In an exhaustive and epic hunt, one researcher tracked down the pieces and fragments of the legendary Stone of Scone, also known as the Stone of Destiny, which was used for centuries in the coronation of kings in the UK.
Weighing a whopping 335 pounds, the sandstone block had suffered damage due to theft and travel, broken into fragments and pieces. In a recent study in Antiquaries Journal, Professor Sally Foster, from Stirling University, went on an unprecedented journey to recover all the missing 34 pieces to lay out a story tied up in myth, identity, and controversy.
“The Stone of Destiny has two enduring characteristics. One is to galvanise the nation of Scotland, and the other is to twist the knickers of the British establishment. Last week, that celebrated lump of sandstone has demonstrated its power yet again,” Foster writes in the study.
“This academically innovative and rigorous study of the known and newly (re)discovered fragments of the Stone therefore transforms our understanding of the Stone by revealing and illuminating its unauthorised history and meanings.”
An epic recovery of a kingly stone
After tracking down letters, photographs, and records, she verified the existence and lineage of 17 out of the 34 missing pieces. Her research brought together the political and the personal as the fragments were passed down through families. She even consulted the public to help her identify where they might be lurking.
“The iron rings, the battered surface, the crack which has all but rent its mass asunder, bear witness to long migrations,” the study states.
Spread near and far, the story of the 34 pieces began after Scottish students took it from Westminster Abbey, wanting to bring it back to its rightful home. King Edward then seized it in 1296, according to Archaeology News, and placed it beneath the seat of power, or the coronation chair, which symbolically represented England’s rule over Scotland.
Pieces of stone that add up to real meaning
Not just any stone, the Stone of Destiny is entwined with political conflict, national identity, and pride, as well as liberation.
Over time, the push and pull between the Scottish nationals and English rulership finally caused the stone to break. Though it was repaired, the repairer kept fragments for himself. Moving through time, the stone was “wickedly fractured during the fitting-up at Westminster in 1838’, for the coronation of Queen Victoria,” the study continued. The fragments found their way into jewelry over the years, so the object trickled down to impress its meaning into the personal domain, as a piece even reached Australia, Phys.org reports.
Most of the known fragments, the 17 she identified, are connected to a 1951 repair, as the English stone had a long and colorful history that led to it being somewhat forgotten, although it holds such symbolic importance regarding the fractured relationship between two cultures that are linked. The existence of the fragments wasn’t a secret, the study specifies, but “revelations about them were highly dispersed, temporally and geographically.”
“We see here the fragments as a political metaphor, as a vehicle to mend things in society for the better.”
Read the study in Antiquaries Journal.