Overview

• University of Aberdeen student volunteer Jodie Allan found the object while sieving soil from an early medieval building at the East Lomond hill fort in Fife, Scotland.
• The small stone, roughly 10–12 cm, shows two eyes and a nose in a simple design, with the finder noting an oxidised coppery‑green surface.
• Excavation leads say the building’s final phase appears to date to the fifth to seventh centuries, a timeframe that remains provisional pending analysis.
• Professor Gordon Noble describes human-face depictions from this period as exceptionally rare and suggests the piece could inform views on Pictish self-representation and local craft.
• The team plans radiocarbon dating of associated floor layers and comparative art-historical study, and the excavation features in the History Hit documentary Enemies Of Rome: In Search Of The Picts.