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:
“It is an agreeable change to cross a lake, after you have been shut up in the woods, not only on account of the greater expanse of water, but also of sky. It is one of the surprises which Nature has in store for the traveler in the forest. To look down, in this case, over eighteen miles of water, was liberating and civilizing even.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Remember? We sat on a slab of rock.
From this distance in time,
it seems the color
of iris, rotting and turning purpler,
but it was only
the usual gray rock”
—Robert Lowell (1917–1977)