This book presents essays that exemplify key themes including the interdependence of conservation, research and access; the need for a 21st-century inventory of the medieval sculpture; the breadth and value of the wide range of the research tools; and conservation issue.
This publication is the outcome of the 'Able Minds and Practised Hands' seminar organised by Historic Scotland (the seminar sponsors), the Society for Medieval Archaeology and the National Committee on Carved Stones in Scotland. This took place at The Hub, Edinburgh, on 3-4 April 2003, where it was attended by more than 180 people from all over the British Isles. Marking the centenary of the publication of Scotland’s first and only corpus of early medieval sculpture, Allen and Anderson’s 'Early Christian Monuments of Scotland', the more detailed rationale behind this event is described in the introductory paper. John Higgitt’s concluding contribution builds on what was the key and unifying outcome of the presentations and discussions at the seminar, the need for a 21st-century corpus.
Author(s): Sally M. Foster, Morag Cross (eds.)
Series: The Society for Medieval Archaeology Monographs, 23
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2005
Language: English
Pages: 446
City: London
FOREWORD / By Lisbeth M. Thoms viii
PREFACE X
EDITORIAL NOTE xii
Chapter 1. Introduction. Able Minds and Practised Hands: historical fact, 21st-century aspiration / Sally M. Foster 1
Chapter 2. Sculpture in action: contexts for stone carving on the Tarbat peninsula, Easter Ross / Martin Carver 13
Chapter 3. 'That stone was born here and that’s where it belongs': Hilton of Cadboll and the negotiation of identity, ownership and belonging / Sian Jones 37
Chapter 4. 'Just an aid steen': reverence, reuse, revulsion and rediscovery / Iain Fraser 55
Chapter 5. Fragments of significance: the whole picture / Isabel Henderson 69
Chapter 6. Christ’s Cross down into the earth: some cross-bases and their problems / Ian Fisher 85
Chapter 7. Pictish cross-slabs: an examination of their original archaeological context / Heather F. James 95
Chapter 8. 'Hie memoria perpetua': the early inscribed stones of southern Scotland in context / Katherine Forsyth 113
Chapter 9. The Govan School revisited: searching for meaning in the early medieval sculpture of Strathclyde / Stephen T. Driscoll, Oliver O’Grady and Katherine Forsyth 135
Chapter 10. Scotland’s early medieval sculpture in the 21st century: a strategic overview of conservation problems, maintenance and replication methods / Ingval Maxwell 159
Chapter 11. The containment of Scottish carved stones 'in situ': an environmental study of the efficacy of glazed enclosures / Colin Muir 175
Chapter 12. The runic inscriptions of Scotland: preservation, documentation and interpretation / Michael P. Barnes and R. I. Page 187
Chapter 13. Understanding what we see, or seeing what we understand: graphic recording, past and present, of the early medieval sculpture at St. Vigeans / John Borland 201
Chapter 14. The bulls of Burghead and Allen’s technique of illustration / Ian G. Scott 215
Chapter 15. 'A perfect accuracy of delineation': Charlotte Wilhelmina Hibbert’s drawings of early medieval carved stones in Scotland / David Henry and Ross Trench-Jellicoe 221
Chapter 16. Bird, beast or fish? Problems of identification and interpretation of the iconography carved on the Tarbat peninsula cross-slabs / Kellie S. Meyer 243
Chapter 17. Figuring salvation: an excursus into the iconography of the Iona crosses / Jane Hawkes 259
Chapter 18. The role of geological analysis of monuments: a case study from St. Vigeans and related sites / Suzanne Miller and Nigel A. Ruckley 277
Chapter 19. The early medieval sculptures from Murthly, Perth and Kinross: an interdisciplinary look at people, politics and monumental art / Mark A. Hall, Isabel Henderson and Ian G. Scott 293
Chapter 20. Know your properties, recognise the possibilities: Historic Scotland’s strategy for the interpretation of early medieval sculpture in its care / Sally M. Foster 315
Chapter 21. Proposals for the re-display of the early medieval sculpture collection at Whithorn: the evolution of an interpretative approach / Peter Yeoman 325
Chapter 22. Curators of the last resort: the role of a local museum service in the preservation and interpretation of early medieval sculptured stones / Norman K. Atkinson 335
Chapter 23. A museum curator’s adventures in Pictland / Mark A. Hall 343
Chapter 24. The missing dimension: future directions in digital recording of early medieval sculptured stone / Stuart Jeffrey 353
Chapter 25. Three-dimensional recording of Pictish sculpture / Alistair Carty 367
Chapter 26. Towards a 'New ECMS': the proposal for a new 'Corpus of Early Medieval Sculpture in Scotland' / John Higgitt 375
ABBREVIATIONS 381
BIBLIOGRAPHY 381
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS 413
INDEX 415
