![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
Abstract
A LITTLE-KNOWN FRAGMENT OF CROSS-SLAB from St Ringan’s Cairn in the Grampian Mountains of Aberdeenshire (Scotland) is identified as a significant example of Pictish sculptural art of the late 8th or early 9th centuries. It was created by a skilled stone-carver with an exceptional sense of design, probably based in a monastery in southern Aberdeenshire or Angus, and its location marked an important route through the mountains between northern and southern Pictland.
Résumé
Un joyau négligé de l’art picte : le fragment de plaque à croix de St Ringan’s Cairn dans l’Aberdeenshire par Anna Ritchie avec Cynthia Thickpenny
Un fragment peu connu d’une plaque à croix de St Ringan’s Cairn, dans les monts Grampians d’Aberdeenshire (Écosse) est identifié comme étant un exemple significatif de l’art sculptural picte de la fin du 8e ou début du 9e siècle. Le tailleur de pierre habile qui l’a façonné était doué d’un sens exceptionnel du design et probablement basé dans un monastère au sud du comté d’Aberdeenshire ou d’Angus ; son emplacement marquait une route importante traversant la montagne du nord au sud du royaume picte.
Zussamenfassung
Ein kaum beachtetes Juwel piktischer Kunst: das Kreuzplattenfragment von St Ringan’s Cairn in Aberdeenshire von Anna Ritchie mit Cynthia Thickpenny
Ein wenig bekanntes Fragment einer Kreuzplatte aus der Fundstelle von St Ringan’s Cairn in den Grampian Mountains der Grafschaft Aberdeenshire (Schottland) wird als bedeutendes Beispiel der piktischen Bildhauerkunst des späten 8. oder frühen 9. Jahrhunderts identifiziert. Es wurde von einem kunstfertigen Steinmetz geschaffen, der einen außergewöhnlichen Sinn für Design hatte und seinen Sitz wahrscheinlich in einem Kloster im südlichen Aberdeenshire oder in der Grafschaft Angus hatte. Der Fundort markierte eine wichtige Verbindungsroute durch die Berge zwischen dem nördlichen und südlichen Piktland.
Riassunto
Una perla trascurata di arte pitta: la stele funeraria con la croce dal cairn di St Ringan nell’Aberdeenshire di Anna Ritchie con Cynthia Thickpenny
Il frammento poco noto di una stele funeraria con la croce dal cairn di St Ringan sui Monti Grampiani nell’Aberdeenshire (Scozia) viene riconosciuto come un esempio significativo di arte scultorea pitta del tardo VIII secolo o dei primi anni del IX secolo. Si tratta dell’opera di un abile scultore dotato di eccezionale sensibilità per il design, il quale probabilmente aveva base in un monastero dell’Aberdeenshire meridionale o dell’Angus, e la località della collocazione segnava un percorso importante attraverso le montagne tra la regione settentrionale e quella meridionale del territorio dei Pitti.
acknowledgements
Without the inspiration of John Borland’s careful drawings, this paper would never have been written, and I am grateful to him both for the drawings, which he has kindly prepared for publication in this paper, and for discussing the stones with me. Very special thanks go to Isabel and George Henderson for their interest and for reading and commenting on a draft of this paper (any remaining errors are mine), and to Cynthia Thickpenny for sharing her thoughts about the key pattern on St Ringan’s 1. I should like to thank my two anonymous reviewers for their generous insights and helpful comments. I am grateful to Neil Curtis, Head of Museums and Special Collections in the University of Aberdeen, for his help in facilitating visits to see the stones, and to Abeer Eladany for her kind help during both visits. I should also like to thank Adrián Maldonado for his kindness in showing me the fragment from Murroes in the collections of National Museums Scotland (NMS), and Andrew Heald and Martin Cook of AOC Archaeology, Edinburgh, for their help in producing the map for . The map was drawn by Laura O’Connor of AOC Archaeology, and the photographs of St Ringan’s 1 used in and are the work of Kim Downie of Museums and Special Collections, University of Aberdeen, and I am very grateful to them both. The analysis of the St Ringan’s key pattern is built upon Thickpenny's 2014-2019 doctoral research, which was funded by a University of Glasgow College of Arts PhD Scholarship, and additionally supported by a University of Glasgow College of Arts Research Support Award, the Society for Medieval Archaeology's Eric Fletcher Fund, and the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland’s Gunning Jubilee Gift.
Notes
3 Henderson Citation2005.
4 Isabel and George Henderson kindly accompanied the author on a visit to see the fragment in Aberdeen, and Isabel agrees that it should join her ‘fragments of significance’.
5 Borland et al Citation2007, 106–8; St Ringan’s Cairn, Canmore 36067.
6 NGR NO 6549 7944.
7 Taylor Citation1976, 96–7, 166–7.
8 Sinclair Citation1793, 330.
9 RCAHMS Citation1982, no 68.
10 Small (Citation1965, 24) also wrote that a ‘full report of this slab will be included in a survey of recent archaeological discoveries in NE Scotland which will probably appear in Aberdeen University Review’, but no such paper was published.
11 Small Citation1974.
12 RCAHMS Citation1984, 12; Mack Citation1997, 144, Redstone Hill (though he was mistaken in listing the stone as lost); Fraser Citation2008.
