Sculptor's Cave

The Sculptor's Cave is a sandstone cave on the south shore of the Moray Firth in Scotland, near the small settlement of Covesea, between Burghead and Lossiemouth in Moray.

[1] It is named after the Pictish carvings incised on the walls of the cave near its entrances.

[2] There are seven groups of carvings dating from the 6th or 7th century, including fish, crescent and V-rod, pentacle, triple oval, step, rectangle, disc and rectangle, flower, and mirror patterns,[3] some very basic but others more sophisticated.

[4] The cave is 20m deep and 13.5m wide with a 5.5m high roof and can be entered by two parallel 11m long passages, each 2-3m wide.

[6] The cave was first excavated between 1928 and 1930 by Sylvia Benton, who discovered evidence of two main periods of activity on the site: the first during the late Bronze Age, and the second during the late Roman Iron Age, between the 2nd and 4th centuries AD.