Aberdeen No. 2

The LEMUR database holdings of the University of Aberdeen museum include an entry captioned "Stone font from Old Greyfriars Kirk, Aberdeen" [the caption author is listed as "Inglis, Jim & Curtis, Neil -- date: 1990 -- purpose: Encyclpaedia of the North-East"]; the entry bears the catalogue number: "ABDUA 17640"; the object itself bears the code "267" painted in white on the upper rim. A further description by Rosemary Feliden, dated 1999 and under 'purpose', "SCRAN", describes the object as a "font from the Franciscan friary and its old church of Greyfriars [...] This is a portable sandstone font [...] dating from the 15th or 16th century. It is a small, deep, circular bowl with four lugs, two opposing ones have a solid handle-like extension probably allowing it to be tipped and carried. It was used to hold water for baptisms." It may very well be that this object may have been used as a portable font for baptism; it is questionable that it was created originally for that purpose. There are many instances of objects of domestic origin (mortars, grain measures, etc.) that ended up in churches and museums "under the fond belief that they are discarded holy water stoups", as Bond (1908) so aptly put it. The object at hand could certainly be one such, and the curved ridge or rib that allows it for easy tipping -considering its significant weight- would likely indicate a domestic or industrial use rather than a liturgical one.