MHG7488 - Cup Marked Pictish Symbol Stone - Ardjachie Stone

Summary

No summary available.

Type and Period (2)

  • CUP MARKED STONE (Neolithic to Late Bronze Age - 4000 BC? to 551 BC?)
  • INSCRIBED STONE (Pictish - 300 AD to 900 AD)

Protected Status

  • None recorded

Full Description

NH78SW 17 746 845.
Cup-marked Stone, Ardjachie: This boulder (1.7m by 0.65m by 0.35m), which was uncovered by the plough about 1960, is now in Tain Museum. One face bears about thirty irregular cup-shaped depressions and a symbol resembling a spoked wheel.
E Macnamara 1971; RCAHMS 1979.

NH 746 845, NH 744 848 and NH78SW 26 A programme of archaeological work was carried out, 7–10 September 2013, as part of the Northern Picts: Archaeology of Fortriu project. A geophysical survey was conducted, which aimed to contextualise the landscape location of the Pictish symbol stone (NH78SW 17), which was found at Ardjachie during ploughing in the 1960s. A total of 28 20 x 20m grids were surveyed using gradiometry and 9 grids using resitivity. The geophysical surveys showed few features with the exception of one round, c10m diameter, anomaly identified in the resistivity survey. A test pit suggested this was simply a variation in the subsoil.
Gordon Noble and Oskar G. Sveinbjarnarson, University of Aberdeen, 2013

Ardjachie Farm, Edderton, Ross & Cromarty, Pictish symbol stone
Measurements: H 1.79m, W 0.65m, D 0.35m
Stone type:
Place of discovery: NH 746 845
Present location: outside Tain Museum.
Evidence for discovery: uncovered during ploughing around 1960.
Present condition: broken and worn.
This irregular boulder was clearly chosen to be a symbol stone because it already bore a large number of prehistoric cupmarks. The incised symbols comprise a ‘wheel’-like disc with central hub and twelve spokes, carved above a plain L-shaped step symbol.
Date: seventh century.
References: DES 1971, 38-9; Fraser 2008, no 117.
Early Medieval Carved Stones Project, Compiled by A Ritchie 2017

Sources/Archives (4)

Map

Location

Grid reference Centred NH 7460 8450 (10m by 10m) (Buffered by site type)
Map sheet NH78SW
Geographical Area ROSS AND CROMARTY
Civil Parish TAIN

Finds (0)

Related Monuments/Buildings (0)

Related Investigations/Events (0)

External Links (2)

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