Bewcastle Cross

The Bewcastle Cross is an Anglo-Saxon cross which is still in its original position within the churchyard of St Cuthbert's church at Bewcastle, in the English county of Cumbria. The cross, which probably dates from the 7th or early 8th century, features reliefs and inscriptions in the runic alphabet. The head of the cross is missing but the remains are 14.5 feet (4.4 metres) high, and almost square in section 22 x 21 1/4 inches (56 x 54 cm) at the base. The crosses of Bewcastle and Ruthwell have been described by the scholar Nikolaus Pevsner as "the greatest achievement of their date in the whole of Europe".

The cross is similar in many respects to the Ruthwell Cross, though the inscriptions are simpler, and seem to have a memorial function; together they are the largest and most elaborately decorated Anglo-Saxon crosses to have survived mostly intact, and they are generally discussed together.

The dating of both remains controversial, though Éamonn Ó Carragaáin, writing in 2007, says that "although there is lively discussion about the dates of these monuments, there is a growing consensus that both are to be dated to the first half of the eighth century: as it were, to the “Age of Bede” (who died in 735) or to the generation after his death"

There have been suggestions that neither cross was originally a single piece of stone completed in one phase of work, and both have been proposed as the earlier. The theory that the cross is probably the work of the team of masons and sculptors brought in by Benedict Biscop from the 670s to expand the monastery of Monkwearmouth-Jarrow Abbey, then one of the leading centres of culture in the Kingdom of Northumbria is still supported by the Bewcastle website; this reflects the dating of scholars such as Meyer Schapiro.

Each of the four sides of the cross is intricately decorated with reliefs divided into panels depicting figures (west side only), animals, chequers, vine scrolls, interlace knots, as well as a sundial. The north, west, and south sides of the cross feature runic inscriptions. The largest relief on the side with figures is, as at Ruthwell, Christ treading on the beasts, below Saint John the Baptist. At the bottom, below a panel of runes, is a much-discussed figure of a falconer, who is possibly St. John the Evangelist with his eagle in an unusual depiction, possibly misunderstood from a Syrian model of John with an oil-lamp.

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