- St Cuthbert's coffin
St. Cuthbert's coffin is a wooden coffin opened during the
Reformation inDurham Cathedral , dated to AD698 , the year of the death ofSaint Cuthbert . Among other objects, still mostly in the Cathedral Museum, it contained theStonyhurst Gospel . It is inscribed with Latin lettering andAnglo-Saxon runes with names of apostles and saints. The wood is much weathered, and many names are illegible.Inscription
The runic inscription reads::"ihs xps mat(t) [h] (eus)"The "ma" and possibly the "eu" are
bind rune s. The "t" is inverted. Then follows: :"marcus"The "ma" is again a bind rune, then::"LVCAS" In Latin letters, followed by runic::"iohann(i)s"Followed by Latin::"(RAPH)AEL (M)A(RIA)"The names of Matthew, Mark and John are thus in runes, while that of Luke is in Latin letters. The
Christogram is notably in runic writing, "ihs xps" unicode|ᛁᚻᛋ ᛉᛈᛋ, with the "h" double-barred in the continental style, the first attestation of that variant in England. The monogram reflects a runic variant of a partly Latinized "XPS" from Greek "ΧΡΙCΤΟC", with the rho rendered as runic "p" and the "eolc" rune (the oldAlgiz rune "z") used to render chi.Further reading
*http://dissertations.ub.rug.nl/FILES/faculties/arts/1997/j.h.looijenga/c1.pdf
ee also
*
Franks casket
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