Brandsbutt Stone
Pictish stone in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, UK
The Brandsbutt Stone is a class I Pictish symbol stone in Inverurie, Aberdeenshire, Scotland.
Description
A large block of whinstone, 1.07 metres (3.5 ft) high, 1.27 metres (4.2 ft) wide and 0.91 metres (3.0 ft) deep, the stone had been broken up and used in building a dry stone wall before 1866. The stone, now reassembled, bears two incised Pictish symbols, a crescent and v-rod and a serpent and z-rod, and an inscription in Ogham, IRATADDOARENS. The carvings of the Brandsbutt Stone are dated to around AD 600. It is a scheduled monument.
Inscription
The inscription borne by the Brandsbutt Stone, IRATADDOARENS, has been described by Katherine Forsyth as appearing to be "utterly baffling". However, a handful of interpretations have been offered. Suggestions include the possibility that it may contain a corrupted version of the personal name Ethernan. If this is the case, it is likely to refer to the 7th century saint Ethernan about whom little is known but who was apparently venerated by the Picts. He is referred to in an entry from the Annals of Ulster from 669 AD as having been killed by the Picts along with Corindu. It is thought that these names may be P-Celtic and therefore Pictish in origin.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Brandsbutt Stone” is pictish stone in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, UK. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Brandsbutt, Stone and Pictish, not as a finished interpretation.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 12, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q4957169. Authority coordinates are 57.292, -2.400. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1866.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Brandsbutt 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.