Tomb - effigial

The National Monuments Service's description

Fixed into the eastern most window of the S wall of a 19th-century C of I church which was built on the former chancel of the 13th-century church of St Mary’s (KK020-060006-) in Gowran. A small tapering limestone effigial tomb lid (L 0.98m; Wth at top 0.42m; Wth at base 0.3m; T 0.18m) with chamfered edges (Wth 0.05m), carved with a miniature male figure in raised relief. The base of the slab is slightly broken and the lower sinister upper surface damaged.
Hunt (1974, vol. 1, 167) assigns a mid-13th century date to this effigy and describes the figure as, ‘wearing a long straight gown. On the breast he holds some object, perhaps a vial or box, so that this may represent a heart burial. The head rest on a pillow and hair curls down over the ears’.
In medieval funerary tradition the heart was sometimes buried in a separate place to the body and in such cases the heart burials are often commemorated by miniature or half-length effigies (ibid. 135).

Compiled by: Jean Farrelly

Date of upload: 14 August 2019

References

Hunt, J. 1974 Irish medieval figure sculpture 1200-1600, 2 vols. Dublin. Irish University Press.