Edderton Cross Slab is a Class III Pictish stone standing in the old graveyard of the village of Edderton, Easter Ross. The stone is of red sandstone. On the western side there is an undecorated but elegant celtic cross, the circles within its rings emphasised by being left in relief. On the eastern side there is another cross on the upper half, standing on a semi-circular base or arch, within which is a horseman in relief, with two further riders incised below. The slab was formerly sunk considerably deeper in the earth, concealing the lower two horsemen, but has recently been raised to its presumed original height (notice the lack of lichen on the lower half in the accompanying photograph).
This monument should not be confused with the Edderton Symbol Stone, or Clach Biorach ("pointed stone"), a red sandstone pillar of Bronze Age origin with Pictish symbols incised on it, which stands in a field near the village of Edderton a little to the west.
Further fragments of early medieval cross-slabs, in poor condition, from Edderton churchyard, are preserved in Tain Museum.
Famous quotes containing the words cross and/or slab:
“Flood-tide below me! I see you face to face!
Clouds of the west—sun there half an hour
high—I see you also face to face.
Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, how curious you are to me!
On the ferry-boats the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning
home, are more curious to me than you suppose,
And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“Another day. Deliberations are recessed
In an iron-blue chamber of that afternoon
On which we wore things and looked well at
A slab of business rising behind the stars.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)