Casgliadau Arlein

Basal portion of a shaft from a composite slab-cross, with tenon below (? for mounting in a socketed base). The top is fractured away; the foot is shaped to a rough tenon. The shaft is inscribed on the two main faces and decorated on the edges with rudely carved or incised patterns (weathered and damaged).

The shaft of a sandstone cross from Ogmore, south-east Wales, about 1000-1050 CE. It commemorates the donation of a field to the church by Arthmail.

The earliest stone carving that has survived from medieval Wales is letter cutting. By the 800s, sculptors in monasteries had developed their own local styles of lettering. The ‘Ogmore’ sculptor probably copied his text from a master copy written on a wax tablet.

Paladr croes o Ogwr, ger Pen-y-bont ar Ogwr, tua 1000-1050 OC. Mae’r groes dywodfaen hon yn coffáu Arthmael yn rhoi cae i’r eglwys.

Llythrennau yw’r cerfiadau carreg cynharaf i oroesi o’r Oesoedd Canol yng Nghymru. Erbyn yr 800au, roedd cerflunwyr mynachlog wedi datblygu eu harddulliau lleol o gerfio llythrennau. Mae’n debygol fod ‘cerflunydd Ogwr’ wedi copïo’i lythrennau ef o dabled cwyr gwreiddiol.

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