After 10 years of fundraising, planning and research, 11 ancient and medieval cross slabs in Kirk Andreas church on the Isle of Man will be relocated to a new museum space inside the church where they can be viewed in all their detail and easily accessed for conservation.
The Manx Crosses are a group of 210 cross slabs carved of local slate on the Isle of Man from the late 5th century through the early 13th. The earliest examples were Celtic Christian high crosses. After the Norse conquest in the 9th century, the Viking population melded their tradition of carved slabs inscribed with runes and intricate designs of animals, people and deities with the Celtic crosses. Manx National Heritage has scanned and digitized the Manx Crosses and made the 3D models available for perusal here.
Over the centuries were often recycled, used as lintels, in wall construction, even as hitching posts. In the Victorian era, antiquarians recognized their historic significance, and recovered them from their random locations, placing groups of them in kirkyards where they were no longer being used to bear loads and park horses, but they were still fully exposed to the elements.
In the middle of the 20th century, many of the kirks moved their collections of cross slabs into the church buildings. Now they were indoors, but these moves were done with no concept of modern conservatorial principles like reversibility and the use non-invasive materials. The 11 slabs and fragments at Kirk Andreas were concreted directly into the floor of the church. They are close together, hard to view and hard to conserve.
Removing delicate slate slabs from concrete bases without damage is a difficult task, hence the decade of research into how this could be accomplished.
It has been agreed by the church authorities and Manx National Heritage to move the crosses to a better site at the NW corner of the nave, including a state-of-the-art museum showcase for fragments of three small cross slabs of particular value and interest. […]
The two large crosses, the 5ft tall Sandulf’s cross slab and a 6ft tall stone carved by Gaut who named himself in the runes, will then be set so that they can be freely examined, while the collection of early Celtic fragments, some found at the Knock y Dooney keeil, will be set along the north wall.
All will have focused lighting to ensure every surviving motif in the carving is visible.
Among the notable cross slabs in Kirk Andreas is Sandulf’s Cross, aka Arinbjork’s Cross, a mid- 10th century funerary marker 1.93 meters (6.4 feet) high with a runic dedication from Sandulf the Black to his deceased wife Arinbjork. It is covered in reliefs of animals — roosters, goats, wolfs, deer, bears — and the figure of a woman riding sidesaddle in a horse. It is the only known depiction of a Viking woman on a grave slab.
Another one, Thorwald’s Cross, is a unique representation of the transition from traditional Norse religion to Christianity, featuring Odin being eaten by Fenris the wolf at Ragnorok, the final apocalyptical battle in Norse mythology, on one side, and Christian iconography of cross, fish and a defeated serpent on the other. It is so significant that the British Museum selected it as one of the artifacts in its seminal History of the World in 100 objects exhibit.
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