In preparation for Exhibition
In preparation for our major temporary exhibition Words on the Wave: Ireland and St. Gallen in Early Medieval Europe, opening in late May this year, we reveal the ongoing conservation and scanning work on the famous high cross shaft from Banagher, Co. Offaly (1929:1497). The cross helps tell the story of the connections between art, belief and society in the world which produced the manuscripts. Preparing such a large and important object which has been in the collection for many years for exhibition is a complex thing and needs the skills of many people.
Rob Shaw of the Discovery Programme recording the Banagher stone in detail
What do we know about this cross shaft?
Dating to around 800AD, this decorated stone cross shaft is an example of the type of art used on stone, metalwork and manuscripts in this period often known as the Golden Age of Irish Art.
It was removed from the early ecclesiastical site at Banagher to Clonmacnoise in the nineteenth century and deposited in the National Museum in 1929. All four faces of the surviving section are carved with panels containing figural or abstract motifs, sometimes combined. The upper side-panels have been damaged by the insertion of rectangular mortices, which along with another recess atop the shaft may stem from the secondary addition of a ring. The original monument is therefore likely to have been a ringless high cross, though archaeologist and art-historian Peter Harbison raised the possibility that it was designed as a decorated pillar.
How is it decorated and what does it mean?
The panels of the first of the two broad faces of the shaft feature, from bottom to top:
Four slender human figures with interlocking legs and a connecting band of interlace emanating from their hair:
Caught in a trap?
A stag with its leg caught in a rectangular trap; a man on horseback carrying a crozier and a lion with protruding tongue above.
Interlace, Animals and Ultimate La Tène.
The panels on the other broad face contain: a two-strand interlace motif between animal figures below and the upper bodies of two humans above, their hair linked by a further strand of interlace; a lion with protruding tongue and interlace above; a two-strand interlace pattern.
The first narrow side: a zoomorphic interlace; a single-strand interlace pattern; an Ultimate La Tène design featuring peltae, C- or S-scrolls and spirals/triskeles; a long, coiled creature with fish-like tail.
The other narrow side: a large single-strand interlace pattern incorporating slender biting creatures; an Ultimate La Tène design similar to that described above; a further interlace pattern with the biting heads of creatures at its base.
Parallels in Manuscript Art
Harbison compared the interlace pattern incorporating the four human figures to the decoration of the initial P on page 3 of the mid-ninth-century St. Gallen Priscian, a copy of a famous Latin grammar book with a large number of comments in Old Irish (Cod. Sang. 904). The book which was probably written in the northeast of Ireland will travel to Dublin for our exhibition. The human figures wrapped in interlace and knotwork also recall those on the ends of a cross on another St. Gallen manuscript fragment coming for our exhibition (Cod.Sang.1395).
Detail from Cod. Sang. 904 p. 3. Copyright Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen
Detail from Cod. Sang. 1395 p.422, Stiftsbibliothek, St. Gallen.
As part of the preparatory work for the exhibition, The Discovery Programme scanned the cross shaft and created a 3D model. This work reveals the amazing detail visible in the cross.
Careful conservation work by Julia Gebel of Gebel Helling conservation has stabilised and cleaned the stone, removed it from its old base and prepared a new mount which will secure the stone for the future. They will work with mountmakers and the exhibition contractors to allow this treasure to shine for the public from May 2025.
Julia Gebel of Gebel and Helling working on cleaning and consolidating the Banagher Shaft
Words on the Wave: Ireland and St. Gallen in Early Medieval Europe | Archaeology | National Museum of Ireland
