Anyhow, if the precise site remains uncertain, there is extant a
sculptured socket, which, though it is only of stone, not marble,
Mr Hurst pronounced to be "an undoubted part" of the original Jews'
cross. This socket was described by Dr James Ingram in 1837 as
having been then "recently discovered, on the removal of a quantity
of rubbish from the foundation of the walls" of St Frideswide's,
embedded in the base of the diagonal buttress at the south-east angle
of St Lucy's chapel in the south transept. It is now preserved in the
gallery at the south end of the same transept. The four sides are
sculptured with what appear to be Old Testament subjects, although
only two are now identifiable. The first is the temptation of Adam
and Eve, with the serpent coiling round a tree between them; and
the second is the sacrifice of Isaac. The third appears to be the
sacrifice of an ox or calf; but the whole is much mutilated. Nothing
remains of it but the lower part of a human being on the left, and
the headless body of a cloven-footed quadruped, the forelegs of which
are in a kneeling posture. Above, a hand, issuing from a cloud, lets
down a pair of small tablets, or an open book. The subject of the
fourth side is a puzzle which has hitherto defied elucidation. It
represents three figures, the middle one seated between two upright
figures turning away, both having grotesque heads like apes. Below
the right foot of one of the figures is what appears to be a dragon
or demon, with its leg on the ground. At each angle of the stone is a
winged dragon, head downward, the tail terminating in characteristic
thirteenth-century foliage. The stone is 1 ft. 11 in. high, by 2 ft. 3
in. square at the bottom, decreasing to 1 ft. 9 in. square at the top.
The greatest dimension, inclusive of the figures, is 2 ft. 6 in. in
width.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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