NB. THE ACTUAL STONE IS NOW AT THE MEFFAN INSTITUTE, FORFAR, BUT A REPLICA STANDS AT OS No NO 509 488.

The stone is said to have been found in 1811 at East Mains of Dunnichen Farm, in a field close by Nechtan's Mere. The farm is on the Dunnichen Estate, by Forfar.
It was removed to the Church at Kirkton of Dunnichen, but was subsequently removed to the garden of Dunnichen House. In the early 1970s, it was handed on to Dundee Museum.[ A much-travelled boulder, appropriately moss-free.]
(Since compiling this report, I have been told it might be moving again to a purpose-built museum in Kirriemuir.)
A. Jervise, writing in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (PSAS) in 1857, said that a coffin containing bones was found below the stone. I have no other details at present.

While researching this stone, I read that the "flower" may represent a hat of some kind, and on reflexion, it might be one of those tall conical hats made of felt or leather, with tassles, right enough. It's as good a guess as any. Someone else suggested it might be a metal helmet with plumes, but who knows? The vast majority of figures on Pictish stones are bare-headed, so if it is a head-covering of some sort, it was probably ceremonial.

The Stone.

This is a natural boulder, reasonably flattish on the incised side, with the designs carved straight into it. It doesn't appear to have been smoothed off to any extent, unlike the Class II Stones, which usually have some levelling off, though not as much as the Class IIIs which have considerable re-working of the surfaces.

In this instance, the "Flower" is nicely carved and graceful, while the Double-disc and Z-rod is clumsy and uncertain. The spirals are uneven and mixed, and the RH side "falls off " the stone, although this might be due to weathering, or the peculiar gouged line that runs from the "arrow-head" of the Z to just below the lower junction of it. There appears to be the "ghost" of a spiral beyond this odd line, but it could just be a natural mark in the stone.
There is a similar line down the LH side of the stone which appears to start at a round hole at the top, and end at three pock marks towards the bottom. At right-angles to the lowest hole there is another, oval hole, as if someone had been intending to frame the carvings, but never finished it. Perhaps the loss of the RH edge of the RH disc put an end to that project when the stone unexpectedly flaked off ? The quality of the carving does not indicate an exceptionally good mason at work. At any rate, this LH line stops short of the LH disc, and resumes below the point of the Z-rod, although that edge is a bit flaked, too.
The Double-Disc is remarkable for its exceptionally wide joining bar.