Carpow

Carpow, Perthshire, cross-slab fragment

Measurements: H 0.74m, W 0.46m, D 0.15m

Stone type: red sandstone

Place of discovery: NO 2045 1754

Present location: in private ownership at Mugdrum House.

Evidence for discovery: found re-used as the lintel of a well in the garden in the nineteenth century and taken to the summerhouse at Mugdrum House in 1877.

Present condition: very worn and damaged by re-working for use as a lintel in 1610.

Description

This is a central part of a cross-slab, which has been trimmed and re-worked. It is carved in relief on both broad faces, and it may have had carving on the surviving narrow face with has been removed and which now bears the date 1610, which was presumably the visible face of the well lintel. On each broad face are the remains of a ringed cross, the surviving side-arm of which extends to the edge of the slab, and in which the space between ring and armpit was perforated. On face A the cross and ring are outlined by a recessed band on which is incised a spiral pattern, and the panel beside the right-hand side of the shaft contains two entwined serpents with a fish-tail. More detail has survived on face C where the cross itself is carved in relief with interlace, and the background to the cross on the left-hand side is divided into two panels by narrow bands of interlace. The upper panel contains a stag with antlers, his body facing left and his head turned to look backwards. In the lower panel is the upper part of an animal with spiral joints.

Date: ninth or tenth century.

References: ECMS pt 3, 311-13; Proudfoot 1997, 53-4 (no 10).

Compiled by A Ritchie 2016