Abstract

Small, round head-and-shaft funerary memorials have been referred to variously as discoid grave markers, ringed crosses or wheel cross. Their form and purpose differs from Cornish wayside crosses, German Scheibenkreuz and what are usually referred to as high crosses and are found, in various morphologies, throughout Europe and North America. These distinctive memorials are rare in Britain and previously unknown in Wales. Two undescribed discoid grave markers, recently found in Anglesey, are detailed and tentatively dated to the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Their typological and cultural context is discussed and their morphology compared with similar European and North American examples. Typological difficulties are explained and a complex origin of the disc-headed grave marker is suggested.

Keywords

discoid markers, funerary, Scheibenkreuz, ringed or wheel crosses, archaeology