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Symbols – Picts – Constellation - Shears [Circinus]
Identifier
026514
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
One of the stones on which this can be found is at Migvie where it is very indistinct, but clearly different from the other compass symbol. The stone stands in the graveyard of Migvie church, as such it is likely to have been moved. The stone also has a large cross made of knotwork, a double disc and rod and the shears are bottom left of the stone.
The Pictish stones were used as the means by which people could navigate to various sacred sites and the symbols either show diagrams of the plan of the place or indicative constellation symbols and directions.
In fact this is not a symbol of shears, although this is the name archeologists have attached to it - it is a symbol for the compass constellation called Circinus.
"from Star Names, 1889, Richard H. Allen
Circinus, the Pair of Compasses, was formed by La Caille, lies close to the front feet of the Centaur (Centaurus), south from Lupus and Norma, its inventor appropriately associating it with the latter. It is the German Zirkel, the French Compas, and the Italian Compasso. Gould catalogues in it 48 stars down to the 7th magnitude; alpha, its lucida, being of only 3.5. The constellation culminates about the middle of June."