InfoseepageMany businesses had recognizable carvings over the entrances to their buildings, initially so that people in eras of high illiteracy could recognize they were at the right place.
The carved head from the Turk's Head Inn, where Burns stayed survived in the local museum.
InfoseepageThey've got a little exhibit about Burns in the museum, complete with a copy of Naismith's popular painting of the bard.
InfoseepageSpeaking of heads and likenesses, the museum has a copy of Napoleon's death mask courtesy of Lord Panmure. Panmure spent much of his life at Brechin castle, which I observed from the river beneath it. He's buried at the cathedral. Panmure was also a Burns fan and gave his widow an annuity of 50 pounds per year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_mask_of_Napoleon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Maule,_1st_Baron_Panmure
InfoseepageThe museum has a couple Pictish stones from Inchbrayock, which as the name Inch implies, was once an island, but the space was filled in, a bit like Keith Inch in Peterhead.
This stone is by far the best and is known as the Sampson stone.
InfoseepageAmong the other Pictish scene collages it has one which is identifiable as the story of Samson and the jawbone, in which he is captured, breaks free of his bindings and picks up a jawbone and then brags about how he'd killed a thousand men with nothing more than the jawbone of an ass. Apparently Pictish people found this biblical story particularly impressive.
InfoseepageThey've got a copy of the stone on the display showing how it might have been painted in different pigment schemes, one with the more expensive types of pigments used for illuminated gospels and the other more common earthy pigments.
Pretty neat to see them this way. Just like armorial achievement panels, these things were often richly painted, not bare stone.
InfoseepageThe museum has a sword dedicated by one of the Graham families which is said to have belongs to James Graham, the Marquees of Monrtose, who was a brilliant military commander during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. He at first fought for the Covenanters and was a signatory, but later came to side with the king. He essentially wanted a state in which church and state were separated, not one in which religion held sway in all matters.