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Bressay Description of stone
Date 28 September 2016
Event ID 1014291
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Early Medieval Carved Stones Project
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1014291
Bressay, Culbinsburgh, Shetland (St Mary), cross-slab
Measurements: H 1.22m, W 0.27m – 0.40m, D 0.06m
Stone type: chlorite schist
Place of discovery: c HU 521 423
Present location: National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh (IB 109)
Evidence for discovery: found in the first half of the 19th century below ground-level near St Mary’s Church but outside the graveyard. It was taken first to Gardie House in Bressay, and thence to a churchyard about a mile to the south of Gardie House. In 1852 it was sent to Newcastle for exhibition, returned to Bressay and in 1864 presented to NMAS (ECMS pt 3: 5-6).
Present condition: some wear.
Description
The cross-slab is carved in low relief on both main faces, and there is an ogham inscription along both narrow faces. Face A bears a cross within a circular frame; the arms of the cross have wide expanded terminals, and they, the centre of the cross and the spaces between the arms are filled with simple interlace. Above the cross two animal heads grasp a prone human body in their jaws. Below the cross two hooded clerics with crosiers and book satchels flank a figure riding a horse, and beside the face of the left-hand cleric is a simple incised cross which has been interpreted as representing a cross-slab (Kilpatrick 2011: 166). Below the clerics is a large animal, probably a lion, and below that a smaller animal, perhaps a pig.
Face C is carved with an interlaced cross-of-arcs within a circle surrounded by interlace and framed by another pair of beasts biting a human figure. Beneath the cross panel is one containing two confronted beasts, and beneath them a panel containing two hooded clerics with crosiers and book satchels.
Faces B and D are incised with a long inscription in ogham, which reads ‘the cross of Nadd Oddr’s daughter aNN [in memory of her husband] Benises son of Droan’. There is a degree of linguistic mixture, because the word for daughter is Norse, while those for cross and son are Gaelic. It has been suggested that the horseman on face A may represent Benises for whom the monument was set up (Scott & Ritchie 2009: 7).
Date: tenth century.
References: ECMS pt 3, 5-10; DES 1997: 67; Trench-Jellicoe 2005: Scott & Ritchie 2009, no 54; Kilpatrick 2011, 164-7.
Compiled by A Ritchie 2016
