Celtic cross (Irish: cros Cheilteach, Scottish Gaelic: crois Cheilteach, Manx: crosh Cheltiagh, Welsh: croes Geltaidd, Cornish: krows geltek, Breton: kroaz geltek) is a symbol that combines a cross with a ring surrounding the intersection. It belongs to a kind of crosses with a nimbus. In the Celtic Christian world it was combined with the Christian cross and this design was often used for high crosses – a free-standing cross made of stone and often richly decorated. With the Celtic Revival the shape, usually decorated with interlace and other motifs from Insular art, became popular for funerary monuments and other uses, and has remained so, spreading well beyond Great Britain and Ireland.
Famous quotes containing the words celtic and/or cross:
“Coming to Rome, much labour and little profit! The King whom you seek here, unless you bring Him with you you will not find Him.”
—Anonymous 9th century, Irish. “Epigram,” no. 121, A Celtic Miscellany (1951, revised 1971)
“It was mankind that hung on the cross for two thousand years: and a terrible god practiced his cruelty and called it “love.””
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)