Anglo-Saxon cross at Bewcastle (lower-res)

3D Model

The Anglo-Saxon cross shaft in St.Cuthbert’s churchyard, Bewcastle, Cumbria, UK. I’ve posted a higher-res version as well.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bewcastle_Cross for discussion; Pevsner called it (and the Ruthwell cross) “the greatest achievement of their date in the whole of Europe”.

The scan was taken from photos (August 2017) and processed using Colmap and Meshlab. The 3D file is not ideal: no scale bar, sorry (wikipedia says 4.4m/14.5’ – yes, HUGE); the north face (with the chequerboard) is less sharp than in reality; everything gets a bit vague at the top; the base should be fairly flat and square. The runes on the west face (etc) are genuinely hard to decipher (and have been for decades, it seems). However, it’s a marvellous artefact, more than 1200 years old, and for most people not convenient to visit, so I hope you like this 3D view. You can make out the sun-dial on the south face; the figure of Jesus trampling on animals; and all that abstract and figurative interlacing.