PEEBL/2

Corpus Refs:none
Site:PEEBL
Discovery:in/on structure, 1967 Lawson, I.
History:NMRS/NT24SE8, states that the stone `probably originally stood in a graveyard on the site of the Cross Kirk...[it[ was discovered in November 1967, built into a retaining wall at the rear of the public garden immediately W of St Andrew's Church (NT 250 405). Until 1932, it was built into a tenement wall there, which was demolished in that year. It has now been removed and is on display in the Chambers Institution, Peebles [i.e. Peebles Museum]'.

CISP: The stone was stolen from display in Peebles Museum in the late 1970s or early 1980s. A decade later it was anonymously returned.

Steer/1969, 127: `In November 1967, a few months after the publication of the Royal Commission's Inventory of Peebleshire, Mr I. C. Lawson, the Secretary of the newly formed Tweedale Society, drew the writer's attention to an inscribed stone which at that time was built into a retaining wall at the rear of the small public garden that fronts on to the street known as Old Town, within the burgh of Peebles, immediately to the west of St Andrew's (Church of Scotland) Church. Although Mr Lawson had been aware of the existence of this stone since childhood, no record of it seems to have been published; and at the time when the burgh was being surveyed by the Comission's staff it was screened from view by a vigorous contoneaster shrub. ...The likelihood is that it originally stood in a graveyard on the site of the cross Kirk, Peebles, but scarcely anything is known about its subsequent history. Mr Lawson's father recalls, however, that until 1932 it was incorporated in the wall of a tenement property which occupied the site of the present garden, and which was demolished in that year in order to allow the road to be widened. The tenement was erected about 1780, and the stone may have been built into the fabric at the outset, for although the walls of the cross Kirk itself were left untouched for some years after the building was abandoned in 1784, the adjoining claustral buildings, which probably overlay part of the ancient graveyard, were being used as a quarry for building material from the seventeenth century onwards'.

Geology:
Dimensions:0.48 x 0.22 x 0.09 (converted from NMRS)
Setting:in display
Location:Peebles Museum
Form:cross-marked
NMRS/NT24SE8: `a kite-shaped boulder...It is carved on the front and back. The back depicts a cross, similar to that on the front but smaller and inferior in execution'.
Condition:complete , good
Folklore:none
Crosses:1: latin; linear; expanded; ; ; none; none; none; n/a
2: latin; linear; expanded; ; ; none; none; none; n/a
Decorations:

Front - cross and text.

Back - cross.

Top - oval indentation.

References


Inscriptions


PEEBL/2/1

Readings

Steer, K. (1967):NE || ITANO | SACER || DOS
Expansion:
NEITANO SACERDOS
Translation:
(Here lies) Neitan (PN) the priest (or bishop).
Steer/1969 128 reading only
NMRS (1979):NE || ITANO | SACER || DOS
Expansion:
NEITANO SACERDOS
NMRS/NT24SE8 reading only

Notes

Orientation:horizontal
Position:n/a ; broad ; around cross ; inc
Incision:chiselled
Steer/1968-69, 128: `well executed with a flat chisel'.
Date:666 - 733 (NMRS/NT24SE4)

666 - 733 (Steer/1969)
Language:Latin (rbook)
Ling. Notes:none
Palaeography:Steer/1968-69, 128: `the letters are semi-uncial with the addition of a few Roman capital forms, as in contemporary manuscripts'.

The initial `N' is almost H-shaped, the Es are half-uncial, the I and T run over each other, with the T in half-uncial. The A is angle-barred with a flat top, and the following N is also almost H-shaped. The final O is rounded and large. On the second line the S is a standard capital, and the A is again angle-barred and flat-topped. The shape of the C is rounded and the E is again half-uncial. The R is an open-bowed capital, and the following D is half-uncial, while the next O is thinner than that in the previous line. The final S is again capital-shaped, but it also leans to the right.

Legibility:good
The text is clear.
Lines:2
Carving errors:
Doubtful:no

Names

References