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Description of stone
Event ID 1008847
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Early Medieval Carved Stones Project
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1008847
Aberlady (St Mary), East Lothian, cross-shaft
Measurements: H 0.61m, W 0.17m to 0.26m, D 0.17m to 0.18m
Stone type: sandstone
Place of discovery: NT 4614 7988
Present location: National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh (IB 298)
Evidence for discovery: found in 1863 built into the garden wall of the manse at Aberlady, close to the site of St Mary’s Chapel. It stood in the manse garden until sometime between 1889 and around 1900, when it was taken to Carlowrie Castle, where it stood on a plinth first in the grounds and later in the castle vestibule. In 1966 it was donated to the museum.
Present condition: broken and worn.
Description
This is a central portion of a very fine Anglo-Saxon cross-shaft, ornamented in relief on all four faces. Each edge has a plain roll moulding with a smaller roll moulding framing the panels of ornament. There are parts of two panels on face A, the lower containing a winged angel and the upper two intertwined animals with elongated bodies. Of the two panels on face B, the lower contains diagonal key pattern and the upper four entwined birds with long necks. Faces B and D are carved with foliate scrolls with ridged nodes and triangular berry bunches. Though similar, they are not identical in the arrangement of their leaves: on face B there are alternate sprays of two and three leaves, while on face D there are only two-leaf sprays. Traces of tin lining were found in the deeply drilled eye sockets of the birds on face B, indicating that they once held decorative insets (Blackwell 2012, 66, fn 183).
Date: late eighth or early ninth century.
Desk-based information compiled by A Ritchie 2016
