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02/03/2020, Scotland's Rock Art Project (ScRAP), Balbirnie 1
Event ID 1132660
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Note
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1132660
Date fieldwork started: 02/03/2020
Compiled by: ACFA North Glasgow
Location notes: NMS Stores Granton Edinburgh, X.EP203 3/B/1
Panel notes: This is a rhomboid block of sandstone, 0.7x0.2m and 0.2m thick, with quarrying marks on long edges. The panel was found in the 1970 excavation of a burial cist at Balbirnie which contained a Food vessel, flint knife and cremated remains (Canmore ID 29980), and formed one of the packing stones behind the cist. A cup and ring marked stone (Balbirnie 2) was recovered from another cist during the same excavation. The rock is fairly uniform in colour and texture, being bright orange and of medium grain but with reddish bands running across its length. There is a darker brown-red patch at one end. On one flat surface there are 17 cupmarks forming rough linear alignments across the rock surface, and all showing obvious tool marks. Their sizes range from 2-5cm across, with one larger cup measuring 7cm across and conjoined to its neighbouring cup. On the edge of the panel are two further conjoined cups, and a single cup with an irregular groove running from it over the edge of the stone. All cupmarks are fairly shallow, 5-15mm deep. On the reverse face of the stone is one further cup mark.
