Browse Items (1082 total)

The Crescent and the Crescent with a V-rod through it, appear often on the Pictish Stones.


The crescent is thought to symbolise the moon/sun and also thought to symbolise death.


The V-rod is thought to be a bent or broken arrow.

The boar is an emblem of fertility, fearlessness, and strength, but also stubbornness, war, and chaos. As the meat of the boar is prized, it is also a symbol of hospitality.

The bull was, and still is, a symbol of fertility, wealth, and status.

The bull likewise symbolizes ties to the land, ancestry, and kinship. A good bull was a sign of wealth in a culture that revolved around farming, the prestige of a clan’s…

A rare example of the Goose symbol can be seen on the Easterton Of Roseisle, Class I Pictish Symbol Stone from Moray, now housed in National Museum Scotland, Edinburgh. The stone slab features a goose, with neck arched back over body, above a…

A good example of the Wolf Symbol can be seen on the Ardross 'wolf' Stone, now housed in Inverness Museum.

A good example of the Eagle Symbol can be seen on The Clach an Tiompain (Sounding Stone) or Eagle Stone, a small Class I Pictish stone, located on a hill on the northern outskirts of Strathpeffer in Easter Ross, Scotland.

The horse was a tremendously important animal to the Celtic tribes, and its domestication transformed the Celtic culture Horses were used for meat and milk and provided labor for farming and transportation, making for huge advances in hunting and…

The most common animal symbol of all is the Pictish Beast.

The Pictish Beast (sometimes Pictish Dragon or Pictish Elephant) is an artistic representation of an animal depicted on Pictish symbol stones. It is not easily identifiable with any real…

Key Patterns (repeated vertical and horizontal lines).

Know here as the Key Pattern, or a meander or meandros (Greek: Μαίανδρος) it is a decorative border constructed from a continuous line, shaped into a repeated motif. Such a design is also…