St Andrews – More Pictish stuff

Following on from the last post, here's another picture-heavy post. I'll finish off the Pictish stuff here and then I'll carry on with some more posts with pictures of the cathedral, castle and town etc. I'll start with a few more from the sarcophagus, close-ups of the animals from the hunting scene:

And a wingéd beast, situated to the left of David:

Then we have some other sculptures, with a window in the background causing problems for these two high cross shafts. These ones are a bit later than the sarcophagus, probably sculpted after the Picts were conquered by the Dal Riadans:

And here are some details close-up. We'll start with the funky hair (or possibly helmets?):

I'm really not sure what's going on here, but it's probably best not to ask. The next one's pretty much the same in that respect:

The interlacing here is really fine:

Both of these bits of stonework were re-purposed for use in the cathedral that was built in 1160. They were rediscovered in the nineteenth century.

There were lots of crosses on display, but most of them are only fragments now. This is a relatively late but more complete example:

Smaller, earlier, and simpler:

I'll just add a few more pictures now, because these are getting into the "post-interesting" period, as one of the speakers from the conference referred to the post-Pictish time periods. But I wanted to put this one in so I could say that they just don't make hats like they used to:

And finally, I was surprised to find a Manx triskele:

Even though we're way over on the east coast here, the cathedral at St Andrews was extremely important and influential in its heyday. The triskele here was apparently a part of the cathedral nave after it had to be rebuilt after a fire in 1378. It suggests the Earl of Moray of the time (who had control of Man) was a major benefactor of the rebuilding work.