Dunachton Description of stone
Event ID 1017591
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Early Medieval Carved Stones Project
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1017591
Dunachton, Inverness-shire, Pictish symbol stone
Measurements: H 1.31m, W 0.40m, D 0.11m
Stone type: diorite
Place of discovery: NH c 820046
Present location: on terrace beside Dunachton Lodge (prone in 2009).
Evidence for discovery: found in 1870 when the old steading was demolished and the stones used to build the new Lodge. It had been re-used as a lintel over a door in the steading. It was erected on a sandstone base in the Lodge garden and has fallen and been re-erected several times. Dunachton Lodge was built on the site of a castle.
Present condition: good, except that the top right corner is missing.
Description
This is a tapering pillar-like slab, with a single symbol incised at one end. This is the deer’s head, here facing right, with a large eye, pricked ear, spiral at the base of the back of the neck, and a vertical line ending in a hollow up the middle of the neck. The end of the deer’s snout is now missing.
Date: seventh century.
References: ECMS pt 3, 100-101; Fraser 2008, no 91.
Compiled by A Ritchie 2017
