ABERDEEN, SCOTLAND—Gordon Noble of the University of Aberdeen and his team have returned to the site where an image of a man with a large, pointed nose wearing a headdress and carrying an ax on his shoulder was discovered on a six-foot-tall stone in 1978, near the village of Rhynie. They think the area may have been a high-status or royal Pictish site, and that the so-called Rhynie Man’s ax may have been a type that was used for ceremonies and animal sacrifice. “We found many long-distance connections such as pottery from the Mediterranean, glass from France and Anglo-Saxon metal work with evidence to suggest that intricate metalwork was produced on site,” Noble said in a press release. The fifth or sixth-century Rhynie Man stone may have stood at the entrance to a fort. “We want to try and identify exactly where he was standing as this will give us a better idea how he fits into the high status site and what his role may have been,” Noble explained. To read more about Picts, go to "Game of Stones."
