page_title: Margam Stones Museum
section_title: No. 7. Cross of Conbelin
hierarchical_section_title: Margam Stones Museum / Sculptured crosses and cross slabs / No. 7. Cross of Conbelin
caption_attribution_description: English: 11th C, slab cross from Margam. It is now in the Margam Stones Museum nr Port Talbot.
context_page_description: Margam Stones Museum is a small Victorian schoolhouse near Port Talbot, South Wales, which now provides a home for one of the most important collections of Celtic stone crosses in Britain. All originally found within the locality of Margam, and mostly assembled as a collection in the 19th century, they provide enduring testimony to a Welsh Christian culture between the 6th and 16th centuries. The striking Cross of Conbelin is the most celebrated example. From around 1000 AD, it is a huge disc cross with Celtic interlace and plaitwork patterns, figurative scenes including a hunting scene, and inscriptions telling us who made it and who erected it. There are 17 early Christian stones, plus 11 memorials and other stones from the post-Norman periods. The museum is run by Cadw, the Welsh historic sites agency, and is close to Margam Abbey Church and the ruins of the Abbey buildings.
context_section_description: The largest of the Margam Stones, and with the most decorative and figurative carvings, the RCAHMW describe it as "the most impressive of the monuments of this category in the county, if not in all Wales". It has an immense stone wheel-cross with knot-work arcs, plaitwork cross, and a central boss. The shaft includes carved figures flanking the cross, taken to be St John holding his gospel, and the virgin Mary. This is set into a massive stone pedestal block with intricate geometrical patterns and a hunting scene which would originally have formed the front, but was at some point reversed, so is now at the back of the pedestal. Both parts are made from Pennant sandstone and it has been known traditionally as 'The Sanctuary Stone'.
  Date
  Some time between 950 and 1050 AD.
  Dimensions
  Total height is 2.61 metres (8.6 ft). The head and shaft are a single stone, 1.85 metres (6.1 ft) high (with a further 13 centimetres (5.1 in) within the pedestal socket). The shaft was originally longer by perhaps 18 centimetres (7.1 in), probably re-socketed before the Reformation. The head is 1.07 metres (3.5 ft) in diameter, and some 28 centimetres (11 in) thick. The pedestal is rectangular, 0.67 metres (2.2 ft) high, 1.2 metres (3.9 ft) wide, and 0.63 metres (2.1 ft) deep.
  Inscriptions
  1, within the top-left quadrant of the cross: CONBELIN P[O]SUIT HANC CRUCEM (P[RO] [A]NIMA RI[C?])
  'Conbelin erected this cross for the soul of Ric...'
  2, on the upper left ring margin: + SODNA + CRUCEM FECIT
  Sodna made this cross.
  Location
  It was first documented in 1690 and in 1798 it was leaning against the wall of a cottage outside Margam churchyard. By 1879 it had been moved by the Talbot family into the Chapter House ruins of the Abbey, and in 1932 was transferred to the Museum building.
caption: No 8. Disc-headed slab cross
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