Nuis / Nuus

A small fragment believed to be from a baptismal font of the Bentheim type, now in the Noordelijk Archeologisch Depot (NAD), Nuis. The fragment is believed to have been originally deposited in the Provinciaal Museum van Drenthete Assen, with inventory no. 1985 / VII; the entry file in that museum identifies it as a fragment of a Bentheimer Romanesque font of sandstone, and informs it was found in a farmyard about 1200 m. from the church at Dalen by a doctor who donated it to the Drents Museum in Assen, in 1957. In an e-mail comminication with BSI Joost Limburg writes: "Yesterday I visited the NAD (Noordelijk Archeologisch Depot) to have a look at the fragment of a Bentheimer font that is being kept there. It was smaller than I expected - someone really had his way with a sledgehammer on the original font. Still it's possible to see the fan (is that what it's called?) decoration on what must have been the lower edge of the basin. Much like the font in Vries; I'm sending along a photo of that font indicating the part I think the fragment is of. According to the NAD website (http://www.nadnuis.nl/#04655197-3340-48fd-be74-5df7780fa3d3) the fragment was found in a farmyard, 1200m from the church of Dalen (Drenthe), by a doctor who in 1957 gave it to the Drents Museum in Assen. In later years it was moved to the NAD. In his 2007 paper on Bentheimer fonts in the Netherlands, Regnerus Steensma refers to a fragment of a font from Westerbork, at the time kept in the Drents Museum. He doesn't describe it, it only appears in one of the tables listing the fonts and stoups. Unfortunately he is no longer with us, so we won't know why he mentions Westerbork, which is about 20km from Dalen. It seems unlikely that the Drents Museum had two fragments, at least they didn't say so when I asked about the fragment from Westerbork. They'd only had a fragment from Dalen, which was moved to the NAD." [cf. BSI entry for Westerbork]