Ur / Hur

Delcor (1973) suggests that this font may be the only extant vestige of the 9th century church and dwells on what he describes as its enigmatic ornamentation; he describes the font as monolithic, being made of local granite, and having eight panels on the sides, of which, the only one that he gives clear identification for is the Temptation-and-Fall from Genesis [he compares this work to those on the fonts of Beuda and Palau-de-Cerdagne]; the identification of the other seven panels is obviously less definite and is suggested as [Right-to-Left]: a possible Agnus Dei, a tree, two panels with fruit, two other panels with tree-like forms, and a last one with three vertical rib-like shapes leaning toward the left. Delcor goes into an interpretative description of the carving and offers several suggestions for each part in relation to the liturgical function of the font. It is not an ornamentation program of easy description, nor is granite the most conducive of media to leave precise shapes on; the illustrations in Delcor show heads, shapes and forms which could -or not- be indeed related to the purpose of the font. Described by Marcel Durliat in the Dictionnaire des églises... (1966-) as a Romanesque baptismal font. Ponsich (1980) relates the image of the tree on this font to another such on one of the two re-used capitals in the upper church at Saint-Martin-de-Canigo. In the intoductory paragraph to his 1967 article, 'Les fonts baptismaux d'Ur', Ponsich issues an exclamation which puts him hand in hand with Delcor: "Si son [un homme sachant] interprétation, comme il le suggère lui-même, n'est peut-ètre pas absolument exacte, qu'importe!" and dates the font to the end of the 8th or beginning of the 9th century. Ponsich (ibid.) describes the carving as primitive and evocative of both the Celtic art and of those of Oceania and pre-Colombian America. The three vertical concave flutes symbolise, writes Ponsich, the primordial Chaos, the starting point of Creation; the second motif, a set of horizontal incisions with a vertical scroll, suggests to him the divine breath which animates Chaos ands puts Light in the Darksness thereby creating Heaven and Earth; the next motif, a head above another, the lower one upside down, and a vertical snake-like figure, could be Adam at top, the Devil below and the Serpent to the side, all symbolising the Fall of Man; another such head as the lower one would represent Death hitting humanity and condemning it to corporal death; the next motif could, continues Ponsich, could be the Treo of Life or, more likely, the genealogical tree of Adam; the next two, two spoon-like shapes, are interpreted as having phallic character, a schematic representation of procreation; the next set of scrolls are linked to the genealogy from Noah to Abraham to the Messiah. the last figure, which he sees as an infant being born, could be either the birth of the Messiah or the birth of the new man. Ponsich closes his article by reiterating the influence of Celtic traditions "qu'expliquerait parfaitement la protohistoire de la Cerdagne." (ibid.). Described and illustrated in Catalunya romànica (1984- , vol. VII: 233-234), with its own added interpretative details, the most obscure of which are related to the the Christian idea of re-birth. The Guia comarcal de Catalunya for this area (2001) describes this font as being ornamented with human figures and geometric motifs that appear to refer to the original sin ["amb figures humanes i motius geomètrics que semblen fer al.lusió al pecat original"]. Listed in Palissy [ref.: PM66000916] and illustrated in Mémoire: "Cuve ronde, dont tout le pourtour est décoré de figures, têtes d'hommes, d'animaux et de monstres et d'ornements d'un caractère très archaïque [...] 10e siècle [...] Anciennement datés du 11e siècle. Epoque préromane." On-site notes: rather than try and match the erudite descriptions of those who have already analised and interpreted the iconography of the font [cf. supra] we would like to point out that the font is in fair shape, with few repairs --the usual ones at the upper rim-- in this case three sealed holes and two cuts at the opposite end of the rim. The empty square on the upper basin side, just above the sideways animal (?) head, could be explained as the housing for the lock [a similar one is seen in several Pyrenean fonts of this type (e.g., Palau de Cerdagne)], especially since it is exactly at the opposite end of the three sealed holes on the upper rim. The issue of the early dating of the font could be argued against on the basis of the similarity of this font to those of Beuda and Palau-de-Cerdagne, fonts dated somewhere closer to the 12th than to the 9th century. [NB: the basin appears to be raised on a base or plinth, but most of it may be hidden un the present flooring].