Rhynie

Rhynie (/ˈraɪni/) (Scottish Gaelic: Roinnidh) is a village in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It is 14 miles northwest of Alford.

The Rhynie chert is named after the village, as well as the extinct plant genus Rhynia. The Rhynie chert is a sedimentary rock. It was deposited during the Devonian period and contains the oldest fossil insect in the world.^[1]

The Station Hotel at Rhynie is mentioned as a joke in the sketch "The Will" by Scotland the What. The joke is that there is no railway station at Rhynie, "..but they were aye hopin' for one."

Eight Pictish symbol stones have been found at Rhynie. These include the "Rhynie Man", discovered in 1978. It is a six foot tall boulder carved with a bearded man carrying an axe. It may possibly be the Celtic god Esus.

The "Rhynie Man" now stands inside Woodhill House (the headquarters of the Aberdeenshire Council ) in Aberdeen.^[2]

In 2011, archaeological excavations at Rhynie, near the site of the "Rhynie Man", dug up a fortified settlement. It dates to the early medieval period. Among the finds at the site were fragments of a late 5th or 6th century Roman amphora. It is the only known example of a Roman amphora from Eastern Britain that dates to the post-Roman period. This must have been imported from the Mediterranean region. It means that the inhabitants of the settlement must have been of high status. Archaeologists have said that the settlement may have been a royal family site where Pictish kings lived.^[2]

Media related to Rhynie at Wikimedia Commons

• Rhynie in the Gazetteer for Scotland

57°19′N 2°50′W / 57.317°N 2.833°W / 57.317; -2.833