539 



On an Altar Stone found at Coldingham, in 1877. By 

 James Hardy. 



Mr James Wood, at the Club's meeting at St. Boswell's, 26th 

 September, 1877, exhibited an Altar Stone, which during the 

 summer he had fortunately rescued from destruction, by securing 

 it when it was turned out from among the soil in Coldingham 

 Churchyard, during the operations preparatory to an interment. 

 It is a smooth quadrate slab, slightly rounded at the corners, of 

 a white fine-grained micaceous sandstone, 9f by 11 inches in 

 breadth and length, and about 1^ inch in thickness. On it are 

 sculptured five circles, inclosing five crosses, one circle in each 

 angle, and one central ; the cross in the centre is terminated by 

 four crosslets. Five dots or stigmata appear to have been intended 

 to be represented at the intersections of the four radii ; they are 

 more marked on two circles than the others. Mr Wood presented 

 the slab to the Scottish Societies of Antiquaries, the proper deposi- 

 tary for objects that may be classed as national antiquities, and 

 that Society has reckoned it of such interest as to have caused an 

 engraving to be made from it, and has done the Club the favour 

 to allow the first use of the cut to be made for the Proceedings. 



According to Walcott (Sacred Archseology, p. 15), the Mensa 

 {lapis integer) or upper stone slab of an altar, " Should be of one 



