Qualla: Aberlemno Sculptured Stones

Aberlemno Sculptured Stones: Introduction

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Every autumn, wooden boxes are placed over the standing stones at Aberlemno. From September to April, the carvings disappear behind their protective covers, shielded from the frost and rain that would slowly erase them. Every spring, the boxes come off, and the stones re-emerge - serpents, double discs, hunting scenes, and what may be the only surviving image of a battle that changed the course of Scottish history. The Pictish people who carved these stones left no written records. They left something harder to ignore.

Aberlemno Sculptured Stones: Reading a Lost Language

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Picts dominated eastern and northern Scotland from the late Iron Age through the early medieval period, roughly from the third to the ninth century. They left behind a rich tradition of stone carving but almost no written texts, making their symbols one of the great puzzles o...

Aberlemno Sculptured Stones: A Battle Carved in Stone

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The most celebrated stone at Aberlemno is the cross-slab known as Aberlemno 2, which stands in the churchyard. On its reverse face, it depicts a battle scene: cavalry charges, infantry with spears and shields, a fallen warrior being pecked at by a raven, and a helmeted figure fle...

Aberlemno Sculptured Stones: Cross and Symbol

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

What makes the Aberlemno stones remarkable is their blending of traditions. The cross-slabs are unmistakably Christian, with elaborate interlace patterns and Celtic crosses that connect them to the artistic world of Iona and Lindisfarne. But the reverse faces carry the old Pictis...

Aberlemno Sculptured Stones: Stones in the Landscape

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Aberlemno is a small village in Angus, straddling the B9134 road between Forfar and Brechin. The stones stand where they have stood for over a thousand years: by the roadside, in the churchyard, integrated into the daily life of a farming community rather than fenced off behind m...

Aberlemno Sculptured Stones: Preservation in Wood and Stone

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The annual ritual of covering and uncovering the stones is a practical response to the Scottish climate. Freeze-thaw cycles are the great enemy of sandstone, forcing water into cracks and prising the surface apart grain by grain. Some details that were recorded in nineteenth-cent...