Field Visit

Date 23 September 1943

Event ID 963927

Category Recording

Type Field Visit

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/963927

RCAHMS Emergency Survey (Archaeology)

Symbol Stone, Upper Manteen.

This stone measures 3ft 5in in height, 2ft 2in in breadth and 1ft 4in in thickness at the base, but only 6in higher up as the upper part of the E face has been split off. It stands about 150yds W of the farm house on the slope to the small burn that flows past Auchtertyre to Miltonduff. It faces E and W. On a prepared surface on the W face are engraved the fish, the comb and the mirror symbols, the former above the two latter. Most of the body of the fish has scaled away but its tail and fins and the other symbols are fairly clear. Some marks in front of the place where the fish's head should be seem to be really irregularities in the rock.

Above the symbols, which are deeply patinated, the letters M/HS are deeply and rather rudely incosed; on on the E face of the stone T.S.P. which what may be an S below.

N.B. To bring out the carvings this stone should be photographed shortly after full noon about the equinox when the sun is just beginning to shine on the W face. By 2pm (GMT) on the autumn equinox the lighting was already too square to bring out fully the shallow but rather wide lines (Cf. ECM iii, pp128f).

Visited by RCAHMS (VGC, AG) 23 September 1943.