In 1999 Doctor Bob Henery took photographs of a great number of symbol stones, photographs which were flash-assisted and usually taken with a digital camera. These photographs, together with one or two of mine taken in the same year (also flash-assisted but with a 120 camera), show some apparently hitherto unnoticed features in one or more of the symbols on Dingwall, Knockando 2 and Tillytarmont 3. This article explains these, gives some additional points about the stones or symbols and is illustrated with rough sketches made with the help of the appropriate photographs.

I am very grateful to Doctor Henery both for his observations and for allowing me to consult his photographs. The Doctor bears no responsibility whatsoever for the sketches. These are mine alone - and one or two should perhaps have contained more detail.

The article however begins (in strictly alphabetical order) with Cullaird, the stone in the Inverness museum. This I re-observed in 1999 and discovered that I at least had made what appeared to be a false assessment of one of its symbols. This is explained below.

Cullaird(Inverness)
(presently in Inverness Museum and Art Gallery)Although a 1959 line-drawing of Cullaird (Stevenson 1959, Fig. 2) shows part of a closed semicircular re-entrant in the base of what remains of the rectangular Z-rodded symbol, no such are is incised on the stone.

The Cullaird line-drawing in Hanley 1994 is a more accurate representation of Cullaird. Fig. 1 is a rough copy of Hanley’s drawing .. (left)Fig. 1CULLAIRD

But Stevenson wrote that ‘[his] Fig. 2 is very tentative’, and his description of the top symbol on the fragment was qualified. He stated that the symbol, which was ‘crossed by a Z-rod,’ may have been a rectangle with a semicircle drawn inside each upright side, a variant perhaps of the notched rectangle symbol'. As there is part of what appears to have been a semi-circular re-entrant in the visible (left) side of the symbol, which is a feature absent from any other known rectangle and which occurs elsewhere only in divided rectangle and Z-rods*, the latter part of Stevenson’s statement is the description that should surely be adopted - if without the ‘perhaps’. Despite the absence of any ‘division’ in the base of the Cullaird symbol, the remains of a re-entrant in its surviving side points to its being a version of the divided rectangle and Z-rod. What remains of the Z-rod reinforces this assessment. The outer arm is not only spear-headed and without curlicues just before the’ head’ but is ‘floriated’. These are features of the’classic’ Z-rod.

* In some examples and in the rod-less divided rectangles on Westfield 2 and the joining-ring of the silver chain from Whitecleuch (Mack 1997, 18 and 41) the re-entrants are necked circles.

Dingwall (Ross and Cromarty)

Alien’s sketch of the west face of Dingwall (ECMS III, Fig. 55 (front)) shows no decoration within the lower (and more complete) crescent and V-rod, but Dr Henery’s photographs show two wings and perhaps a dome.

What may be some of the left side of this can be seen in the photographs but may not be a carving. Fig. 2 is a rough sketch of the symbol..

(left)Fig. 2 DINGWALL (west face lower crescent and V-rod)

Dome and wing pattern is the most common decoration within Class I crescent and V-rods. Just over a third of the 67 Class I examples (2 below) of the symbol contain it or may contain it. 14 were illustrated by Stevenson (1955, 102-103), and there appear to be nine more. These are the stones listed below (those with more or less similar versions of the pattern are named side by side):

• Ballintomb, Kintradwell 3 (the latter as illustrated in Close-Brooks 1989, -1);
• Brandsbutt, Park House;
• Kinblethmont, Mill of Newton;
• Crosskirk (or Thurso Castle);
• Knockando 1 (the right-hand and incomplete example of its two crescent and V-rods);
• Dingwall (west face lower).
• Knockando 2 (Moray)

The stone is a natural slab trimmed down the right side. Near the top of the front face is an upwards-looping serpent, at its base is a plain-headed mirror with part of a single-sided comb to its right, and the considerable space between serpent and mirror-and-comb was thought to have contained another symbol completely erased by wear (Mack 1997, 102).

However, recent photographs, some taken by Dr Henery, show that in the 'space' are incised lines. The clearest of these lines are shown in Fig. 3.

(left) Fig. 3 KNOCKANDO 2

They may be the remains of a flower symbol. Dr Henery agrees with this assessment but considers that elements of two heads can be seen, both rather more slender than the single head shown in the sketch. Fig. 3 also shows that although the serpent at the stone’s top was said to be headless (ibid.) its outline is complete and that, as some of the stone is below ground-level, not all of the mirror-and-comb is exposed. The whole mirror-handle and more of the comb can be seen in a photograph taken by Paul Turner (Lines 1994, 103).

Tillytarmont 3 (Aberdeenshire) (presently in Moray)

Although Ferguson reported that the symbols on this stone were a crescent over a double-disc (1956) Mack thought that they were a crescent and V-rod over a double-disc (1997, 104).

But Henery’s photographs showed that both symbols were rodded, that they were a crescent and V-rod over a double-disc and Z-rod. Fig. 4 is a rough sketch of the stone.

(left)Fig. 4 TILLYTARMONT 3 (Tillytarmont 3 stands in the grounds of Whitestones House beside Tillytarmont 2 and North Redhill. The three stones are about 60 metres to the left of the entrance drive and 15 from the roadwall.)

The crescent and V-rod on the recently-noted Ballintomb stone raises the total of Class I crescent and V-rods from 66 (Mack 1997, 2) to 67; Henery’s findings raise the Class I double-disc and Z-rod total from 33 (ibid., 6) to 34.

Alastair Mack

References

Close-Brooks, J 1989 Pictish Stones in Dunrobin Castle Museum. Derby

ECMS, Allen, J R and Anderson, J 1903 The Early Christian Monuments of Scotland, 3 parts. Edinburgh New edition 1993; 2 vols. Balgavies, Angus.

Ferguson, W 1956 Two Pictish symbol stones recently found at Tillytarmont, Rothiemay, Aberdeenshire PSAS, 88 (1954-56), 223-224

Hanley, R G 1994 A Catalogue of the Class I Pictish, Symbol Stones in the Collection of lnverness Museum & Art Gallery. Inverness

Lines, M 1992, Sacred Stones Sacred Places. Edinburgh

Mack, A L 1997, Field Guide to the Pictish Symbol Stones. Balgavies, Angus

PSAS, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Edinburgh

Stevenson, R B K 1955

Pictish art In Wainwright, F T (ed) The Problem of the Picts, 97-128. Edinburgh 1959

The Inchyra Stone and some other unpublished Early Christian monuments PSAS, 92 (1958-59), 33-55