Talk:Bewcastle Cross

From Tide dial
There was an extensive digression at Tide dials about the scholarly mythology around the Bewcastle Cross. If this is not and these sources are reliable, kindly add the material to the article here: Rev. T.W. Cole has suggested a plausible explanation which is corroborated by Dr. David Thomson.

The cross is probably the work of sculptors brought in by Benedict Biscop in the 670's to expand Monkwearmouth–Jarrow Abbey, one of the leading cultural centres in Northumbria. Biscop, a Benedictine Abbot, made several trips to Rome and returned to England with books, religious relics and Syrian sculptors who had fled the persecutions of Christians during the Islamic invasion of Syria and Egypt. The cross itself has several similarities with Syrian and Egyptian art. There are similarities to certain 5th century reliefs in the Cairo museum and the relief on the cross of a man with a falcon (assumed to be St. John the Evangelist and his eagle) is very similar to a Syrian model of St. John with an oil-lamp. The sundial on the south face is almost identical to an ancient Egyptian sundial, which was still used in Palestine in the 7th century.

The time system associated with this type of sundial is the same as that used in Palestine at the beginning of the Christian era. This system is easy to reconstruct because the authors of the Gospels were quite precise about noting the times of day.

We know that there were 12 'hours' in a day (John, chap XI, v 9) ; that the 'hours' were counted from sunrise to sunset (Matt. chap. XX, v. 1 - 12). Particular mention was made of the 3rd, 6th and 9th 'hours' (Matt. ch. XX, v 3 et 5), the 10th (John, ch. I v. 39), the 11th (Matt. ch XX, v. 6) and the 12th (John ch. XI, v. 9). Moreover, the 'hour' was a time duration, for we have references to 'one hour' (Luke, ch. XXII, v. 59), '2 hours' (Acts, ch. XIX, v. 34), '3 hours' (Acts, ch. XXII, v. 59) and 'half an hour' (Rev. ch. VIII, v. 1).

The 'hours' corresponding to events that occurred during the crucifixion are in Saint Benedict's canonical hours and the only available instrument at the time, capable of showing these 'hours', was the Egyptian sundial, of which the Bewcastle cross version is a copy. — Llywelyn II   15:17, 16 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Better to get a more recent and perhaps authoritative source on this. I haven't seen it mentioned in general art history on the cross, though Coptic connections often are. Johnbod (talk) 16:18, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

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