Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2006, Page 48

Steffen Stummann Hansen and John Sheehan
erary evidence of Dicuil and the Naviga-
tio Sancti Brendani, independent of the
bonhús-type enclosures discussed above.
Conversely, if the slabs are shown to be
Viking Age in date, it follows that they
cannot be used to support the evidence of
these sources, though they may, of course,
be considered in the light of the other
archaeological and related evidence for
connections between the Hiberno-Scan-
dinavian settlements in Ireland and the
North Atlantic region during the Viking
Age (see below).
This is not the place to give a
full account of the Skúvoy cross-inscribed
slabs12 . However, it is opportune to make
some important points conceming them,
particularly in view of the fact that they
are sometimes dismissed, firstly, as being
similar in only a general way to Early
Medieval slabs from Ireland, and, second-
ly, as being impossible to date to before
the critical threshold of c.800 AD. It is the
authors’ contention that neither of these
objections are valid, and that some, at
least, of the Skúvoy slabs most probably
date to before the Scandinavian landnám
period.
The most crucial slab in this
connection is no. 8 in Kermode’s listing
(1931, 374). This is a basalt slab, measur-
ing 41 cm in length and 23 cm in width.
One face is occupied by a simple Latin
cross of outline form, measuring 27 cm
long and 21 cm wide (Fig. 12). There
is a small depression or dimple located
at the meeting of the crosses’ arms with
its shaft, and a short groove, 2.5 cm in
length, extends outwards from the upper
terminal of the cross to the viewer’s right
(Fig. 13). This feature may be identified
as a simplified version of the rho element
of the chi-rho symbol, in which the loop
of the rho is depicted.
The chi-rho symbol is made up
of the initial two letters, merged togeth-
er, of Christ’s name in Greek, chi (%)
and rho (p). Its evolution as a Christian
symbol is well attested (Thomas 1985,
86-92). It was in common use in Gaul,
Spain and the Mediterranean lands during
the fifth, sixth and seventh centuries but
also occurs in Ireland, where ten definite
stone-carved examples are now on record
(Sheehan 1994, 25). These are generally
dated to the sixth, seventh, and possibly
the eighth centuries, and certainly belong
to within the earlier part of Ireland’s
Early Medieval period. No less than half
of the examples from Ireland are found
in county Kerry, in the southwest of the
country, while all but one of the remain-
ing examples occur in the westem coun-
ties. The distribution of this motif also
extends northwards into Scotland, with a
fine example occurring, for instance, at
the Irish foundation on Iona (Fisher 2001,
128).
To summarise the point, the chi-
rho motif on the Skúvoy slab is an early
feature which would be assigned to a
sixth to eighth century date-range had it
been found in Ireland. It is a motif that
could not possibly date to the period of
the Scandinavian settlement of the Faroe
Islands, and so must be regarded as incon-
trovertible evidence for the discovery of
the Faroe Islands by Christians from the
south. Its closest exemplars, in terms of
its form and simplicity, lie in Ireland.
Here, the crosses on the ogham stones
from Arraglen and Killeenleagh (Cup-
page 1986,248-50; O’Sullivan and Shee-
han 1996,298-99) (Fig. 14), both of them
12The authors are currently preparing for publication a catalogue and a full discussion of this material.
46