It sits almost parallel to the wall, only about twenty centimetres away from it, and the ground has gradually crept up around it. What makes it worth a second look is the carving on its surface: a single incised line forming a cross whose arms end in triangular points, the whole design enclosed within a single-line rectangular frame. It is restrained, precise work, the kind of early medieval ornament that rewards close attention rather than first glances.

The slab was recorded by Harold Leask in 1950, who gave its dimensions as roughly four feet six inches by two feet one inch, or about 1.67 metres by 0.63 metres, making it a substantial if modestly sized piece of worked stone. Leask was one of the foremost authorities on Irish ecclesiastical architecture in the twentieth century, and his documentation placed this slab within the broader body of carved stonework associated with the Glendalough complex. An earlier record exists in a drawing published by Robert Cochrane, whose survey of the ecclesiastical remains at Glendalough appeared in the Eightieth Annual Report of the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland, published in 1925. That the slab merited inclusion in both a formal government architectural survey and a later scholarly study suggests it was considered genuinely significant, even if it now sits quietly and without fanfare beside a ruined chancel wall.

Visitors to Glendalough who make their way to St Mary's church, which stands slightly apart from the main monastic enclosure to the west, should look carefully along the southern exterior of the chancel. The slab is not displayed or marked, and the grass covering makes it easy to miss entirely. Crouching down gives the best view of the incised cross, whose fine lines become clearer in low, raking light.