The Corpus: Winchester (Old Minster) 63

Volume 4: South-East England

Select a site alphabetically from the choices shown in the box below. Alternatively, browse sculptural examples using the Forward/Back buttons.

Chapters for this volume, along with copies of original in-text images, are available here.

Current Display: Winchester (Old Minster) 63, Hampshire

Overview

Object type: Fragment

Measurements: H. 7.5 > 1 cm (3 > 0.4 in); W. 11.5 > 1.5 cm (4.5 > 0.6 in); D. 8.5 > 7 cm (3.3 > 2.8 in)

Stone type: Whitish-grey (10YR 8/1–2), fine-grained limestone, mottled with pale yellow (2.5Y 8/6) patches of 5 mm diameter; the stone is riddled with circular to elongate perforations of 0.2–0.3 mm diameter, and includes smooth-shelled gastropods of 6 mm whorl diameter and vacant moulds of gastropod shell fragments; Bembridge limestone, Bembridge Formation, Palaeogene, Tertiary; Isle of Wight

Plate numbers in printed volume: Ills. 599

Corpus volume reference: Vol 4 p. 303-304

(There may be more views or larger images available for this item. Click on the thumbnail image to view.)

Present Location

Winchester City Museum, Historic Resources Centre, Hyde House, Winchester, accessions no. 2943 WS 273

Evidence for Discovery

Found in archaeological excavation north of Winchester cathedral in 1964 in burial earth below New Minster; Final Phase 32 (Provisional Phase 575), late ninth-century

Church Dedication

Old Minster

Present Condition

Two dressed faces and the carved face survive, all very worn and rounded; there are smears of chalk on the upper face.

Description

A border, 1–1.5 cm wide, runs along one edge of the interlace. Two pelleted bands, each c. 2.5 cm wide, survive.

Discussion

The carving of the interlace bands is barely more than incision, and the effect is weak by comparison with Winchester (Old Minster) nos. 59–60 and 62. The stone is unusually worn, and might possibly be part of a grave-marker, weathered in the open. The stone was already broken in its late ninth-century context, and is therefore earlier.

Date

Late ninth century or earlier

References

Biddle and Kjølbye-Biddle 1990b, 45 - 64; Biddle and Kjølbye-Biddle forthcoming a, fig. 148, no. 64

M.B.; B.K.-B.

Endnotes