View of table tomb with pair of carved angels playing trumpets either side of opened book on base, St Mary's Church burial ground, Banff.

Description View of table tomb with pair of carved angels playing trumpets either side of opened book on base, St Mary's Church burial ground, Banff.

Date 8/1965

Collection Records of the Scottish National Buildings Record, Edinburgh, Scotland

Catalogue Number BN 162

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies SC 801751

Scope and Content Written on verso of the mounted print: 'Shire: Banffshire. Place: Banff. Building: St Mary's Church, Carmelite Street. Photographer: G.N. Date: August 1965'. Side of a table tomb with Angels of the Resurrection, St Mary's Church and Burial-Ground, Church Street, Banff, Aberdeenshire This elaborate table tomb with heavy baluster supports at the corners is decorated with a scene of two angels standing on globes. They hold their loincloths up with one hand, whilst blowing trumpets with the other, to call the dead from their graves on the Day of Judgement. The ends of the trumpets combine to form a circle, an interesting compositional device. The style of the carvings is crisp and precise, with details such as eyes, hair and fingers neatly and meticulously incised. Scenes depicting believers rising from the dead on the Day of Judgement are common on many Scottish gravestones. The imagery is derived from the following text from I Corinthians 15: 51-2: 'Behold, I show you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed'. This table tomb dating from the mid-18th century stands amongst many other such memorials in a crowded burial-ground which dates from the medieval period. Most of the monuments date from between the 16th century to the 19th century. The open book on between the angels is inscribed: 'Happy/Are they/that sleep/in the/Lord/At ye sound/of ye hot(?)/trumpets/they shall/awake/in Glory'. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

External Reference MW/BR/BAN/136

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/653953