George Bain Drawing - Part of Inscription on Newton Stone, Aberdeen-shire.

George Bain Drawing - Part of Inscription on Newton Stone, Aberdeen-shire.

The Newton Stone is a pillar stone, found in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. The stone contains two inscriptions, one, written in Ogham, but the second script has never been positively identified and many different decipherments or theories have been proposed since the 1860s.

The Newton Stone contains two inscriptions. The first is an Ogham script possibly containing personal names, while the second has never been identified and became known from the early 19th century as the "unknown script". The Ogham script is engraved down the left-hand side of the stone and runs across part of its face. There are two rows of Ogham, a long and a short row. Across the top third of the stone, roughly central, is the unidentified script which contains 6 lines comprising 48 characters and symbols, including a swastika.

The second script may have been added to the stone as recent as the late 18th or beginning of the 19th century.

Newton Stone.

Drawing by George Bain.