Jedburgh Description of stone
Event ID 1085151
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Early Medieval Carved Stones Project
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1085151
Jedburgh 10, cross-head fragments
Measurements: arm L 204mm, D 130mm; boss 204mm diam, D c170mm.
Stone type: fine-grained creamy sandstone.
Present location: Jedburgh Abbey Visitor Centre (JED/o/6).
Evidence for discovery: none, but it was part of the collection by 1984.
Present condition: broken, damaged and worn, especially the central roundel. Only the arm is relatively intact.
Description
This fragment has been restored from two pieces and it forms one arm and the central boss of a cross-head, which originally had a span of some 0.60m. Both main faces are carved but the narrow edges are plain. The surviving arm could be a side-arm or the upper arm, and it has a squared terminal and very widely curved armpits, outlined on face A by a narrow flat-band moulding. On face A, the interior of the arm is filled with ornament arranged in two panels, which appear to be divided by a fine roll moulding but the moulding is in fact part of the ornamental pattern in the arm terminal rather than a formal dividing line. This is a rectangular panel of diagonal key pattern containing both single pellets and two clusters of four pellets, with a central vertical bar which gives the illusion that the panel is divided into two squares. The area between the two armpits contains an asymmetrical knot composed of a median-incised cord, the strands of which separate to pass over and under one another, forming pointed terminal loops to fit into each corner of the available space.
The centre of the cross-head on face A is an elaborately ornamented circular boss. It consists of a central boss encircled by a fine roll moulding. Outside the moulding is an encircling border containing four Carrick-bend knots, linked by two strands in such a way that the knots form a cruciform shape around the boss. The whole roundel is enclosed by a recessed band of ornament, which consists of a continuous ring of outward-facing Stafford knots, each linked by two glides.
On face C, the surface of the arm is intact but the centre of the cross-head has been chiselled away. The arm bears the arm of a spine-and-boss cross, carved in low relief against a plain background. It consists of a double roll moulding which expands to enclose at its terminal an incised six-petal rosette. The terminal or ‘boss’ is carved in slightly higher relief than the arm or ‘spine’, and the missing central boss was presumably in higher relief too.
The narrow faces of the arm are dressed but plain.
Date range: late eighth to early ninth century.
Primary references: Cramp 1983, 270, 272-3, fig 115; Cramp 2017.
Research by A Ritchie 2019
