The relief measures 4.8 m high by 3.7 m wide. It is divided into three parts, or registers. The largest, central register shows the Descent from the Cross scene itself. At the center is the cross, to the right is a figure identified as Nicodemus. The legs of this figure have been lost since at least the 17th century, but it is shown at an elevated position, aiding in the recovery of Jesus' body from the cross. The figure was standing on a supporting structure. Nicodemus lowers the body of Jesus towards Joseph of Arimathea, who is standing to the left of the cross. To the left of Joseph is the figure of Mary, Mother of Jesus, with her hand supporting the head of her son's corpse. Opposite Mary, on the right side of the scene, is John the Apostle, holding a book. The upper register shows the torso of the ascended Christ wearing a cross halo and a victory flag. Alongside the flag, the figure is holding a small representation of a human figure with raised hands. To the left and right, anthropomorphic representations of Sun and Moon are shown, holding drapes. The lower register shows two kneeling figures, a naked bearded man and a clothed figure of undetermined sex, both of them caught in the coils of the neck and tail of a two-legged, winged dragon. These figures were variously identified as Adam and Eve, or as a Saxon warrior and priest.
Controversy about symbolism and dating
The structure shown as supporting Nicodemus has gained some notability as a supposed representation of a "bent Irminsul", reflecting the theory, first suggested in the 1870s, that Externsteine was the site of the national sanctuary of the pagan Saxons. It could alternatively be a bent palm tree. Goethe writing in 1824 identified the relief as a work of the Carolingian period. In the same year Karl Theodor Menke dated it to the 12th century. Art historians of the later 19th and early 20th century tended to support Goethe's view of an early date of origin, but a re-examination of the evidence by a team of art historians in 1950 resulted in a shift of communis opinio towards a high medieval date. The view of the relief as of Carolingian date remains a minority position, especially popular by authors who would like to identify the "plant-like" structure as a representation of Irminsul, e.g. in a 1997 anthroposophical publication. Today, the consensus remains that the relief probably dates to 1160/70.
