View ENE of the Pillar of Eliseg, Llangollen, Wales, UK, a fragmentary C9th inscribed cross-shaft & base atop an Early Bronze burial cairn.
View ENE of the Pillar of Eliseg, a fragmentary (cross-head & lower part of shaft are missing) C9th inscribed cross-shaft & base atop an Early Bronze Age burial cairn close to Valle Crucis abbey, Denbighshire, Wales, UK. Cross originally erected c 825 by Concenn (Cyngen) the last Early Medieval ruler of Powys (d 854) in tribute to his great-grandfather Eliseg (Elise) chief opponent of Offa of Mercia in the mid C8th, & the origins of the princely house of Powys reputedly going back to the Roman usurper Magnus Maximus in the late C4th. The inscription was defaced during the Civil War & the cross was lying on the ground when Edward Lhuyd recorded it in 1696. Around 1773 the landowner, Trevor Lloyd, excavated the top & W slope of the mound, reputedly finding an inhumation in a stone coffin. In 1779 he re-erected the base & shaft on a plinth, heightened the mound & removed some of the ground surface to make the mound look bigger. The mound was excavated 2010-12 by Nancy Edwards et al who confirmed it as a two-phase Early Bronze Age cairn, defined by a kerb of large slabs & boulders & containing human cremated bone in at least three stone cists.
Size: 3804px × 4961px
Location: Eliseg's Pillar, Valle Crucis, Llangollen, Denbighshire, Wales, UK
Photo credit: © Mick Sharp / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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