What is recorded here

Half a metre of worn stone, it holds a ring cross with empty angles and four thin crosses floating beside it. The lozenge shape suggests an altar rather than a grave, yet it lies among the dead at Clonmacnoise. Without a name to anchor its purpose, the slab becomes a box of ghosts: whoever made it believed enough to carve, and time has erased the rest.

Clonmacnoise grave-slab inventory (1992) number: CLN00472 Dimensions: H 0.50, W 0.365, T 0.025 A lozenge shaped altar slab with a ring cross which has voided angles but no arms. There are four broad lined linear crosses, tow on either side of the main cross, one above and one below it. No inscription. Evidence of discovery: OPW 1954-58 Condition: Very worn. Slight flaking. National Monuments Service, Photo number: 81-310, 386, 664 Lionard, Early Irish Grave-slabs, PRIA 60(1959-60), p 137, Fig 27, no. 9. The Clonmacnoise inventory was compiled by the Office of Public Works. A copy of the record for this slab is available for inspection in the relevant Archaeological Survey of Ireland (SMR) file. Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien. Date of upload: 23 May 2011

A 9th- to 10th-century Christian cross-slab, likely used as an altar or commemorative monument, featuring a ring cross and linear crosses typical of early Irish monastic art. Such stones are often associated with the ecclesiastical site of Clonmacnoise, a major religious center in medieval Ireland.

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