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.
Object type: Part of cross-head
Measurements: H. 18 cm (7.1 in); W. 30 cm (11.8 in); D. 17 cm (6.7 in)
Stone type: A well sorted medium-grained reddened sandstone with sub-angular to sub-rounded grains including alkali feldspar and some muscovite mica. Light reddish brown (5YR 5/3) body colour. The reddish body colour of this rock suggests an origin with near proximity to the Permian unconformity. In part, the Plompton Grit in the vicinity of the cathedral and the lower Skell valley (at Fountains Abbey) yields stone with the characteristics indicated above. A finer variety of the Plompton Grit, Millstone Grit, Namurian, Upper Carboniferous. [J.S.]
Plate numbers in printed volume: Ills. 660-4
Corpus volume reference: Vol 8 p. 236
(There may be more views or larger images available for this item. Click on the thumbnail image to view.)
One arm, and part of another, of a cross-head of type B10.
A (broad): A kneeling or crouching figure (depending on whether this is an upper or side arm), holds one hand in front of and touching his face, the other extended in front of him. No other features are identifiable. The face is edged by a plain flat moulding.
B (narrow) or F (bottom): A complete armpit, tooled smooth, no border
C (broad): A flat edge moulding frames the main surviving arm, enclosing a double-stranded interlace knot, a pattern F loop with the terminals distorted to fit into the corners. The diagonals are clearly extending into the adjacent arms.
D (narrow) or E (top): The remains of a plain armpit, no border.
E (top) or B (narrow): The end of the arm has a flat edge moulding, within which is a design composed of two diagonally disposed, double-stranded, linked ovals. The decoration implies that this is indeed a side arm.
F (bottom) or D (narrow): Missing
This is one of a small group of Northumbrian carvings, identified by James Lang, which depict the Germanic hero Sigurðr (Sigurd): here Sigurd sucking his thumb, part of a scene in which he roasts and eats the dragon's heart (Lang 1976a, 83–94). Among parallels is the important shaft from Nunburnholme in eastern Yorkshire, in which the appropriateness of the feast on a Christian monument, as a reference to the mass, has been recognised (Lang 1976b, 88, pl. Vb; id. 1991, 193, ill. 728). The closest comparable example is Kirby Hill 2, north Yorkshire, where the headless Regin and Sigurd are arranged one below the other on a shaft beneath the feet of the crucified Christ (Lang 2001, 130, ill. 356). The interlace on face C links it to the cross-head now in Blackpool (Ripon 3). Its subject matter, however, indicates, even better than Ripon 3, the influence of Scandinavian patrons in the late ninth to tenth centuries.
