A carved section of a gritstone cross shaft from the Church of St Mary’s Bishophill Junior, in York. There are many fragments like this scattered across England, particularly in the north, but it is rare to see such a naturalistic depiction of people in Early Medieval carving. The two men here are shown with a sword and hunting horn, and shaking hands. The detail of the faces and their realisitic contemporary clothing is remarkable. They are interpreted as being the people who probably commissioned the cross. Dating from the 9th Century, there is some debate as to how much this follows Anglo-Saxon or Scandinavian styles, perhaps reflecting a continuity of taste from Anglian to Anglo-Scandinavian. Found in the 1860’s during church restoration in York, now in the Yorkshire Museum.
Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture entry: https://tinyurl.com/297maser
84 images, processed in Metashape and Blender.
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