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Whiteness 1 Description of stone
Event ID 1014601
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Early Medieval Carved Stones Project
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1014601
Whiteness 1 (St Olaf), Shetland, cross-slab fragment
Measurements: H 0.23m, W 0.24m, D 0.03m
Stone type: grey sandstone
Place of discovery: HU 3866 4442
Present location: National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh (IB.248)
Evidence for discovery: found in 1933 during wall-building when the kirkyard was enlarged and given to the museum in 1937.
Present condition: broken and worn.
Description
This fragment comes from the lower part of a cross-slab and has two intact edges (faces B & D), which are plain, while both broad faces are carved. Face A is bordered on either side by a narrow roll moulding, within which are two flatband mouldings on either side of a panel of interlace, into which the flatband mouldings extend in the lower part of the slab. This is a simple but sophisticated design. Face C bears the lower part of a cross-shaft formed of two parallel mouldings which become a triquetral knot at the foot of the shaft. Stevenson suggested that the carving of face C might be secondary to that on face A.
Date: eighth century.
References: Stevenson 1981, 285-7; Scott & Ritchie 2009, no 60.
Compiled by A Ritchie 2016
