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The stones were cleaned in Edinburgh using laser techniques that brought the images on the stones into sharp relief without damaging the stones themselves. Peter Yeoman, senior archaeologist at Historic Scotland, describes the stones as 'the very finest expressions of Pictish art, which makes them tremendously important.'

A carving of St Paul and St Antony breaking bread

St Vigeans is now a small hamlet on the outskirts of Arbroath but once was a powerful religious centre in the Kingdom of the Picts. The name St Vigeans is the latinised version for the Irish Saint St Fechin. St Fechin died in 664 and it is believed that his bones or relics were brought to the area around 700 AD and the area then established as an important monastery taking its name from the saint.

St Vigeans thrived as a religious and maybe even royal centre until around 1000 AD. The stones would have once stood on the hill at St Vigeans with the monastery building perhaps taking the place of the church as it stands today. The stones give a fascinating glimpse into Pictish life at the time, as the Picts converted to Christianity brought over to St Vigeans by Irish monks.

The devil on the Drosten stone

Some of the stones contain Pictish symbols whilst others mingle Christian and Pictish symbolism on the same stone. The stones also give an insight into the importance of St Vigeans as an international centre as they contain symbolism from other parts of the world such as vines from the South, crosses from the West and Anglo-Saxon detailing such as the devil symbol.

The most important stone in the collection is the Drosten Stone. This beautifully carved stone, rich in symbolic detail, is thought to have been commissioned by a rich or possibly royal patron, Drosten, as a testament to St Vigean. The stone is displayed as a trio along with a recumbent stone, thought to be the tombstone of Drosten himself, and part of a shrine thought to have contained the relics of St Vigean. The Drosten stone also contains a rare example of Picts using a language other than their Ogham alphabet with a Latinised Pictish inscription on the side of the stone. Another stone in the collection contains a rare image of St Paul and St Antony breaking bread in the desert.

Inscription on the Drosten stone

By 1000 AD the stones were no longer understood and many were cut up for building materials or re-used as gravestones. With the establishment of Arbroath Abbey in 1178, religious power shifted a few miles away to Arbroath.

The importance of the stones were once again recognised in 1871 when the then minister of St Vigeans moved the stones away from the outside elements into the shelter of the church. In 1956 the national importance of the stones was recognised by the Ministry of Works (now Historic Scotland) who took steps to conserve them and then moved them into the museum nearby in the 1960s. Much of the conservation work that was done then such as applying a red wash to all the stones and standardising their sizes has now been undone by the latest conservation programme which has given new insights and a new clarity to the stones and Pictish life.