Meigle 2 Description of stone
Date 2018
Event ID 1039927
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Early Medieval Carved Stones Project
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1039927
Meigle 2, Perthshire, cross-slab
Measurements: H 2.55m, W 1.00m, D 0.15m
Stone type: sandstone
Place of discovery: NO 2872 4463
Present location: Meigle Museum.
Evidence for discovery: in the mid nineteenth century, the stone stood on the east side of the original gateway into the churchyard, to the north of the church. Beside it was a small mound known locally as Vanora’s grave.
Present condition: there is overall weathering, which is severe at the foot of face A.
Description
In its proportions and ornament, this is a truly majestic monument. With parallel sides and a rounded top, both broad faces are heavily carved in relief, and two short tenons project from narrow faces B and D. These are likely to have been functional, whereas the remains of a projection at the apex of the slab was probably ornamental.
Within a plain flat-band border, face A bears a massive ringed cross, the head of which is embellished with bosses: four on each arm, eight on the ring and eight surrounded a single larger boss in the centre of the cross-head. Many of them show traces of encircling serpents. The arm-terminals and the central panel are square, creating double-square armpits, and the surface of the entire head, where not covered by bosses, is carved with diagonal key pattern. The shaft of the cross is twice the width of the arms, and it is outlined by a roll moulding and has large spirals at each corner. Within the shaft are three registers of zoomorphic ornament, though the lowest is too worn to make out its details. At the top two confronted quadrupeds stand chest to chest and nose to nose, with the spaces above their backs filled by contorted creatures hanging on to their necks. The spaces under their bodies are filled by two more creatures. The middle register has another pair of confronted quadrupeds separated by two entwined reptiles. More animals flank the shaft, all apparently desperate to climb to the top. On the right an elongated hound hangs by the neck from the corner spiral, another hound is scrabbling upwards with the foot of the upper hound in its jaws and a third creature hanging from its hind leg. To the left of the shaft, a human figure kneels on the corner spiral, holding the arm of another figure climbing up from below. Below again, two or three animals are also trying to climb upwards.
Face C presented the sculptor with one great panel to carve, and he has filled it with distinct scenes one above the other. At the top a solitary pre-eminent warrior rides his horse briskly to the left, a pair of hounds before him and in the background an angel. Below another solitary rider is preceded by his attendant troops riding three abreast, again to the left. The central scene shows a frontal figure in full robes is beset on either side by two pairs of clawing lions. Below again is a centaur with an axe in either hand and trailing branches as he trots to the right. At the bottom of the panel a horned animal tries to pull away from another animal that has its jaws clamped round its snout, while tucked into the background behind them is a human figure carrying a club over one shoulder.
Date range: ninth century.
References: ECMS pt 3, 296-7; RCAHMS 1994, 98.
Desk-based information compiled by A Ritchie 2018
