Sculptured Stones

Sculptured Stones, a name given to the monnmental stones erected in the British Isles during the centuries which followed the introduction of Christianity. The earlier specimens are mostly unhewn and very rude in character. They have been divided into four classes - (1) those which bear Latin inscriptions in Roman capitals cut into the stone; (2) those in which a Keltic inscription in Ogam characters cut into the stone on one side corresponds to a Latin inscription in Roman letters (usually capitals) on the other; (3) those with Ogam inscriptions only; (4) those with inscriptions in Roman minuscules. This classification of the stones corresponds with their chronological order. The most important examples of the two former classes are found in Wales, of the two latter in Ireland; but all four are represented in England and Scotland also. The incised inscription comemorating the person buried. at the spot is frequently accompanied by an incised cross, and the stones of the third class are also ornamented with designs in relief of the type common in Keltic manuscripts of the Gospels; in the fourth class, of which there are numerous examples in the cemetery at Clonmacnois, the ornamentation is incised. There are also many sepulcbral stones with Runic inscriptions, both Anglian and Scandinavian. The finest examples of this class are cut in the shape of crosses with elaborate ornamentation. That at Ruthwell, in Dumfriesshire, preserves twenty-one lines from an Anglo-Saxon poem, The Dream of the Cross, ascribed to Cynewulf, of which no other copy was known before the discovery of a M.S. in 1823. The sculptured stones peculiar to Scotland, dating probably from the 7th to the 12th century, seldom bear inscriptions, but they display much rich ornamentation in relief, together with certain symbols (such as the mirror and comb) which do not occnr elsewhere and the meaning of which is unknown.