Qualla: Nigg Stone https://qualla.com/nigg-stone en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:25 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/m/0/nigg-stone-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Nigg Stone https://qualla.com/nigg-stone Nigg Stone: Introduction https://qualla.com/nigg-stone/ Photo credit Line drawings by Charles Carter Petley (1780-1830) Original sculpture, unknown artist, 8th century A.D., Public domain. In 1998, Niall M Robertson found a piece of stone in the stream that runs below the churchyard at Nigg. It was a small fragment of red sandstone, weathered but unmistakably carved - showing most of a Pictish Beast symbol. For at least two hundred years, the fragment had lain in the streambed, probably thrown there by whoever had attempted to patch the Nigg Stone back together after it shattered in the eighteenth century. The Pictish Beast - that elusive, dolphin-like creature that nobody has identified to a known species - was once again attached to the slab it belonged to. The restoration was completed in 2013, more than a thousand years after the carving was made.

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Image: Line drawings by Charles Carter Petley (1780-1830) Original sculpture, unknown artist, 8th century A.D. | Public domain

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/m/0/nigg-stone-wp/gfm0-nigg-stone-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Nigg Stone: A Stone of the First Rank https://qualla.com/nigg-stone/ Photo credit Author: John Stuart, engravings by Andrew Gibb, Public domain. The Nigg Stone is among the finest surviving Pictish carved stones - one of the most elaborate carved monuments of early medieval Europe, period. It was carved at the end of the eighth century CE, originally placed at the gateway to the grounds of Nigg parish church in Easter Ros...

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Image: Author: John Stuart, engravings by Andrew Gibb | Public domain

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/m/0/nigg-stone-wp/gfm0-nigg-stone-a-stone-of-the-first-rank.mp3 0:06 2 full Nigg Stone: The Eagle, the Beast, and the Harp https://qualla.com/nigg-stone/ Photo credit Charles Carter Petley (1780-1830), Public domain. Two Pictish symbols dominate the reverse: an eagle, carved above a Pictish Beast. There is also a sheep, hunting scenes, and what scholars consider the oldest evidence of a European triangular harp - a depiction that pushes back the documented history of that instrument by centur...

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Image: Charles Carter Petley (1780-1830) | Public domain

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/m/0/nigg-stone-wp/gfm0-nigg-stone-the-eagle-the-beast-and-the-harp.mp3 0:06 3 full Nigg Stone: Broken in the Eighteenth Century https://qualla.com/nigg-stone/ Photo credit Kieran Lamb from Ashton in Makerfield, UK, CC BY-SA 2.0. Something happened to the Nigg Stone in the 1700s and the record does not say exactly what. The slab shattered into pieces. Someone - perhaps a parishioner, perhaps a stonemason, perhaps the minister himself - tried to put it back together with metal staples through the upper and...

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Image: Kieran Lamb from Ashton in Makerfield, UK | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/m/0/nigg-stone-wp/gfm0-nigg-stone-broken-in-the-eighteenth-century.mp3 0:06 4 full Nigg Stone: Where to Find It https://qualla.com/nigg-stone/ Photo credit Julian Paren, CC BY-SA 2.0. The stone is displayed today inside Nigg Old Church, restored to something close to its original proportions. The church opens in summer; outside that season, the key is kept locally. It is a scheduled monument, given the highest level of protection under Scottish heritage law. S...

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Image: Julian Paren | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/m/0/nigg-stone-wp/gfm0-nigg-stone-where-to-find-it.mp3 0:06 5 full