Balblair

Nearest town:
Dingwall (15km N)
OS reference:
NH509447
OS sheet:
26
Latitude:
57° 28' 5.09 N
Longitude:
4° 29' 10.57 W
Added to TMA by

Images

Image of Balblair (Cist) by thesweetcheat

The extraordinary cist cover slab, on display in Inverness Museum.

Image credit: A. Brookes (19.10.2013)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Jan 5, 2014

Articles

Balblair

Unique designs found on slab in Beauly cairn?

Rhiannon
Rhiannon Oct 24, 2005

Unusual designs have been found on a 5000-year-old stone slab discovered inside a cairn near Beauly. The sandstone slab formed one side of a burial chamber within the cairn, and was discovered after Highland Council ordered a quarry company to undertake an archaeological survey on the site at Balblair prior to extracting rock and gravel.

Andrew Dutton, a senior archaeologist with Headland Archaeology, said:
“It has certainly got people scratching their heads, ” he admitted. “It is unique. There is a lot of rock art around here and the cup and ring symbol can be seen in the open air at several sites but the curvilinear lines on this slab are very strange. Also the cup marks have been worked through from both sides until there is a perforation that, perhaps, people could look through to see inside the kist or to let light inside.”

The stone is now in a store at Inverness Museum until more of its story can be unravelled. Conservation officer Jeanette Pearson is making its surface stable to preserve the carvings.“It is very unusual, ” she said. “I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s certainly not Pictish so we are seeking specialist advice from the National Museum to help us identify it.”

From the Inverness Courier article here.

Topics

Cist slab carving 4
T
TMA Ed
Oct 2005
Balblair Quarry 2
rocknicker
rocknicker
Jun 2005

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