Ancient tribes and the burial site of Vetta.

The Cat Stane, or Catstane, is an inscribed standing stone near Kirkliston, on the outskirts of Edinburgh, in Scotland. It bears a fragmentary inscription dating to the fifth or sixth centuries and was part of a funerary complex consisting of the stone itself, a cairn and a series of cist burials.

The stone's Latin inscription is interpreted as a dedication to a deceased woman whose remains were interred near the stone. Dates have been ascribed to the stone and its inscription by considering the script used and the results of several excavations conducted in modern times.

The stone appears to have been erected in the Bronze Age while the inscription was added in the fifth or sixth centuries AD. During the latter period the area around modern Edinburgh was controlled by the nation known as either the Votadini or the Gododdin.

The Cat Stane now lies within the perimeter of Edinburgh Airport, making it impossible for the general public to access it. Nearby is the confluence of the Gogar Burn and the River Almond. The stone is a Scheduled Ancient Monument.

The Cat Stane is an irregular standing stone of 1.3m height. It is heavily weathered but preserves an inscription in Latin, with several lacunas. 

The inscription, carved in a rough Latin script appears to read:

IN OC T
MVLO IAC T
VETTA F
VICTR

This is interpreted by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) as representing:
IN THIS
TOMB LIES
VETTA DAUGHTER OF
VICTRICUS


The earliest description of the Cat Stane was made by the Welsh scholar Edward Lhuyd in 1699 who described it as standing on a pavement of flat stones surrounding the remains of a low oval cairn.

The first excavation of the stone's vicinity was conducted in 1860. Further excavation took place in 1864 and, most recently, 1977 when it was unsuccessfully proposed that the stone be removed from the grounds of Edinburgh airport.

These excavations showed that the Cat Stane was surrounded by a series of burials in stone-lined graves known as cists.

RCAHMS interprets the Cat Stane as a Bronze Age site re-used for burials in the fifth or sixth centuries.
More information can be discovered on the Megalithic Portal.
Find out about other Catstane's in Scotland by following this link.

Below is the text extracted from J.Y. Simpson's THE CAT-STANE, Edinburghshire. Published in 1861 and the full document can be downloaded from the National Library of Scotland by clicking on the link above.

Site and Description of the Stone.
The Cat-stane stands in the parish of Kirkliston, on the farm of Briggs,' in a field on the north side of the road to Linlithgow, and between the sixth and seventh milestone from Edinburgh. It is placed within a hundred yards of the south bank of the Almond ; nearly half a mile below the Boathouse Bridge ; and about three miles above the entrance of the stream into the Frith of Forth, at the old Eoman station of Cramond, or Caer Amond. The monument is located in nearly the middle of the base of a triangular fork of ground formed by the meeting of the Gogar Water with the Kiver Almond. The Gogar flows into the Almond about six or seven hundred yards below the site of the Cat-stane.- The ground on which the Cat-stane stands is the beginning of a ridge slightly elevated above the general level of the neighbouring fields. The stone itself consists of a massive unhewn block of the secondary greenstone-trap of the district, many large boulders of which lie in the bed of the neighbouring river. In form it is somewhat prismatic, or irregularly triangular, with its angles very rounded. This large monolith is nearly twelve feet in circumference, about four feet five inches in width, and three feet three inches in thickness. Its height above ground is about four feet and a half. The Honourable Mrs Eamsay of Baruton, upon whose son's property the monument stands, very kindly granted liberty last year for an examination by digging beneath and around the stone.


1 The farm is called " Briggs, or Colstane'' (Catstane), in a plan belonging to Mr Hutchison, of his estate of Caerlowrie, drawn up in 1797. In this plan the bridge (brigg) over the Almond, at the boathouse, is laid down. But in another older plan which Mr H. has of the property, dated 1748, there is no bridge, and in its stead there is a representation of the ferry-boat crossing the river.


2 In this strategetic angular fork or tongue of ground, formed by the confluence of these two rivers. Queen Mary and her suite were, according to Mr Robert Chambers, caught when she was carried off by Bothwell on the 24th of April 15G7. (See his interesting remarks "On the Locality of the Abduction of Queen Mary" in the Proceedings of the Society of Scottish Antiquaries, vol. ii. p. 331.)


THE CAT-STANE. KIRKLISTON.
[•allying woodcut, taken by my friend Mr Drummond, is a copy of a sketch, made at the time, of the stone as exposed when pursuing this search around its exposed basis. We found the stone to be a block seven feet three inches in total length, and nearly three feet buried in the soil. It was placed upon a basis of stones, forming apparently the Fi- 1.

The image of a built stone grave, which contained no bones' or other relics, 1 The comparative rapidity or slowness with which bones are decomposed and disappear in diflferent soils, is sometimes a question of importance to the antiquary. We all know that they preserve for many long centuries in dry soils and dry positions. In moist ground, such as that on which the Cat-stane stands, they melt away.


And finally an interesting document entitled THE PICTISH KIRKLISTON CAT-STANE STONE – A Commemoration to Uther Pendragon by Michel-Gérald Boutet, Drummondville, Québec, 2016 can be downloaded from Academia by following this link.