Note
Date 1984
Event ID 1145870
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Note
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1145870
(NR c.357 458) This cross-slab was discovered about 1838 during the clearance of Doid Mhairi ('Mary's croft'), a small uncultivated area in a field about 200m W of Port Ellen Distillery, lying at an elevation of about 7m OD and some 150 m from the N shore of Port Ellen Bay. The area had been used for field-clearance, and 'some appearance of an enclosure or building' was reported, but no burials were found (n.1). The slab was preserved in the grounds of Kildalton House until 1923, when it was presented to the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland.
It is a roughly rectangular slab of epidiorite measuring 1.02m in height by 0.37 m in maximum width. On one face it is carved in low relief with a ring-headed cross having deep hollow armpits and splayed arms. At the centre of the cross-head is a small disc or boss, and the edges of the cross and ring are wrought with continuous bead-mouldings. Above the arms are two discs with sunken centres, probably representing the sun and moon. The foot of the cross passes through an irregular plait of double-beaded bands which flank the shaft and bifurcate at the top to form tendrils with lobed terminals. These tendrils have been identified by R B K Stevenson as a characteristic motif of the 'Ringerike' style of Scandinavian art, and the slab may be attributed to the second half of the 11th century (n.2).
(NMAS cast IB3, on loan to Museum of Islay Life, Port Charlotte; PSAS, 17 (1882-3), 277, 279-81 and fig.3; Graham, Islay, pl.xxx, 107; Stevenson, RBK, in PSAS, 92 (1958-9), 53-4 and pl. xi, 1).
RCAHMS 1984
n.1 PSAS, 17 (1882-3), 280-1; Youngson, P, Jura Parish Church 1777 to 1977 (1977), 2-6.
n.2 For the characteristics and dating of the Ringerike style, see Wilson, D M and Klindt-Jensen, O, Viking Art (2nd, ed., 1980), 23-4, 134-46.
