medieval-atlas/events-to-about-850/56

Transcription

Pictish monuments Scotland's first Christian stone monuments were probably in the form of boulder stones incised with crosses used to mark graves and sanctified places. Simple monuments of this type are of uncertain date but some of the cross-types can be compared with those found on similar more datable monuments in Ireland and Wales and on this basis the Scottish stones with incised crosses can be treated as a class of potentially early medieval monumental sculpture. The incised, encircled, equal-armed crosses ofeastern Pictland have been directly associated with the encircled chi -rho monograms depicted on monuments associated with the British Ninianic church at Kirkrnadrine and Whithorn. Less controversially, the incised crosses of northern Britain have been interpreted as an index of the beginnings and progress of Christianity brought by the Columban church centre on Iona. In form and technique the incised cross-bearing stones relate to the Pictish symbol stones (in the first of these Pictish maps) but the cross symbol links them to the Pictish cross-slabs (in the second map). The map is based on a preliminary list compiled in 1985 from published sources. It shows, in addition, cross-marked stones recorded by the Royal Commission in the Argyll inventories, and a considerable number ofstones recorded by N M Robertson of Pertb, as a result of field work, mainly in Highland Pertbshire. ~ ~ ~-------. f::J ~{!:P ~~ ~)j o • • Single stone Two or more stones Pictish, and related Dalriadic, cross-marked stones 0 I 25 10 20 kms 50 30 miles 75 100 40 50 60 IBH,NMR