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Publication Account

Date 1996

Event ID 1016323

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Publication Account

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1016323

This is a well-preserved hogback of red sandstone, 1.73m long, with four rows of tegulae or roof-tiles carved along either side, the tiles increasing in size towards the base. It was found in the north-east corner of the churchyard, lying east-north east/west-south-west, and originally belonged to an earlier church on the site. A fine church with twin towers, comparable to the single-towered St Magnus on Egilsay (no. 41), is known to have existed here and an Early Christian ancestry for the site is indicated by the recent find from nearby excavations of a fragment of a cross-incised gravemarker. These excavations have uncovered a Norse farm and an earlier Pictish settlement, and it is clear that Skaill has a long history of Dark Age, Viking and medieval settlement aga inst which its hogback monument may be set. In the 11th century, Skaill was the Orkney home of Thorkell , foster father to Earl Thorfinn, and it was undoubtedly a Christian Norse household.

Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: Orkney’, (1996).

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