The Tunwini Cross, detail of Runic inscription. Church of Saint Mary and Saint Michael, Great Urswick, Cumbria, England.
The Tunwini Cross is a part of an Anglo-Saxon sandstone cross, originally some three metres high. It was discovered in 1911 acting as a lintel to the easternmost South nave window. This window was in the process of being enlarged at the time of the discovery. The fact that it was used as a lintel accounts for it's peculiar shape, it had been cut and reused. It's design contains a memorial dedication in the earliest English script, runes. The runic inscription is mainly in the central panel of the face of the cross when looking towards the West end of the church but runs also between and over the two figures carved on the lower portion of the cross. Careful analysis of key parts of the runic inscription has demonstrated that names included in it have been overcut. It seems that the principal objective of this act was to disguise earlier names that link the inscription to the figures below the panel. The analysis allows the suggestion that these are two early Christian clerics, one named Luigne, from the Ionian monastic community in western Scotland and the other, considered to be Theodore, the 7th. Archbishop of Canterbury, who died in 690 He was originally from Tarsus in south-east Turkey. Tunwini is named on the top line of the inscription. His name is also an overcutting of that of another, who presumably did most of the work in creating this memorial to Theodore, namely Luibe. This description is extracted from the book "By water, by stone", by Steve Dickinson. 2004.
Size: 3356px × 5046px
Location: Church of Saint Mary and Saint Michael, Great Urswick, Cumbria, England, United Kingdom,
Photo credit: © Stan Pritchard / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: anglo-saxon, cross, cumbria, great, tunwini, urswick
