Trapezoidal Graveslab

 

Trapezoidal cross slab in Clonfert cathedral.

Christy Cunniffe

Fragment of an early medieval grave-slab from Clonfert.

 A small section of a sandstone slab recovered after a grave being dug in Clonfert graveyard appears to be the lower left corner of an early medieval trapezoidal graveslab. One other inscribed and highly ornate trapezoidal slab occurs on the site. Slabs of this type are common in Clonmacnoise, where it has been proposed by scholars that a workshop may have occurred. As so little survives of this example it  impossible to know if it was inscribed or bore a cross, though the later is likely, and the possibility of it bearing an inscription is also feasible. The drawing below provides a conjectural interpretation of how the double frame around its border may have looked.