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Brough of Birsay 3 Description of stone
Event ID 1015535
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Early Medieval Carved Stones Project
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1015535
Brough of Birsay 3 (St Peter), Orkney, recumbent cross-slab
Measurements: L 1.65m, W 0.35m tapering to 0.28m
Stone type: old red sandstone
Place of discovery: HY 2398 2850
Present location: in the site museum.
Evidence for discovery: found during excavations around 1936 in the graveyard, lying recumbent over a grave close to the west wall of the graveyard.
Present condition: weathered.
Description
One broad face of this long rectilinear slab is incised with two ring-headed crosses set shaft-end to shaft-end. Each has expanded wedge-shaped arms and the larger cross has small circular armpits and an expanded shaft. In both cases there is a fat ring around the shaft, double on the smaller cross, the effect of which is to give a sense of perspective of crosses set in circular bases.
Date: eleventh century.
References: RCAHMS 1946, fig 53; Curle 1982, 91; Scott & Ritchie 2014, no 18.
Compiled by A Ritchie 2016
