St Boniface Description of stone
Event ID 1017208
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Early Medieval Carved Stones Project
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1017208
St Boniface Church 2, Papa Westray, Orkney, cross-slab
Measurements: H 0.79m +, W 0.32m tapering to 0.17m, D 0.07m
Stone type: sandstone
Place of discovery: HY c 4881 5271
Present location: in the Orkney Museum, Kirkwall (OM 1997.3).
Evidence for discovery: found in the graveyard in 1966 or 1967, about 0.3m down in the soil close to the north-east corner of the nave and close to where no 1 had been found.
Present condition: worn, especially the face with the double cross.
Description
An undressed and tapering boulder, this bears carving on both broad faces. Face A is incised with two crosses, one above the other: at the top a heavily pecked outline cross with small sunken armpits, with a finely incised inner outline. Above the left-hand arm a triquetra knot has been roughly incised, and below the same arm can be made out a robed figure in profile facing the shaft. The base of the outline cross almost touches a cross-of-arcs within a circle, carved in false relief. It appears that two attempts were made to carve the circle, the final version smaller than the first. The cross is relatively elaborate, with arms terminating in ovals and similar ovals in the spaces between the arms.
Face C has suffered more wear than face A, but there appears to be an incised double linear cross, echoing that on face A in its small sunken armpits.
Date: eighth or ninth century.
References: Lowe 1998, 6-7; Scott & Ritchie 2014, no 21.
Compiled by A Ritchie 2017
