The Clach a' Mheirlich (literally, the "Thief's stone") or Rosskeen Stone is a

standing stone A menhir (; from Brittonic languages: ''maen'' or ''men'', "stone" and ''hir'' or ''hîr'', "long"), standing stone, orthostat, or lith is a large upright rock (geology), stone, emplaced in the ground by humans, typically dating from the Eur ...

in a field near

Rosskeen Rosskeen is a parish in Ross and Cromarty on the Cromarty Firth in northern Scotland, containing the settlements of Invergordon, Bridgend and Saltburn, Ross and Cromarty, Saltburn. It lies on the A9 between Inverness and Thurso. Notable Buildi ...

Easter Ross Easter Ross () is a loosely defined area in the east of Ross, Highland, Scotland. The name is used in the constituency name Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, which is the name of both a British House of Commons constituency and a Scotti ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

. The stone itself is

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

in origin, but has on it three incised

Pictish Pictish is an extinct Brittonic Celtic language spoken by the Picts, the people of eastern and northern Scotland from late antiquity to the Early Middle Ages. Virtually no direct attestations of Pictish remain, short of a limited number of geog ...

-style symbols barely visible on the surface of the stone, making it a Class I Pictish symbol stone.

References

* MacNamara, Ellen, ''The Pictish Stones of Easter Ross'', (Tain, 2003) * Scott, Douglas, ''The Stones of the Pictish Peninsulas'', (Hilton Trust, 2004)

References

See also