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Dull 12 Description of stone
Event ID 1012839
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Early Medieval Carved Stones Project
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1012839
Dull 12 (St Adomnan), Perthshire, cross
Measurements: H 1.16m above the floor, W across arms 0.83m, W of shaft 0.45m, D 0.15m
Stone type: sandstone
Place of discovery: NN 80706 49135
Present location: in Weem Old Kirk, now the Menzies Mausoleum.
Evidence for discovery: recorded in the mid nineteenth century by Stuart, when this cross and Dull 11 were in re-use as gateposts. This is said to have been one of four garth crosses at Dull. The original sites of the four crosses are marked on the OS 1st edition 6-inch map (sheet XLVIII, 12, surveyed 1862) at NN 807 491 (Dull 10), NN 804 489, NN 810 490 and NN 812 489, and their location as gateposts is shown at the entrance to Camserney Cottage to the east of Dull at NN 8167 4891. NSA records that the three stones, which stood in a line running east/west, consisted of one large and two smaller crosses and that the larger cross was in the middle. This suggests that Dull 11 was the middle stone, flanked by Dull 12 and 13, but the order of the last two is uncertain. They were moved to Camserney Cottage, the home of the factor for Castle Menzies, in the 1830s (Mackay 1954, 176), and from there to Weem Old Kirk later that century.
Present condition: good, except that the upper arm and part of the central boss are missing. In Stuart’s drawing, the boss is intact and the upper arm survives as a stub. There is also damage caused by re-use as a gatepost.
Description
The upper arm of this monolithic cross is missing and at some stage after about 1850 its stub was chiselled away to create a flat surface between the tops of the side-arms. The intention may have been to create a tau cross. It has a large central boss (0.27m in diameter and projecting c 0.02m) incised with an equal-armed cross with a hollow at the intersection of the arms.
Date: early medieval.
References: NSA 1845, 766-7; Stuart 1867, pl 17 right; ECMS pt 3, 342.
Compiled by A Ritchie 2016
