Project Diary
Who was Johannes Cissoris?
THE JOHANNES STONE by Andrew Medley (email) The Dundee collection of mediaeval grave slabs was unearthed during construction work for the new East Church at St Marys which began in 1838. Of these the most tantalising is the Johannes Stone: tantalising because for a grave slab of that period it contains an unsual amount […]
Another ship stone…
Albeit of different date and character, the Fisheries Museum in Anstruther have carried out 3D recording on a Ship Stone of their own, a whaling ship of the 1700s. Read more at: http://www.scotfishmuseum.org/secrets-of-the-shipstone
News: The Kirkmichael (Black Isle) Heritage Centre
A new heritage project has been developed by the Kirkmichael Trust, a community charity that is seeking to restore the medieval kirk site at Kirkmichael in the Black Isle and create in the restored buildings a display of the medieval complex crosses in the area. These wonderful crosses are currently virtually unknown but are remarkable […]
The Origins of St Mary’s Church
We are very grateful for the following text, which was sent to the project by Ian McCraw, on the origins of St Mary’s Church: Recently the Church Office received an email querying some of the statements relating to the history of St Mary’s. Short histories appear in several booklets published in the late twentieth century […]
Thoughts on “Iohamnes’ Stone”…
The following notes were sent to us by Andrew Medley, who saw the stones at Doors Open Day: The inscription is interesting and puzzling “HERE LIES JOHN SON OF PHILIPPE CISSORIS”. “Cissoris” is the latinised form of “Tailor”. It could be a surname or it could simply indicate Philippe’s profession, although it seems unlikely that […]
Archive images of the stones…
These images are from the Dundee Photographic Survey, which was completed in 1916. They were taken much earlier – the photographer was AC Lamb who died in 1897. The images show ‘Stone coffin covers from St Mary’s Church, now in Dudhope Museum’. Though contained in the section of the Survey dedicated to the Howff graveyard, […]
Reconstruction carving
Below are some images of David McGovern, the stone carver, at work during the Open Day, creating a superb replica of the Ship Stone…
ARP Conference Paper
You can see the paper on the project delivered by Christina and Graeme at Archaeological Research in Progress below:
Archaeological Research in Progress 2014
We’ll be presenting the results of the project at Archaeological Research in Progress 2014, the annual conference hosted by Archaeology Scotland and the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Come along on Saturday 31st May 2104 to hear all about the project, as well as lots more exciting projects that took place in Scotland this year. […]
Some notes from Matthew Champion
There are a number of clearly dateable features shown on the stones, such as the swords and ship image. The swords in particular are clearly dateable from the style of pommel. Such lobbed pommels tend to be from the C11th-C13th – with an emphasis upon the C12th. Likewise, the ship image shows a single -masted […]