Kildonnan 6 Description of stone
Date 17 August 2016
Event ID 1013275
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Early Medieval Carved Stones Project
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1013275
Kildonnan 6 (St Donnan), Eigg, Skye & Lochalsh, inscribed cross-slab fragments
Measurements: estimated original H 0.95m, W 0.36m, D 0.08m
Stone type: reddish Torridonian flagstone
Place of discovery: NM 4885 8536
Present location: in St Donnan’s Roman Catholic Church at NM 4741 8853.
Evidence for discovery: found in the ruined church of St Donnan. Initially displayed, with the fragments cemented together, in the porch of The Lodge at Galmisdale, this is now set in a modern socket-stone in St Donnan’s RC Church.
Present condition: broken and weathered.
Description
Two large fragments survive of this elaborately ornamented and slightly tapered cross-slab, one of which is the top portion of the slab and the other is part of the lower portion. The base of the stone is hidden in the socket-stone. Face A is carved in false relief, while face C is carved in low relief, and the narrow sides are plain. A plain flatband moulding frames face A and is overlapped by the ringed head of a cross. The shaft is missing but must have been quite short, and it rose from a panel of decoration spanning the width of the slab. In addition, at the foot of this panel there is a rounded tenon with a basal spike. On the tenon is a group of three small pits, and there is a similar group on either side of the tenon.
The base panel is filled with diagonal key pattern, whereas the head of the cross is filled with interlace, which becomes a simple two-cord twist within the ring. The cords have a median line. The centre of the cross-head is squared, creating stepped armpits, and the upper arm projects beyond the ring and into the flatband moulding along the slightly rounded top of the slab. On the moulding on either side of the arm are incised the half-uncial letters IHU and XPI, meaning ‘O Jesu’ and ‘of Christ’.
On the reverse, face C, there is a single figural panel, set vertical on the slab with an extensive plain area at the base. This unusual orientation has led to the suggestion that this was originally a side-panel of a composite stone shrine and was later re-used as a cross-slab (Gondek & Jeffrey). The panel is carved in false relief and shows a hunting scene with a rider on a horse galloping to the right, accompanied by two hounds. The lower hound is eying a bird of prey. The horseman is in pursuit of four animals in two registers fleeing to the right: possibly representing a bull, a boar, a lion and a deer. A later addition to the scene is an incised Latin cross with ball terminals, which has been inserted in the space between the horseman and his prey so as to stand vertically when the slab was set on end.
Date range: eighth or ninth century.
Primary references: Fisher 2001, 93-4; Gondek & Jeffrey 2003.
Compiled by A Ritchie 2016
