Maiden Stone Description of stone
Event ID 1022128
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Early Medieval Carved Stones Project
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1022128
Maiden Stone, Aberdeenshire, Pictish cross-slab
Measurements: H 3.16m above ground, W 0.82m, D 0.34m tapering upwards to 0.17m
Stone type: red granite
Place of discovery: NJ c 7038 2472
Present location: beside a minor road at NJ 70378 24714.
Evidence for discovery: first recorded in 1726 and first illustrated in 1788 check, by which time it had already lost a triangular chunk from one side through natural fracturing. It appears to have stood on a small mound, but it was moved when the road was built, sometime between 1832 and the early 1850s. Its location near the foot of a gentle slope suggests that it may have stood beside an old trackway.
Present condition: very weathered, to the extent that the original top of the slab is missing.
Description
The way in which the top of this impressive slab has weathered, together with the disposition of the carving at the top, suggests that it may have had a rounded or triangular top. It was an irregularly shaped slab from the start, because face B is thicker than face D, and the lower corner of faces C and D had already fractured in such a way that the sculptor was obliged to ‘fold’ his panel of interlace on face D round the edge onto face C. All four faces have a narrow flatband border and the panels of ornament are separated by roll mouldings. it is carved in relief with some use of incision.
Face A bears an ambitious design centred round a ringed cross. The cross and ring are outlined by a narrow roll moulding, and the arm terminals are squared. The side arms extend out to the sides of the slab, and the upper arm is longer than the side-arms. The entire cross is filled with faint traces of interlace. Standing on the upper arm is a frontal figure with a pointed beard and a nimbus around his head, dressed in a long tunic. He is guarded by two large S-dragons with spiral tails, facing him on either side, their snouts against the nimbus and their forelegs touching his arms. The panels on either side of the cross-shaft are filled with fat, possibly zoomorphic interlace. The lower square panel contains a great ring, outlined by roll moulding and filled with diagonal key pattern, with a central roundel filled by three interlinked triple spirals emanating from a central triple spiral. In the corners between the great ring and its enclosing square are mirrored pairs of interlace knots.
Face B is carved with continuous squares of triangular knots formed of median incised and interwoven cords.
Face C has an inner moulding between the flatband border and the panels of ornament, and the way in which this inner moulding finishes at the foot of the slab suggests that it may have had a zoomorphic character and that there may have been animal heads in the missing top of the slab. This face is divided horizontally into four panels: the lowest panel contains a mirror and double-sided comb, the panel above has a Pictish beast facing right, the next a notched rectangle with Z-rod and the top panel contains four animals. The lowest appears to be a leaping centaur with a quadruped in the distance behind him, and above there is a pair of confronted quadrupeds or possibly centaurs.
Face D is carved with continuous pairs of knots formed of median-incised cords. There is an Ordnance Survey bench mark incised into the interlace close to the base.
Date: eighth or ninth century.
References: Gordon 1726, 162; Cordiner 1788, 33-4; Stuart 1856, 3, pl 2; ECMS pt 3, 189-91; Fraser 2008, no 33.
Desk-based information compiled by A Ritchie 2017
