Cup-Marked Stone (lost): OS Grid Reference – NS 449 740
Also Known as:
- Dunerbuck
- Greenland (5)
Archaeology & History
This small and visually trivial cup-marked stone is one of a number in this neck o’ the woods that have either been destroyed or simply lost. This stone has the “lost” label stamped on it! It was first described in John Bruce’s (1893) classic local history work where he told it to be “a boulder of sandstone with three cup-marks…(that) lies on the slope of the Hill of Dun, about 100 yards north of Dunerbuck farmhouse.” It doesn’t appear to have been seen since, as none of the classic petroglyph writers described seeing it and a search for it in Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Museum in the 1960s drew a blank. The carving has subsequently been added to archaeological inventories with the standard, “this cup-marked boulder cannot now be located.” It may yet be found, overgrown by grasses and mosses, just that hundred yards or so above the buildings behind Dunarbuck. That entire area needs scanning to be honest…
References:
- Bruce, John, The History of the Parish of West or Old Kilpatrick, John Smith: Glasgow 1893.
- Bruce, John, “Notice of Remarkable Groups of Archaic Sculpturings in Dumbartonshire and Stirlingshire,” in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, volume 30, 1896.
- Royal Commission Ancient Historic Monuments, Scotland, The Archaeological Sites and Monuments of Dumbarton District…, HMSO: Edinburgh 1978.
© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian
