Rosemary Cramp 1929-2023
We are sad to share the news of the passing of the founder and leader of our project, Professor Dame Rosemary Cramp, who has died at the age of 93.
An internationally renowned archaeologist specialising in the archaeology and art of the early medieval world, Rosemary's contributions were far-reaching, most notably the founding of our long-running Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture project. She developed a strong interest in pre-Conquest sculpture soon after arriving in Durham, encouraged by V E Nash-Williams, and began to publish on sculpture in the 1960s, initially on the southern Scottish monuments. In 1972 the Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture was formally recognised and funded by the British Academy as a national project, and after assembling a team of scholars, the first volume, by Rosemary herself, was published in 1984. Her second CASSS volume came out in 2006.
After serving as Head of Department in Archaeology at Durham University for 19 years, from 1971-1990 Rosemary remained a key and active member of the department as an Emeritus Professor, continuing to publish and lead the completion of the Corpus in her last years. Rosemary has been the leading expert and voice on Anglo-Saxon stone sculpture for nearly 70 years and her rich legacy of published work on the subject will continue to be profoundly influential for all scholars, new and established, working in the field of early medieval sculpture studies. We will carry on Rosemary's work in the next few years with the much-anticipated publication of the remaining three volumes in the series, on Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire (XIV), East Midlands (XV) and Norfolk and Suffolk (XVI). Rosemary will be deeply missed by colleagues and friends.
The Corpus
The Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture identifies, records and publishes in a consistent format, English sculpture dating from the 7th to the 11th centuries. Much of this material was previously unpublished, and is of crucial importance in helping identify the earliest settlements and artistic achievements of the early medieval and Pre-Norman English. The Corpus documents the earliest Christian field monuments from free-standing carved crosses and innovative decorative elements, to grave-markers.
From Books to Online
In recent years, with the support of the AHRC, British Academy and the Aurelius Trust, the project has sought to release the data from all volumes online, as a searchable catalogue, accompanied by digital images. We have been working with the Archaeological Data Service to develop a new searchable platform and we will shortly be migrating to that new site.
IMPORTANT: Please note that as a result this site and the online searchable corpus will be unavailable for a few months while the migration of the datasets and searchable catalogues are moved over to the Archaeology Data Service.
The site and catalogues will not be accessible between the 1st January 2026 and the 30th April 2026. An interim landing page will be available at www.ascorpus.ac.uk on the Durham University website. Users can still request information, including high resolution images and .pdfs of previous volumes, by emailing corpus@durham.ac.uk
Project Sponsors
The Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture is supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Headley Trust, part of the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts, and by the British Academy, with additional funding from the Pilgrim Trust. Funding from the AHRC will now enable the completion of the project in book and digital form and facilitate a series of workshops and a final project conference. The online release of volumes has been made possible by support from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (1999-2004), The British Academy (ongoing), The Aurelius Trust (2013-14) and Durham University (2013). The full online release of our digital data has now been made possible by substantial funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