13 OS Citation1863, 51.
14 Ibid, 218; Borland et al Citation2007, 108.
15 Saints in Scottish Place-Names ˂www.saintsplaces.gla.ac.uk/saint.php?id=578>.
16 Borland et al Citation2007, 106–8. The two stones are displayed together but only by skewing the cross-slab fragment.
17 Aberlemno 3, Canmore 34863; Allen and Anderson Citation1903, pt 3, 214–15.
18 Edzell 1, Canmore 242661, Fraser Citation2008, 52; Stevenson Citation1959, 42–3, pl 6.
19 Cynthia Thickpenny pers comm.
20 Edzell 2, Canmore 242659, Fraser Citation2008, no 59; symbol fragment Canmore 269041.
21 Geddes Citation2017, 109, 127–9; Henderson and Henderson Citation2004, 193.
22 Fordoun, Canmore 36458, Allen and Anderson Citation1903, pt 3, 201–3.
23 Taylor Citation2011, 107; Citation2015, 27.
24 Salmond Citation1938, map opp 294; Garden 1797.
25 Redstone Hill milestone 9, Canmore 362042.
26 Henderson Citation2008, 175–6, illus 4.3b.
27 Thickpenny Citation2019b.
28 Allen and Anderson Citation1903, pt 2, 348.
29 Bain Citation1973, 75, pl 1.
30 For extensive discussions of the structure of mitres and of mitres in other artworks, see Thickpenny Citation2019a, 313–14, Thickpenny Citation2019b, 209–15, and Thickpenny Citation2020.
31 Tealing, Canmore 318083, Fraser Citation2008, 60. This fragment was in better condition in the late 1930s than it is now, and the key pattern may be seen more clearly on a photograph taken when it stood in the church porch at Tealing by O G S Crawford (NMS Special Collections, SAS 337, nos 39–4).
32 Menmuir 1, Canmore 35132; Allen and Anderson Citation1903, pt 3, 263–4.
33 Henderson Citation1982, 93–4.
34 Aberlemno 2, Canmore 34806; Allen and Anderson Citation1903, pt 3, 209–14; Fraser Citation2008, no 51.2.
35 Dunfallandy, Canmore 26295; Allen and Anderson Citation1903, pt 3, 286–9; Fraser Citation2008, no 181.
36 Geddes Citation2017, 65; Dunblane 1, Canmore 24673; Allen and Anderson Citation1903 pt 3, 315–17.
37 Henderson Citation1987, 174–5.
38 Meigle 1, Canmore 30838, Allen and Anderson Citation1903, pt 3, 296–7; Fraser Citation2008, no 189.1; Tealing, Canmore 318083; Fraser Citation2008, no 70.
39 Geddes Citation2017, 119–20, 122, 223; Henderson and Henderson Citation2004, 76.
40 O’Regan Citation2018. I am indebted to one of the reviewers of this paper for a reference to The Penitential of Archbishop Egbert of ad 732–66, in which the eating of meat mauled by a bear or a wolf is forbidden (Oakley Citation1923, 122). This suggests that there were indeed still wild bears around in early medieval times in parts of Britain.
41 Bond Citation2010, 306.
42 Henderson Citation1996, 32–3.
43 Meigle 12, Canmore 30841; Allen and Anderson Citation1903, pt 3, 333–4; Burghead 3, Canmore 319203; Allen and Anderson Citation1903, pt 3, 121; Fraser Citation2008, no 152.3.
44 Meigle 22, Canmore 30852; Allen and Anderson Citation1903 pt 3, 337; St Madoes, Canmore 28201; Allen and Anderson Citation1903, pt 3, 292–6.
45 St Vigeans 1, Canmore 318444; Allen and Anderson Citation1903, pt 3, 235–9; Geddes Citation2017, 177–81; Murroes, Canmore 318444.
46 George Henderson pers comm.
47 Geddes Citation2017, 24–5.
48 Henderson Citation2005, 78.
49 Woolf Citation2013, 12; Fraser and Halliday Citation2011, 321–2.
50 Fraser Citation2009, 327.
51 Henderson Citation2005, 78–80.
52 Tarfside, Canmore 33920. Tarfside is linked with St Drostan through the placename Droustie’s Meadow, just north of the cross-slab, and Drostan is recorded in the Aberdeen Breviary as having founded a church at Glenesk around ad 700 (Macquarrie, with Butter Citation2012, 353–4). The southern part of the Firmounth is shared with yet another route from the Dee, known as The Fungle, but the Firmounth crosses the Dee much closer to Tullich.
53 North Water Bridge, Canmore 35868.
54 Geddes et al Citation2015, 270–1. Just to the east of Tarfside is the district placename Cairncross, within which area was a very large cairn mentioned in the mid-19th century: ‘It is not improbable that this Cairn may have had a Cross on or near it, from the fact of a portion of this district going by the name of Cairncross, but there is no tradition concerning it.’ (OSNB Citation1857–1861, 95). This placename may suggest that the role of the early Tarfside stone was supplemented later and some 2 km to the south-east by a larger cross-slab or even a free-standing cross.
55 Isabel Henderson pers comm.
56 Clancy Citation2009, 23–6.