Description of stone
Event ID 1009942
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Early Medieval Carved Stones Project
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1009942
Scoonie (St Ethernan), Fife, ogham-inscribed cross-slab fragment
Measurements: H 1.07m, W 0.71m, D 0.10m
Stone type: sandstone
Place of discovery: NO 3840 0167
Present location: National Museums Scotland (X.IB 110).
Evidence for discovery: found in Scoonie churchyard and taken to Leven church, until the Heritors agreed in 1868 that it should go to NMAS.
Present condition: although found in the churchyard, the slab has been trimmed for re-use and the cross-face is almost obliterated.
Description
The surviving portion of this slab belongs to the left-hand side of face C and is carved in low relief and incision. The ogham inscription may be secondary to the other carving, for it is interrupted by one of the stag’s forelegs and by its snout, but it could easily be contemporary. It has been read as EDDARRNONN (Forsyth 1996, 480-94). At the top of the fragment is a Pictish beast facing left and below is a hunting scene facing right: three horseman and two hounds chase an antlered stag. In the bottom left corner is a deeply incised linear cross which appears to be later than the hunting scene.
Date: ninth century.
References: ECMS pt 3, 347, fig 360); Forsyth 1996; Fraser 2008, no 84.
Complied by A Ritchie 2016
