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Sacred geography – Picts – Mark stones - 02 Cup and rings
Identifier
026599
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
The stones can be visited by walking from the car park for Carnassarie Castle following the directions from 'Walk 3' in "In The Footsteps Of Kings" book which can be purchased from Kilmartin Museum shop. Distance 7km/4.4 miles.
The panels can be seen on the hillside as you approach from downhill and “the walk up to them is particularly lovely with a fast flowing stream below, butterflies and moths onto late bluebells and other wild flowers.”
There are seven discrete panels exposed, one with the quite rare rosette design, rings, parallel lines and grooves. On one of the smaller stones just cup marks. Now protected as an Ancient Scheduled Monument, one of the lower panels has names carved by John Campbell in 1874 and Archie Campbell in 1877. It is important to note that the mark stones are not stand-alone. There are two standing stones and a cairn just above Carnasserie Castle.
This description of a site visit has some exceptionally important information relating to the potency of the stones themselves and the energy they still generate:
“We visited the site on the 8th of June …. What struck us first of all was the state the motifs were in. So much more weathered than a couple of years ago. Furthermore there was a black area near the rosettes which consists of dead mosses. The substance felt like tarmac and it seems as if the mosses were burned ….. There could be a natural reason for this weird phenomenon as well. But in that case it is strange that it is seen in only a small, limited area.”
A description of the experience
Ormaig
Laser measuring and photographing the stones
