Reference
Date 2001
Event ID 924547
Category Documentary Reference
Type Reference
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/924547
The medieval parish church was at Cille Bharra in the N peninsula, on the NE slope of Ben Eoligarry and 600m from the E coast. The dedication was to St Barr, traditionally identified with St Finbarr of Cork but described in the Aberdeen Breviary as born in Caithness.(i) The burial-ground, which in 1878 was represented as an unenclosed oval area,(ii) contains a ruined church of late medieval date, and two smaller chapels which were probably burial-aisles of post-medieval origin.(iii) The larger of these, to the NE of the church, was re-roofed about 1980 to house three late medieval graveslabs of the Iona school and an inscribed slab of about 1600.(iv) The burial-ground contains three cross-marked stones, and a cross-slab inscribed in Norse runes, found there in 1865, was acquired by the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland in 1880.(v)
(1) Earthfast gravemarker of gneiss, 0.43m in visible height by 0.31m and 0.16m thick. The surface is now whitewashed, with dark paint in the grooves. On one face there is a sunken Latin cross, 0.26m high by 0.15m in span, executed with a deep U-section groove. The base is triangular and the other terminals appear to be barred.
(2) Cruciform stone of diorite, broken at the foot. It measures 0.55m in height by 0.43m in span and 75mm thick. The shaft tapers from 0.27m to 0.22m below the tightly rounded lower armpits. The upper armpits are more semicircular in outline, and the top arm and right side-arm are tapered whereas the left arm is wedge-shaped. At the centre there is incised a Latin cross, 0.15m high and 0.12m across the arms which curve slightly upwards.
(3) Cruciform stone of diorite, 0.66m by 0.29m across the arms and 85mm in maximum thickness. It is a cruder version of no.2, with a shaft which tapers from 0.3m to 0.15m, a straight-sided top arm 0.13m wide, and short wedge-shaped side-arms. The lines of the tightly rounded armpits are continued as shallow grooves on the surface, in one case for 70mm. On one face (a) there is an incised central cross, 0.17m high and 0.19m across the arms, which are set at mid-height. The corresponding cross on face (b) measures 0.16m by 0.15m.
(4) (NMS X.IB 102). Cross-slab of dark grey local garnet metapelite, broken obliquely at the head and flaked at the foot of face (a). It measures 1.36m in height and increases in width from 0.25m at the foot to a maximum of 0.39m below the head; the thickness varies from 45mm to 80mm. Face (a) is filled by a cross in low relief, incomplete at head and foot but over 0.85m in height and 0.38m across the arms. It is defined by a bead-moulding which encloses sunken circular armpits about 30mm in diameter, and the shaft tapers slightly downwards whereas the arms are straight-sided. The cross is filled with flat interlace, comprising a four-strand plait in the shaft and less regular interlace in the cross-head and arms. The sides of the shaft are flanked by continuous square key-pattern, linked to the uncarved area at the foot of the shaft, and then by simple S-scrolls below the cross-head. There are fragmentary remains of similar scrolls flanking the top arm.
Face (b) is filled with an inscription in Old Norse runes, incised in three lines which read down from the top of the slab. The letters in the first line are about 0.16m high, while those in the second line, which is enclosed by two irregular incised lines, vary from 65mm to 100mm. Only a few characters remain at the beginning of the third line, which is heavily worn. Although the surface on which the runes are cut appears to have been lightly dressed, many of them are damaged and the readings by Stephens and Olsen involve many doubtful assumptions. A reading has been made by Professor R I Page.(vi)
]*ir thur(:)kirthu:s(t)i*ar
]*r(.)is(:)kurs(:)s**.ristr
]*(.)**
This probably contains the female name Thorgerth and, less certainly, the male name Steinar, with a commemorative formula referring to the erection of the cross.
Although comparisons have been made with Manx cross-slabs,(vii) the form of the ring-less cross is closer to those on slabs at Govan, and the S-scrolls flanking it may be matched in Argyll, at Soroby and Kilbride. The inscription filling one face of the slab can be compared with Scandinavian examples rather than Manx ones.(viii) A date in the second half of the tenth century is probable.
Footnotes:
(i) A Macquarrie 1984, 7-8, 29-30. A wooden figure of St Barr was preserved at Cille Bharra in the 17th century (M Martin 1934, 158).
(ii) OS 6-inch map, Inverness-shire (Hebrides), sheet 63 (1878/81).
(iii) RCAHMS 1928, No. 436; Macquarrie, op.cit., 23, 28, 33. T S Muir (1885) describes the demolition of a fourth building.
(iv) RCAHMS 1928, No. 436 (a-d) and figs.146-8. These slabs are of 14th-15th century date.
(v) G Stephens 1881, 33-4. The slab was identified by Alexander Carmichael, who recorded a tradition that it was brought from Iona (G Stephens 1884, 3 (1884), 315).
(vi) The Commissioners are indebted to Professors Page and M Barnes for access to material from their forthcoming Corpus of runic inscriptions (item no. SC8).
(vii) Liestol 1984, 228-9.
(viii) S B F Jansson 1987, pp.30, 33, 124.
G Stephens 1881, 33-6; J Anderson 1881, 227-9; NMAS 1892, 266; Allen and Anderson 1903, 3, 114-15; RCAHMS 1928, No.436 and figs.174, 177; Olsen, M, in H Shetelig, 6, 123-5, 174-7; J Close-Brooks and R B K Stevenson 1982, 43; Liestol 1984, 228-9; A Macquarrie 1984, 11-12, 17: H McGregor and J Cooper 1984, unpaginated; B E Crawford 1987, 175, 177.
I Fisher 2001, 106-8.
