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Sculptured stone

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from Kiloran Bay, Colonsay, Inner Hebrides

Sculptured stone
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This schist slab is one of two with incised crosses used to make up a stone burial enclosure within a boat grave at Kiloran Bay on Colonsay in the Inner Hebrides. A man was buried within the enclosure with a range of grave goods sometime between 875 and 925.

The cross is roughly incised on one face and is likely to have been a Christian grave-marker. It may have been robbed from a nearby Christian graveyard or monastic site about which we have no other evidence.

The slabs in the burial were set on end to form an enclosure either within or under a boat. It is unusual to find Viking graves in stone enclosures, and the custom may have been adopted from the native Picts.

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