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Kingoldrum

Cross Slab (Pictish), Pictish Symbol Stone (Pictish)

Site Name Kingoldrum

Classification Cross Slab (Pictish), Pictish Symbol Stone (Pictish)

Alternative Name(s) Kingoldrum Parish Church

Canmore ID 32255

Site Number NO35NW 3.01

NGR NO 334 550

NGR Description NO c. 334 550

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/32255

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
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Digital Images

Administrative Areas

  • Council Angus
  • Parish Kingoldrum
  • Former Region Tayside
  • Former District Angus
  • Former County Angus

Early Medieval Carved Stones Project

Kingoldrum 1 (St Medan), Angus, Pictish cross-slab

Measurements: H 0.61m, W 0.38m, D 0.08m

Stone type: sandstone

Place of discovery: NO 3342 5504

Present location: National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh (IB 39)

Evidence for discovery: found in the walls of the medieval church when it was demolished in 1840.

Present condition: broken top and bottom and worn.

Description

This small cross-slab is carved in relief on both broad faces, and the top appears to have risen to an apex. Face A is edged with a flat-band moulding which expands on either side above the side-arm of the cross into the spiral joint of an animal’s foreleg, but the head of both animals is missing. A cross with rectangular terminals and square centre is carved in such a way that its side-arms extend across the flat-band border, and the cross itself has a flat-band moulding. It is entirely filled with coarse key pattern. On either side of the shaft are a pair of entwined and knotted serpentine creatures with ducks’ heads and fish tails. Their bodies have an incised median line, but the knots are not identical.

Face C displays a figure in a long robe sitting facing left on a chair which has a zoomorphic terminal to its back. The head of the figure is missing, but it faced a rectangular object subdivided into two unequal parts. Below are a mirror symbol, a decorated crescent, a step symbol filled with key pattern and a double-sided comb, and there is an animal facing left above the step symbol.

Date range: eighth or ninth century.

Primary references: Chalmers 1848, 14; ECMS pt 3, 226-7; Fraser 2008, no 64.

Desk-based information compiled by A Ritchie 2017.

Early Medieval Carved Stones Project

Kingoldrum 2 (St Medan), Angus, Pictish cross-slab

Measurements: H 0.99m, W 0.61m, D 0.08m

Stone type: sandstone

Place of discovery: NO 3342 5504

Present location: National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh (IB 40)

Evidence for discovery: found in the walls of the medieval church when it was demolished in 1840.

Present condition: broken and worn.

Description

The top and bottom sections of this slightly tapering slab are missing, and it must originally have been well over a metre high and carved in relief on both broad faces. Within a roll moulding on face A is a cross outlined by a roll moulding, with rounded armpits and rectangular terminals, the arms and shaft of which are filled with key pattern. The centre bears a roundel consisting of a triple-cord spiral. There were motifs carved above the side-arms but too little survives for identification.

Face C appears to have been divided into two panels by a broad flat-band moulding, with a barely discernible figure on a chair with a zoomorphic terminal to the back, facing right. There are faint traces of carving in the lower panel.

Date range: eighth or ninth century.

Primary references: ECMS pt 3, 257-8.

Desk-based information compiled by A Ritchie 2017.

Early Medieval Carved Stones Project

Kingoldrum 3 (St Medan), Angus, cross-slab fragment

Measurements: H 0.23m, W 0.20m

Stone type: sandstone

Place of discovery: NO 3342 5504

Present location: National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh (IB 41)

Evidence for discovery: found in the walls of the medieval church when it was demolished in 1840.

Present condition: broken but carving crisp.

Description

This appears to have been part of the upper portion of a tapering slab. Face A bears a Maltese cross carved in relief within a roundel. Face C displays the haloed head, torso and left arm of the crucified Christ, with a possible saltire to the right of the head.

Date range: tenth or eleventh century.

Primary references: ECMS pt 3, 258.

Desk-basded information compiled by A Ritchie 2017.

Activities

Note (1983)

NO35NW 3.1 334 550

A Class II Pictish cross-slab; the cross is in relief, and the carvings on the back include a crescent, a mirror and a comb.

RCAHMS 1983

(Stuart 1856, 28, plate lxxxix; Allen and Anderson 1903, iii, 226).

Reference (1997)

Class II symbol stone with on reverse of the cross a seated female figure above, respectively, a mirror-and-comb, a crescent and a step symbol.

A Mack 1997.

References

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