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Like most Pictish cross slabs, the reverse face e cross side has two A small cluster of Pictish symbol stones is tells a story, with a mixture of abstract large facing beasts at known from the local area. Other cross slabs symbols, naturalistic people and objects, and the top, with in Easter Ross are at Rosemarkie and the fanciful beasts. We don’t know what the intertwining snakes Tarbat peninsula, both sites of Pictish story is, but it would have meant something coming from their monasteries. We don’t know if this is the case to people looking at the stone. Many of the mouths. No similar for the Conan motifs have affinities to Pictish carvings from beasts are known on cross slab. further south and east. It is possible that other Pictish stones, pigments were though some have used to colour facing animals. e parts of the cross and the sides of
decoration. the stone are Torgorm Symbol Stone Probable serpent & filled with (Inverness Museum) Z-rod symbol interlace © IMAG Later re-use patterns, of stone as most very grave marker Pictish Symbol Stones worn now. Similar patterns in Easter Ross can be found in gospel books
Double disc of the time. & Z-rod symbol
Hippocamp or sea monster
Kneeling warrior Centaur Cotterton with possible holding two Symbol Stone animal head single-bladed (private possession) axes © Andrew Dowsett Probable cauldron (below sword)
Wolf-like beast facing a lion-type beast with claws Two oxen
Drawings by John Borland © HES Eagle Stone, Strathpeffer ConanStoneLeaflet.qxp_Layout 1 11/12/2020 16:32 Page 2
is Pictish cross slab was found in 2019 during a Find out more... gravestone survey at the site of the previous parish church above an old ford across the river near Conon Learn about the finding Bridge, 5 kms south of Dingwall. It was carved over of the stones from the 1200 years ago. e stone survived in part because NoSAS blog in 1796 a section of it was re-used as a grave marker. nosasblog.wordpress.com (search on Conan stone) e survey also found a small stone with a simple See the Pictish Trail leaflet and website cross etched into the surface highlandpictishtrail.co.uk at the entrance to the Visit the Groam House Museum and graveyard probably re-used Tarbat Discovery Centre museums and as a threshold. Simple stones Conan Cross Slab such as this one are hard to their websites for discussions about date without any context. It Pictish stones: www.groamhouse.org.uk may be a very early www.tarbat-discovery.co.uk/resources preaching cross from the ere are lots of books about the Picts and time Christianity came to their sculpture. A good starting point is this area (perhaps in AD © Graciela Ainsworth 500s or 600s), or may be later in date. Martin Carver’s Surviving in Symbols. A visit to the Pictish Nation . A recent book, Who were the Picts? e King in the North , by Gordon Noble and Nicholas Evans focusses on the e Picts were a native people in much of Scotland, northern Picts. with the name first recorded by the Romans in AD 297. A number of kingdoms evolved over time, with Dingwall Museum Fortriu centred around the Moray Firth, perhaps based at Burghead. In the 800s the Vikings spread south from Orkney and the Dal Riata Gaels expanded northeast from Argyll. e Gaels and Picts merged in the mid 800s, and gradually Pictish language and culture disappeared. is part of Easter Ross would then have been a frontier area, Acknowledgments © Historic Environment Scotland between Vikings/Norse to the north and the e project to conserve and install the stone in Dingwall Museum was organised by emerging kingdom of Alba to the south. the North of Scotland Archaeological Society (NoSAS), the Pictish Arts Society, e Highland Council and Dingwall Museum. It was funded by grants and donations from Historic Environment Scotland, e Highland Council, Scottish Society for While we have evidence of Pictish sculpture and Northern Studies, Clan Macaulay, the Fargher-Noble Trust, the Pictish Arts Society, NoSAS and many individuals, both locally and throughout the world. DINGWALL MUSEUM religion, we have no evidence yet of secular Pictish anks also to the following people who have donated time and materials: Graciela sites in Easter Ross. Nor do we know who Ainsworth, Stewart Bain, John Borland, Kirsty Cameron, Alan Dingwall, Jim commissioned the Conan stone. ere is still much Evans, Derry Finlayson, Nigel Greenwood, Anne MacInnes, Jonathan McColl, Ian MacLeod, Kevin Ross, Neil Ross and Roland Spencer-Jones. to find out. Front cover image © Historic Environment Scotland | Design: Iain Sarjeant