 Much of the Portmahomack sculpture has been assigned by radiocarbon dating of the layer in which it was found to the 8th century.Artistically, it has points of contact with sculpture in Iona and Northumbria, but its closest affiliation is with the great cross-slabs on other parts of the Tarbat peninsula, namely those at Hilton of Cadboll, Shandwick and Nigg, which one may perhaps assume were created by a school of masons centred on Tarbat.Together they demonstrate that the Tarbat peninsula was a prime centre of 8th-century European art.