DescriptionThe Carausius Stone at St Tudclud's Church Penmachno (1).jpg
English: One of a number of memorial stones in the sanctuary wall of St Tudclud's, which it is believed, date to the late 5th and 6th century A.D. Written in Latin they probably commemorate important people. The words suggest contact between the early Welsh Church and Christians in Southern Gaul.
This one in particular, known as The Carausius Stone, stood for many years at the nearby Rhiwbach Slate Quarry. It bears the CHI RHO symbol and only one other such stone, Treflys, has been found in Wales. In fact only twelve examples have been found in Britain. The symbol is a monogram from the first two letters of the Greek word for Christ. Early Christians preferred not to use the symbol of the Cross as this was seen as a pagan symbol of capital punishment. The translation of the horizontal inscription reads Carausius lies here in this heap of stones. It is not known when the stone was moved to St Tudcluds.
This image was taken from the Geograph project collection. See this photograph's page on the Geograph website for the photographer's contact details. The copyright on this image is owned by Richard HOARE and is licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.
to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work
to remix – to adapt the work
Under the following conditions:
attribution – You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
share alike – If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same or compatible license as the original.