-30) and Philip is invited to sit with him in it.  The Greek word is harma (Strong's 617) and is most certainly not a weapon of war but rather a cart or carriage in which the eunuch is travelng all the way to Ethiopia.  Compare to the same use of harma in Revelation 9:9, "They had breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle." So, if one might imagine an ancestor of a Pict still wandering the glens of Cairngorms hauling tourists around in a brake one might well say that the chariot has never gone out of use...