It is the head of a plain Latin cross, only about five centimetres thick, with arms that tilt very slightly upward, as though caught mid-gesture. It is an easy thing to overlook, but that modest tilt and its spare, undecorated form carry the kind of specificity that distinguishes a genuine early ecclesiastical remnant from later imitation.

The fragment was documented by Harold Leask, an architect and scholar whose careful survey of Glendalough, published by the Stationery Office in Dublin in 1950, remains a foundational reference for the site. Leask catalogued it among the carved stone pieces associated with the national monuments then vested in the Commissioners of Public Works, recording its dimensions and noting the slight upward angle of the arms. A Latin cross, as distinct from a Greek cross, has a longer vertical shaft than horizontal arms, a form used widely across early Christian sites in Ireland. The plainness of this example, with no knotwork or figural carving, places it among the more austere survivals from a complex that also produced much more elaborate stonework.