General view of cross.

Description General view of cross.

Date 19/8/1898

Collection Papers of Erskine Beveridge, antiquarian, Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland

Catalogue Number SC 748661

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of AG 1700

Scope and Content Keills Cross, Loch Na Cille, Argyll & Bute The Keills Cross stands on a small hill near the ruins of Keills Church, a late 12th-century chapel overlooking Loch Na Cille in the south-west tip of the Tayvallich peninsula. This Early Christian cross, an example of the Iona school of sculpture dating from the 8th or 9th century, was photographed in 1898 by Erskine Beveridge. The cross, carved from a slab of grey-green Loch Sween stone, stands 2.25m high, and is supported at the base by a low mound of large stones. The upper part of the shaft is filled with three pairs of square panels of key-pattern, the middle section shows four animals against a background of interlaced work, and the lower part is filled by a panel of low-relief spiral work. In the lower arm of the cross-head is a high-relief figure shown seated and wearing an ankle-length garment. His head is set between two lions in the side-arms of the cross-head, one of which appears to be licking his head. In each side-arm there is a second lion biting the end of the lower animal's tail. These four creatures surround a central raised boss, shaped like a bird's nest, with spiral ornament on the sides and three small pellets in the central hollow. At the centre of the top arm is a winged figure standing on a snake set within an interlace pattern. The cross, carved in relief on it east (front) face only, is linked by its spiral-ornament, bird's-nest boss and high-relief carving to the crosses of the Iona group. The features of the winged figure suggest that it represents St Michael vanquishing the dragon or serpent. The cult of St Michael was well established in the early Irish church. The figure below the cross-head is probably the prophet Daniel, shown here in the lions' den. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

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File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap