Birnie Symbol Stone
architectural structure in Moray, Scotland, UK

The Birnie Symbol Stone is a class I Pictish stone, now situated on the north side of the graveyard of Birnie Kirk, in Moray, Scotland. It was discovered in c. 1850 within the wall of the graveyard, from where it was moved to its current location.
Description
The stone is thought to date from the 7th century and is made of granite, standing 1.00 metre (3 ft 3 in) high, 0.64 metres (2 ft 1 in) wide and 0.51 metres (1 ft 8 in) deep. It carries an incised image of a bird above a notched rectangle and Z-rod.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q17569843. Authority coordinates are 57.612, -3.330. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1850.
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This entry incorporates text from “Birnie Symbol Stone” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.