Mobile carvers and mobile monuments: a geochemical study of early medieval cross-slabs from Clonmacnoise and outlying sites, Ireland
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Date
2026-03-16
Authors
Meere, Patrick
Ó Carragáin, Tomás
Ghosh, Urmi
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Abstract
Clonmacnoise has one of the largest collections of early medieval (c. 400–1200 CE) carved stone monuments in northwest Europe. The presence of Clonmacnoise-style cross-slabs at outlying church sites within and beyond the immediate hinterland of the site provides an unmatched opportunity to investigate how stone-carving could be used to shape relationships with subsidiaries and affiliates. Geochemical analysis of a dataset collected using p-XRF demonstrates that craftspeople sometimes travelled considerable distances to carve cross-slabs at outlying sites using local stone. It also found evidence to suggest that some Clonmacnoise-style cross-slabs were carved at or near the site itself before being transported upstream via the Shannon to islands in Lough Ree and to a site immediately beyond the lake. This provides new insights into the complexity and variety of the relationships within early ecclesiastical networks, the organisation of the craft of stone-carving, and the mobility of carvers.
Description
© 2026 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Keywords
Carved stone monuments , Clonmacnoise , Early medieval Ireland , Mobility , [BEES] , [HumanEnvironment] , pXRF
Citation
Meere, P, Ó Carragáin, T & Ghosh, U 2026, 'Mobile carvers and mobile monuments: a geochemical study of early medieval cross-slabs from Clonmacnoise and outlying sites, Ireland', Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, vol. 71, 105693. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2026.105693
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