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The date of the Ruthwell and Bewcastle crosses
The date of the Ruthwell and Bewcastle crosses Author:Albert Stanburrough Cook Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: The other two ends bend down into the upper half of the figure eight, and one, continuing, ends in a space outside the figure. The right vine is developed in exa... more »ctly the same way, in the opposite direction. The two halves of the figure eight are made somewhat heart-shaped by the offshoots which bend in, and, crossing, fill the space with fruit. The upper half has two bunches, the lower four, two depending from above, two springing from shoots below. The outside triangular spaces left by the figure eight are filled with bunches of fruit, which tip the ends of shoots. 5. Still another design of interlaced bands, taller than either of the preceding. At the edge of each face of the shaft there runs a border, inside of which is a narrower molding. Runes, now illegible, once occupied the spaces between successive panels. GENERAL DISCUSSION OF THE CROSSES OUTLINE In dealing with the crosses, we have to consider: I. The Inscriptions. II. The Figure-Sculpture. III. The Decorative Sculpture. I. The Inscriptions. These are: 1. Runic. 2. Latin. The runic inscriptions on the Ruthwell Cross, so far as they are intelligible, embody fragments of an Old English poem, The Dream of the Rood. At least one short one on the Bewcastle Cross appears to spell a proper name. The longest inscription is practically illegible, but the two or three words which perhaps can be made out seem to point to a possible memorial purpose. The Latin inscriptions (found only on the Ruthwell Cross) are extracts from the Gospels, or other phrases and short sentences, descriptive of the figure-sculpture with which they are associated. An examination of both the runic and the Latin inscriptions with reference to their date would have reference to: A. The forms of the letters. Here it...« less