Parish Find Location 
Halla

Find Location 
The nave of Halla church.

Find Context Classification 
Church

Coordinate Find Location (lat) 
6379657

Coordinate Find Location (long) 
709471

Present Location Classification 
Gotlands Museum Magasin Visborg

Coordinate Present Location (lat) 
6390259

Coordinate Present Location (long) 
695514

Material 
Limestone

Limestone Type 
fine reef debris limestone

Geological Group 
Slite Group (30%)

Height 
110

Width 
38

Thickness 
11

Lindqvist Type 
A (ca. 400-600)

Lindqvist Shape 
Tall stone

Iconographic Keywords 
circle 
spiral 
triangle 

Runic Inscription or not 
No

Context and Discovery 
According to a report by Pastor I. P. Fr. Friberg from 1875, which is kept at ATA, the fragment had been used as top slab of the altar in the north-west corner of the nave. However, in 1876, the altar was dismantled, and subsequently the fragment was mutilated even more, and its currently preserved piece used as threshold in the nave’s south portal. In 1911, the stone was transferred to Gotlands Fornsal. Friberg’s 1875 drawing depicts the original location and the original size of the slab before it was removed from the altar (cf. Lindqvist 1941/42 II, fig. 365). The relatively small nave represents the oldest part of the present church building, erected around 1200. The tower is only some decades younger, while the present rectangular choir was erected as late as during the middle of the 14th century. The large Gothic style choir replaces an old Romanesque apsidal choir of which the portal is re-used as tower portal in the present church building. Four more picture stone fragments were discovered in the floor of the choir by Beata Böttger-Niedenzu in 1983 (GP 153, 168–170 Halla kyrka 2–5).

At least 3–4 Gotlandic picture stones have been reused as altar plates: Halla kyrka (I), GP 175 Hangvar kyrka II, GP 428 Stenkyrka kyrka 46, and GP 2 Akebäck kyrka 2 (Oehrl 2019a, p. 40; 2020a, p. 86).
GP 153 Halla kyrka 2
GP 168 Halla kyrka 3
GP 169 Halla kyrka 4
GP 170 Halla kyrka 5
GP0175
GP 428 Stenkyrka kyrka 46
GP 2 Akebäck kyrka 2

Measurements, Material and Condition 
“Limestone slab, about 11 cm thick. The obverse dressed, almost flat. One of the narrow sides appears to be partially original, it is dressed at an almost right angle towards the obverse, with a chamfer in between, but has been reworked when the other narrow sides, all of which are secondary, were produced. The reworking of the narrow side just mentioned likely was most severe near to that short edge that is closest to the ornamental roundel; the grooves running along the edge also indicate that here, the narrow side began to arch outwards, similar to GP 186 Hejnum Bjers I. The fragment forms a rectangle of 109.5–111 cm length and 37.5 cm width” (Lindqvist 1941/42 II, p. 57). The surface is relatively flat, and the carvings are well-preserved. The stone was painted by Lindqvist and the paint is still visible.
GP 186 Hejnum Bjärs I

Description of Ornament and Images 
Lindqvist’s description corresponds to Olof Sörling’s drawing and the photo of the painted stone taken by Harald Faith-Ell in 1937, both reproduced in “Gotlands Bildsteine” (1941/42 I, fig. 9; II, fig. 377): “The decoration consists of two shallow grooves, about 1 cm wide, along the chamfer and a roundel, most of which is preserved and contains four linked spirals in a chiselled background, from which emerge in the centre a small roundel with a hole in the middle, and four triangular shapes along the inner rim. Along the great roundel’s outer rim, groups of three ‘teeth’ each can be seen at regular intervals. In 1875, according to Friberg’s drawing, there existed another roundel, at the same level as the one just described, and above them, the lower part of a third, probably larger roundel. According to another drawing held in ATA of the ‘altar disc of Halla’, the smaller lost roundel was filled with an ordinary whorl motif” (ibid. II, p. 57). Fribergs’s drawing and the other mentioned drawing of the disc motifs are published in “Gotlands Bildsteine” as well (ibid. II, figs. 375–376).

Interpretation of the Imagery 
No interpretation

Type and Dating 
The fragment belongs to a tall early-type picture stone, i.e. Type A according to Lindqvist’s typology (“Abschnitt” A), dating to about AD 400 to 600. Lindqvist labels those tall stones with a big roundel in the upper half and a pair of small disk motifs below as Brotypus (1941/42 I, pp. 26–27). In Hauck’s more detailed typology (1983a, p. 543), the stone belongs to Großsteintyp III (i.e., the Hellvi Ire I-Typus), which is characterized by a large roundel with whorl motif and two small roundels with multi-variant decoration.

References 
Lindqvist 1941/42 I, p. 27, fig. 9; II, p. 57, figs. 375–377; Hauck 1983a, p. 543; Guber 2011, p. 124 cat. no. 29.

 
Fyndplats
Omtalas första gången 1875, då bildstenen användes som altarskiva till det norra sidoaltaret i långhuset. Efter att altaret togs bort 1876 användes bildstenen som tröskelsten i långhusets sydportal. Stenen överfördes till Gotlands museum 1911.

Nuvarande lokalisering
Gotlands museum, magasinet på Visborgsslätt.

Beskrivning
Rektangulärt fragment av tidig bildsten (period A), 111 x 37,5 cm. Skåror samt en virvel bevarade. Enligt en teckning från 1875 fanns då ytterligare en virvel och kanten av en större virvel.

Datering
Dateringen oklar, men den tillhör perioden 400-500-talen.

Tolkning
Ingen tolkning.

AA

Title
GP 159 Halla kyrka (I)

Gotlands Museum ID 
C1402

Jan Peder Lamm ID 
100

Lindqvist Title 
Halla, Kirche

ATA