Cross-slab

The National Monuments Service's description

West Wall, West Facing, North off centre.
Diagram A10
Inventory of Carved Stone ID 000038
Dimensions: Height .255m Width .26 m
Cross Slab fragment. Irregular outline. It bears a compass drawn double outline equal armed cross or petal design, the petal tips truncated. The arcs cross short of the centre leaving a small lozenge shape in the middle with a small central circular depression. The cross is enclosed in a tripe outline circle.
Description from Inventory of Carved Stone, National Monuments Service Archive.
Kendrick, JRSAI 69 (1939) p. 19 (A110), Fig. 11.

Possible 8th-century cross-slab with a four-lined cross-of-arcs, also forming a cross pattée design with central hollow, and small incised crosses in the four quadrants of the cross pattée, all of which is framed within a triple-lined circle (Lionard 1961, 111, Fig. 4). Gallen was the site of an Early Christian monastery (OF014-029008-) founded by St. Canoc in 492 AD. A large collection of early Christian cross-slabs (OF014-029003-) dating from the 8th/11th-centuries were uncovered along with the site of an early medieval church (OF014-029008-) during excavations at Gallen in 1934-5 (Kendrick 1939). This cross-of-arcs type cross-slab is one of nine cross-slabs to come from Gallen monastery (Lionard 1961, 112). A large selection of cross-slabs were inserted into a display wall on the site of the excavated medieval church.

To see a 3D model of this cross-slab, visit; https://skfb.ly/oxs6R

Revised by: Caimin O'Brien

Date of revised upload: 24 August 2022

References

Kendrick, T.D. 1939 Gallen priory: excavations 1934-5. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 69, 1-20.