Unha No. 2 / Unna / Unya / Uña

Mestre i Godes (1999) describes it as an old prismatic font kept in a junk room under the choir, ornamented with geometric motifs forming a Latin cross. An illustration in Sarrate Forga (1975) shows a rectangular, but very irregular, object which was, or had been, cemented to one of the walls; of the two semi-visible sides, the narrow one has a large cross flanked by two half-ball motifs; the other side, corresponding to one of the long sides of the rectangle, is covered in incision work, (a pattern?) described in the source as abstract ornamentation consisting of odd ondulations on the front ["decoración abstracta a base de extrañas ondulaciones en la cara frontal"]. This is one of the so-called oil-fonts ["piques d'oli"] [cf. Index entry for Cap d'Aran No. 3 for more information] which are said by some to have replaced by the Romanesque baptismal fonts during the 12th or 13th century [NB: Sarrate Forga's caption to the illustration of this font states that it is a highly interesting piece that ought to be catalogued and placed in a museum]. Described and illustrated in Catalunya romànica (1984- , v. XIII: 382-383), where, as with a few others of this type in the Val d'Aran, the question is raised whether or not they were ever fonts at all; were they sarcophagi? were they always oil tanks? There is certainly a reticence to accept them as earlier immersion fonts and the emphasis appears to be on their archaic, but no necessarily early, character. There is a single groove at the upper rim which may have served to fit the lid. According to the ACTUR WEBsite reference, "a pre-Romanesque baptism bowl for immersion", as well as the other Romanesque font and a holy-water stoup [cf. Index entries for Unha..., No. 1 and No. 3]. Noted and illustrated in Amiell (2007). [NB: there is an obvious relationship between the ornamental/iconographic program of this object and the one on baptismal font of this same church, as if the ornamentation on the oil-font were an abstract version of the more orthodoxly rendered program on the baptismal font, without necessarily indicating which of the two is the earliest].