Rosemarkie Stone

File:Rosemarkie stone.jpg

Illustration from Angus J Beaton's Illustrated Guide to Fortrose and Vicinity, with an appendix on the Antiquities of the Black Isle, published in Inverness in 1885.

The Rosemarkie Stone or Rosemarkie Cross, a Class II Pictish stone, is one of the major surviving examples of Pictish art in stone.

Carved from fine-grained sandstone, the Rosemarkie stone was found in the ancient churchyard of the village of Rosemarkie, probable site of a major Pictish monastery, on the Black Isle of Easter Ross and is now on display in Rosemarkie's Groam House Museum (open in summer; entrance charge).

On the front side is an elaborately decorated cross, while on the reverse side are various common Pictish symbols, including three crescents and v-rods and a double-disc and Z-rod, as well as a smaller cross at the bottom. It is the only Pictish stone to bear three versions of the same symbol. The sides are also decorated with a number of interlace patterns.

See also

• Rosemarkie sculpture fragments

References

• Fraser, Iain, Ritchie, J.N.G., et al., Pictish Symbol Stones: An Illustrated Gazetteer, (Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, 1999)
• Jones, Duncan, A Wee Guide to The Picts, (Musselburgh, 2003)
• MacNamara, Ellen, The Pictish Stones of Easter Ross, (Tain, 2003)

External links

• Am Baile