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Description of stone

Event ID 1010122

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Early Medieval Carved Stones Project

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1010122

Kincardine 1 (St Columba), Sutherland, recumbent graveslab

Measurements: H 0.36m, L 1.52m, W 0.51m

Stone type: sandstone

Place of discovery: NH 605894

Present location: within Kincardine Parish Church.

Evidence for discovery: re-used as a gravestone at least twice, once possibly in the seventeenth century and again in 1725.

Present condition: very weathered.

Description

This substantial slab is carved in relief on two of its narrow faces. According to the Statistical Account, ‘the ends and sides are full of figures and characters’, but any such carving on the other two narrow faces and the top has been obliterated, and two hollows have been created in the underside. Above a plain flatband moulding along the base, the two carved faces are framed by a roll moulding. The long face A is divided into a long panel flanked by two short panels by vertical roll mouldings. The left-hand panel contains an image of the hunt, with a horseman and two hounds in pursuit of a stag, all moving to the right. The central panel shows, from the left, two long-necked quadrupeds sitting enmeshed in a bush vine scroll, an image of David rending the jaws of a lion with a sheep above his left shoulder and a harp above his right shoulder, and two horsemen side by side riding to the right. The last panel contains two angels. Face B displays a figural scene which is now difficult to discern.

Date: ninth century.

References: Stat Acct 1792, vol 3, 512; ECMS pt 3, 85; Trench-Jellicoe 1997, 168-70; Macnamara 1999, 9; Henderson & Henderson 2004, 203, 207, illus 297.

Compiled by A Ritchie 2016

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