Ruthwell Cross
Thought to date back to around AD 680 and standing some 18 feet (5.5 metres) high, this magnificent cross is the both the most famous and elaborate Anglo-Saxon monumental sculpture.
Featuring intricate inscriptions in both Latin and, more unusually for a Christian monument, the runic alphabet, the Ruthwell Cross is inscribed with one of the largest figurative inscriptions found on any surviving Anglo-Saxon cross.
The cross escaped ruin during the general destruction of religious artifacts that accompanied the early Reformation but in 1662 the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland ordered that all idolatrous monuments erected and made for religious worship had to destroyed and the cross was destroyed by Presbyterian iconoclasts in 1664. It was restored in 1818 by Henry Duncan and in 1887 moved to its current location in the beautiful Ruthwell church, in Dumfriesshire, where you can admire it encased in a specially built apse.
Contact
Mr
Graeme
Bowie
Ruthwell
Nr Dumfries
Dumfries & Galloway
DG1
Scotland
Tel: +44 (131) 6888800
Fax: +44 (131) 6888888
E-Mail: hs.explorer@scotland.gsi.gov.uk
WWW: http://www.ruthwellkirk.org.uk
