Why did the Celts decorate their crosses? Let's take a little trip through the ages to find the inspiration that sparked the Celtic imagination: To begin with, the pre-Christian Celts already had a tradition of decorative stone carving. The Picts chisled spirals, key patterns, and other designs into boulders that possibly served as boundary and land markers. In the 8th century, more and more slabs featured large cross shapes filled with spirals, keys, and intricate interlaced knotwork. This coincided with Irish Gaels and Anglo-Saxons pushing into Pictish lands, bringing Christianity along with them. Aberlemno Cross Slab ( Anne Burgess / Aberlemno Cross ) The Irish high crosses, as I explained in my last post , often displayed saints, biblical figures, and Christ surrounded by a ring which could represent the victory wreath, eternal life, or the cosmos. These concepts and imagery travelled along with clerics, missionaries, and pilgrims from Rome, Jerusalem, and perhaps even Egypt.
Why are some Celtic crosses surrounded by a ring shape? If you ask this on an internet forum, the stock answer is that it's a leftover from the time of sun worship: some sort of compromise with the pagans. I have even heard it asserted that Celtic crosses existed before Christianity. So, I set out to find whether this was true. Turning to art history and archaeology, I found that there are no carved stone crosses in Ireland or Britain before the 8th century. The earliest surviving Irish standing high crosses, Pictish stones with crosses and Christian motifs, and the Northumbrian crosses all date to around 800 A.D. This is centuries after the Gospel was first proclaimed in the British Isles, well after the establishment of monasteries, and over 100 years after the Synod of Whitby. The term "sun cross" was coined after World War II and refers to European Bronze Age sun chariot wheels created by sun worshiping cultures. As you can see, these are quite different objects al