Glasgow: What are the Govan Stones?

As an archeological dig takes place at the Govan Stones site the Govan Old Church, here is an explanation of what the ancient artefacts actually are.

Transcript

00:00The Govan Stones are a collection of early medieval sculpture and they take in a variety

00:05of different types so we have essentially what are left of kind of standing sculpted crosses

00:13and the walls are filled with the recumbent grave monuments essentially like the elite burial

00:19markers of the kind of aristocracy of what becomes known as the of the Kingdom of Strathclyde.

00:25We've got a little transept up on the western part of the church which is filled with

00:31hogback gravestones which are usually related to viking activity or at least kind of viking

00:37influence of some kind and then we've got a unique monolithic sarcophagus so a sarcophagus

00:46carved out of a single piece of stone and that is really the bit of sculpture that

00:52kind of classes the prize of our collection and it has this amazing hunting scene on it

00:57and it's well worth coming to see.