Baldardo

Date Fieldwork Started: 27/06/2019

Compiled by: ScRAP Team

Location Notes: This panel is currently held in the collections at Meffan Museum, Forfar (accession no. F2013.21), where it can be found amongst Pictish stones on display. Originally from Baldardo Hill in the Turin Area, found c. 300m S of a site associated with a burial cist and cairn. It was discovered in 2012 by Mr D. Robertson when repairing a drystone dyke on a ridge above farm and donated by Mr A. Robertson in 2013.

Duplicate records exist for this panel under the names Baldardo and Baldardo Hill (ScRAP IDs: 871, 2015, 2105). The rock art has also been recorded along with a burial cist and cairn (Canmore ID: 34912, ScRAP ID: 1723). The carved panel has now been given its own record (this record, ScRAP ID: 1998).

Panel Notes: A small, roughly square sandstone slab measuring 0.8m in height, 0.7m in width and 0.1m in thickness, now on display in the Meffan Museum, Forfar. Some small natural fissures cross the rock surface. The panel has been carved with a variety of unusual motifs, including at least 12 plain cups of varying size, 1 cup with five concentric rings and at least three radials, 1 cup with two rings, 2 cups with a single ring, and what appears to be the remains of a cup with at least four rings and three radials (panel was possibly part of a larger carved surface). A series of parallel grooves with a surrounding line appear on the panel's left side, and another set of parallel grooves bounded by a curved line may have once formed a larger motif on the right.