Volume 6: Northern Yorkshire

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Current Display: Whitby 32 (abbey), Yorkshire North Riding Forward button Back button
Overview
Present Location
Formerly in the site museum, Whitby Abbey (EH 81430029). Stolen in 1996.
Evidence for Discovery
See Whitby 1 (abbey, St Peter and St Hilda). Probably the 'Saxon stone used as a mould' found on 1 October 1925, in section 10, low level (Whitby finds register, no. 1068). Section 10 is at some distance from the trenches along the north wall of the nave where most of the funerary sculpture was found (see Fig. 19).
Church Dedication
St Peter and St Hilda
Present Condition
Unobtainable
Description

The shape of one edge of this piece indicates that it was a plain cross-arm, type D9, reused as a mould with three incisions, one rectangular, one circular and one spoon-shaped.

Discussion

The long rectangular shapes are plausibly for ingots, the round shape possibly for a stud, and the spoon shape possibly for an ornament. The ingots would be consonant with a Viking-age date (David Wilson, pers. comm.), and this piece is an important indication of activity on the site at that period.[2]

R.C.

Date
Originally seventh to eighth century, reused ninth to tenth century
References
Peers and Radford 1943, 37n; Cramp 1976b, 456; Graham-Campbell 1980a, 8
Endnotes

[1] The following are general references to the Whitby stones: Hood 1927, 38, 45, 49; Kendall 1932, 9–10, 26–7, 28; Peers and Radford 1943, 33–40; Clapham 1952, 11; Wilson, D. 1964, 9; Cramp 1965b, 4; Fellows-Jensen 1972, 218; Cramp 1976a, 228; Cramp 1976b, 455–7; Rahtz 1976, 460; Cramp 1978a, 7; Bailey 1980, 81, 82; Okasha 1983, 118; Cramp 1984, 9, 79, 109, 180, 222; Higgitt 1986b, 130–1, 134, 148; Bailey and Cramp 1988, 55, 56, 85, 154; Cramp 1989, 223; Lang 1989a, 67; Lang 1990a, 2–3; Higgitt 1991, 45; Lang 1991, 24, 109, 138, 139; Cramp 1992, 8, 24, 107, 224, 252; Okasha 1992, 84; Cramp 1993, 68–9, 71; Fellows-Jensen 1995, 177; Higgitt 1995, 229–36; Rahtz 1995, 7–8; Bailey 1996a, 50–1, 111; Hawkes 1999b, 403, 410–16; Karkov 1999, 133–4; Stocker 2000, 200; Stopford 2000, 102, 104.

[2] A second mould from the Whitby excavations (EH 81430751), which has been illustrated in several publications on Viking-age archaeology (Foote and Wilson 1970, pl. 1b; Wilson, D. 1976b, 395; Graham-Cam


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