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: Two cross-shaft fragments, probably from the same shaft [1]
Measurements:
Burnsall 3: H. 25 cm (9.8 in); W. 25 > 24.5 cm (9.8 > 9.6 in); D. 17 > 16.5 cm (6.7 > 6.5 in)
Burnsall 4: H. 22.5 cm (8.8 in); W. 27.5 cm (10.8 in); D. 19 cm (7.5 in)
Stone type: As Burnsall (St Wilfrid) 2. Both pieces are from the same monument. [J.S.]
Plate numbers in printed volume: Ills. 93-6; 97-100
Corpus volume reference: Vol 8 p. 109
(There may be more views or larger images available for this item. Click on the thumbnail image to view.)
A tapering cross-shaft of rectangular section. All faces are edged by flat-band mouldings. Burnsall 4 appears to be the foot of the shaft, with a broad plain dressed area at the bottom of each face.
A (broad):
3. This face is very worn, but two confronted animals, with domed heads and drilled eyes, their stubby open jaws pointing to the top of the shaft, and their forepaws raised between them, can still be seen.
4. This is more difficult to read. There seems to be a volute- or twist-like feature in the bottom right corner and a triangular feature almost like a pair of legs set wide apart on the left (which Collingwood (1915a, 149, fig. o) did not record). It is not possible to reconstruct the completion of the pattern on this face, but the termination of an animal pattern involved in interlace is a possibility.
B (narrow):
3. A simple twist laces through two loose rings.4. The pattern on this face is much more worn but can be interpreted to show the half-ring/bar terminal as on face B of Burnsall 1.
C (broad):
3. Collingwood (1915a, 149, figs. m, q) interpreted this face as having loose rings through which lace two separate twists. However, this looks like a true interlace terminal, half pattern F with outside strands and a bar terminal. This face has a moulding above as well as on the sides.
4. The base of this face shows strands of a similar style of carving. The diagonal strands stop in the bottom corners without joining. The idea of two twists incorporating double rings looks more credible here, although the ring is incomplete, and apart from the terminal this could be a mirror image of 3C above.
D (narrow):
3. This face has two volutes of a stylised simple scroll, one enclosing a frond-like leaf.
4. I can see no trace of the terminal scroll which Collingwood (1915a, fig. r) suggested was faint but present.
Unfortunately the faces of this shaft which are potentially the most distinctive (A and D) are also those in which the pattern on Burnsall 3 cannot be convincingly followed through on Burnsall 4. In fact only on face C can a pattern to join both fragments be reconstructed, although my reconstruction as outlined above is not the same as that proposed by Collingwood. However, the stone type and dimensions agree and such traces as there are on the worn faces of Burnsall 4 suggest compatible patterns. As on Burnsall 1 and 2 there is a mixing of styles, with the loose rings on one side the strongest evidence for a date within the Anglo-Scandinavian period. Every other feature looks back to Anglian styles. The face with the scroll patterns (D), for example, and the broad face with the paired animals (A), are both looking back to influential crosses further down the river Wharfe, especially Ilkley 1 and 2 (Ills. 335–8, 357–60). Face C has traces of colour: Lang (1990b, 136) has pointed out that the punched carving technique probably means that the evidence for pigment has survived only in the worked depressions, where once it may have covered the entire decorative surface.
