St Vigeans
Cross Slab (Early Medieval)
Site Name St Vigeans
Classification Cross Slab (Early Medieval)
Canmore ID 35569
Site Number NO64SW 3.18
NGR NO 6383 4294
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/35569
- Council Angus
- Parish Arbroath And St Vigeans
- Former Region Tayside
- Former District Angus
- Former County Angus
St Vigeans 18 (St Vigianus), Angus, cross-slab fragment
Measurements: H 0.36m, W 0.36m, D 0.12m
Stone type: sandstone
Place of discovery: NO c 6384 4289
Present location: in St Vigeans Museum (HES).
Evidence for discovery: found sometime prior to 1870, by which time it was built into the west gable of the church. By 1903 it had been removed and placed in the porch. It was taken into St Vigeans Museum in 1960.
Present condition: broken top and bottom and very worn.
Description
This fragment is part of the lower portion of a cross-slab, carved in relief on four faces within plain flat-band borders.face A bears part of the shaft of a cross, outlined by roll moulding and filled with key pattern. On either side is an entwined serpent, its head biting a tail, and below a single foreleg survives, braced against the shaft. Narrow face B bears four-cord plait, and face D may once have been similar. Face C has the torso of a frontal cleric, apparently seated on a chair, dressed in robes and carrying a book.
Date range: eighth or ninth century.
Primary references: ECMS pt 3, 275-6; Geddes 2017, no VIG018.
Desk-based information compiled by A Ritchie 2017.
Reference (1964)
NO64SW 3.18 6384 4294
No.18. Upright cross-slab. On the front face is the middle part of a cross-shaft. On each side a serpentine creature with its tail in its mouth. On the back, part of an enthroned figure holding a book in his left hand, his right points to the page, as on stone No. 11.
S Cruden 1964
