Provenance
Discovery: The cross-slab was found in Scoonie churchyard and taken to Leven church. In 1868, the Heritors gifted the cross-slab to the NMAS. The ogham was first published in 1879 by R. Rolt Brash (353, pl. 48).
Findspot: Scoonie (Kirkcaldy), Fife, Scotland (National Grid Reference: NO 3840 0167)
Current repository: Scotland National Museums of Scotland (inv. no. X.IB.110)
Last recorded location(s): Now in National Museums of Scotland.
Support
Trove 31328
Object type: Cross-slab
Material: Sandstone
Dimensions: H 1.06 × W 0.7 × D 0.1 m
Decoration: The cross-slab is sculpted on both sides, on the front is a badly weathered cross in relief while on the reverse side is an incised beast that occupies the whole width of the top of the extant portion accompanied by a hunting scene of three horsemen and two dogs chasing a stag underneath. However, as Forsyth (1996, 481) points out, normally ‘we would expect another symbol above the beast to make the customary pair’. The ogham inscription is contemporary with the designs.
Condition: According to Forsyth (1996, 481), the front of the cross-slab is severely weathered but the reverse is better preserved. Additionally, there are portions of the slab ‘missing from the top and probably also from the bottom’. The top portion of the slab which has been sheered off very likely contained the missing second symbol. The ogham inscription, however, is clear and possibly complete. The current position of the slab makes it impossible to make out if anything has been lost from the bottom.
Inscription
Text field: There is an ogham inscription with a drawn-in stem-line which according to Forsyth (1996, 483) ‘gently undulates up the reverse face of the cross-slab close to and parallel with the right-hand edge’. The ogham inscription reads bottom up and is nicely integrated into the design at several points (Forsyth 1996, 483). The head of the lowest horse abuts the second, third, and fourth letters. The stag’s leg crosses the stem line between letters 7 and 8 and its muzzle between letters 9 and 10. The ogham inscription concludes level with the beast’s tail. The spacing of the strokes is generous throughout except for the ninth letter which is ‘closely spaced’, the fifth stroke of which ‘abuts the stag’s muzzle rather than the stem’ (Forsyth 1996, 485).
Letters: Forsyth (1996, 486) notes that the inscription is chiselled and features long vowel-strokes which occupy virtually the full ogham band.
Date: Second half of the eighth century or later (workmanship)
Edition
Ogham text: ᚓᚇᚇᚐᚏᚏᚅᚑᚅᚅ
Transcription: EDDARRNONN
Critical apparatus:
- As the ogham inscription makes independent sense there is no need to debate over missing text. However, Forsyth mentions (1996, 483-4) the presence of two incised lines in the bottom right hand corner of the same face containing the ogham inscription which could be a hammer-head A. If these lines are interpreted as ogham, then this lone hammer-head A could be the sole remnant of a once longer text now lost. This portion of the slab is obscured, however, so whether or not this alleged hammer-head A was accompanied by additional ogham letters cannot be readily verified.
Translation
Etharnon
Commentary
As all the lettering is clear there is an unusual doubtlessness to the reading which ‘has been universally, and surely correctly, interpreted as the male personal name Etharnon’ (Forsyth 1996, 486). The name Ethernan is not attested in the Pictish King-List ‘or any other source of Pictish secular names’ (Forsyth 1996, 489). Strikingly, out of the extant Pictish inscriptons, there are only four occurances of the name Ethernan. However, Forsyth (1996, 489) notes that there is ‘an important Pictish saint called Ethernan and it is tempting to interpret some or all of these inscriptions as honouring the saint rather than a string of local magnates coincidentally all called Ethernan’.
As Forsyth (1996, 480, 491) remarks, the ‘cross-slab is the only archaeological evidence for early medieval activity at the site’ and ‘its inferior workmanship and comparatively small size point to a date in the second half of the eighth century or later’.
References
- Forsyth 1996, 480-494