BOSTON– Fresh off his first-class flight from Glasgow, he received a reception fit for a visiting dignitary: a bagpiper in full regalia playing inside Boston’s Logan International Airport. Waiting to receive him were the diplomats, the governor and the mayor of Boston.

The guest of honor? An orange traffic cone.

Tuesday’s arrival of the “Boston Cone” marked the latest chapter in the city’s unlikely love affair with Scotland’s Tartan Army, whose habit of placing traffic cones atop statues during the team’s World Cup run last month turned the humble orange cone into one of the tournament’s defining symbols.

“I have to admit, this is probably, yes, it is, my first official traffic cone welcome ceremony,” Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey said in the airport’s Terminal E, before signing her name on the cone. “But it’s pretty special, right? Because this cone tells the story of what happened this summer. What happened in Boston, what happened in Massachusetts.”

“And a special thanks to the Scots for drinking all the beer,” he added with a laugh. “I promise you that when you come back…we will never run out of beer in Massachusetts again.”

During the visit of Scottish fans to the World Cup, Boston bars struggled to satisfy the thirst of the tartan army, with some running out of beer and struggling to get emergency deliveries. Fans transformed parts of Boston into an unofficial outpost of Scotland, filling downtown with bagpipes, songs and chants as bright orange traffic cones sprang up over some of the city’s most recognizable landmarks, from Samuel Adams outside Faneuil Hall to Red Auerbach outside TD Garden, former Mayor Kevin White near Quincy Market and even the beloved Make Way for Ducklings statues in the Public Garden.

“There are still some traffic cones on top of our most important statues,” Boston Mayor Michelle Wu joked Tuesday, recalling how Boston had “unofficially become Nova Scotia.”

The official commemorative cone, decorated with artwork celebrating Boston and Scotland and the motto “No Boston, No Party,” will spend the next week visiting Massachusetts landmarks to raise funds for mental health charities before returning to Scotland.

The tradition dates back to Glasgow, where placing bright orange traffic cones on top of public statues began as a late-night prank in the 1980s before becoming an unofficial symbol of the country’s irreverent humour. The best-known example is the statue of the Duke of Wellington in the city centre, where the cone has become so iconic that repeated efforts to remove it have met with public opposition.

“It’s actually an inside joke that’s gone too far,” said one of the cone’s Scottish guards, Danny Campbell, laughing as he stood by the cone in a kilt. “But no, it’s not a joke. It’s a metaphor for life.”

Campbell said people can become consumed “going to our jobs and cooking sausages and all kinds of serious things that adults have to do” and lose sight of what matters.

“That’s what our countrymen represented when they came here,” he said, referring to the Scottish fans’ stay in Boston. “They left their stomachs and cheeks sore from laughing, they cleaned, they spread joy, and these people bonded with humor and built relationships with each other.”

“This isn’t just a silly cone,” Campbell said. “It means love. It means love, and that’s the point.”

___ See more AP coverage of the World Cup here