The Birds of the Manx Crosses
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 2019-06-11

After the Vikings settled in the Isle of Man, they gradually became Christian, and in the middle of the 10th century adopted the local custom of erecting memorial stones for their dead. They enthusiastically adapted this new medium to their taste and created intricately carved monuments – the so-called Scandinavian 'Manx Crosses'. Apart from interlace and runic inscriptions, they frequently feature scenes with human figures and animals, which have constantly been a challenge to scholarly interpretation, as despite of the everpresent Christian cross clearly the old pagan images had not been forgotten.
Among the animals in the carvings are a number of birds, many of which can be identified zoologically with some certainty. Being carved on gravestones, at least most of them appear to have religious significance – and to be illustrating both Christian and pagan traditions and thought, respectively: the doves of Christ meet Óðin's ravens. It seems, however, that regardless of spiritual background they may have been small parts of a common message, indicating the transitional character of both the cross-slabs and Manx society in the mid-/late 10th century, when (formerly) pagan Vikings and the Christian Manx mixed.

Dirk H. Steinforth (Independent Researcher)

TAG Deva 2018
Session: Beasts, Birds and Other Fauna: Animals and Their Meaning in the Early Middle Ages