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Cambusnethan Description of stone
Event ID 1084270
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Early Medieval Carved Stones Project
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1084270
Cambusnethan, Lanarkshire, cross-shaft fragment
Measurements: H 0.86m above the tenon, W 0.41m, D 0.15m
Stone type: sandstone
Place of discovery: NS 8068 5537
Present location: Summerlee Industrial Museum, Coatbridge, on loan from National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh (X.IB. 2.49)
Evidence for discovery: first recorded standing upright in the churchyard at Cambusnethan in 1898, and was later transferred to Cambusnethan Cemetery. It was given to NMAS in Edinburgh in 1937 in exchange for a replica.
Present condition: there is edge damage and the carving is very weathered.
Description
This fragment is the lower part of a cross-shaft with a short tenon by which it could be fixed in a stone base. It is carved in relief on all four vertical faces, within a plain flat-band moulding.
Face A has two and part of a third panel of ornament surviving: at the base a figural scene with three tall and one short (a child?) human figure, all apparently naked; above them a swastika key pattern; and above that the start of a panel of interlace. Both the key pattern and interlace have median-incised cords. The swastika pattern is repeated on face C, along with four-cord plait, all with median-incised cords. At the bottom is a loop, perhaps a serpent.
Both narrow faces B and D contain square key pattern.
Date: tenth century.
References: ECMS pt 3, 461-2.
Desk-based information compiled by A Ritchie 2019.
