Corleck Head

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Corleck Head
Testa in pietra con piu facce, da corleck hill, co. di cavan, I-II secolo dc. 03.jpg
Two of the head's three faces
Material Limestone
Size
  • Height: 33 cm (13 in)
  • Width (max): 22.5 cm (8.9 in)
Created1st or 2nd century AD
Discoveredc. 1855
Corleck Hill, County Cavan, Ireland
53°58′21″N6°59′53″W / 53.9725°N 6.9981°W / 53.9725; -6.9981
Present location National Museum of Ireland, Dublin
IdentificationIA:1998:72 [1]

The Corleck Head is an Irish three-faced stone idol usually dated to the 1st or 2nd century AD. Although its origin cannot be known for certain, its dating to the Early Iron Age is based on similar iconography from northern European Celtic artefacts from that period. Archaeologists agree that it probably represents a Celtic god, and was intended to be placed on top of a larger shrine associated with a Celtic head cult, and may have continued in use for the Lughnasadh, a medieval harvest festival celebrated by the Gaels that survived into the modern period.

Contents

The head was found c. 1855 in the townland of Drumeague in County Cavan, Ireland, during the excavation of a large Passage grave dated to c. 2500 BC. The archaeological evidence indicates that it was used for ceremonial purposes at Corleck Hill, a significant religious centre during the late Iron Age that for millennia became a major site of celebration during the Lughnasadh. As with any stone artefact, its dating and cultural significance are difficult to establish. The three faces may represent an all-knowing, all-seeing god representing the unity of the past, present and future or ancestral mother figures representing strength and fertility. The head was found alongside the Corraghy Head, a two-headed sculpture with a ram's head at one side and a human head on the other. Today only the human head survives. The idols are collectively known as the "Corleck Gods". Historians assume that they were hidden during the Early Middle Ages due to their paganism and association with human sacrifice, traditions the medieval Christian church suppressed.

The Corleck Head came to national attention in 1937 after its prehistoric dating was realised by the historian Thomas J. Barron. When rediscovered it was a local curiosity placed on top of a farm gatepost; today, it is on permanent display at the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin. It is included in the 2011 Irish Times anthology A History of Ireland in 100 Objects . [2]

Description

The Corleck Head consists of a circular stone which has been carved as a tricephalic skull with three faces. [3] It is cut from local limestone, [4] and is a relatively large example of the Irish stone idol type, being 33 cm (13 in) high and 22.5 cm (8.9 in) at its widest point. [5] The faces, which could be male or female are carved in low relief. [6] [7] They are similar but not identical in form and enigmatic, complex expressions. Each face has very basic and simply described features that seem to indicate a slightly different mood. [8] All three faces have a broad and flat wedge–shaped noses and a thin, narrow, slit mouths. The embossed eyes are wide and round, yet closely-set and seem to stare at the viewer. The faces are clean-shaven and lack ears, while the head overall is cut off before the neck. [2] [9] One has heavy eyebrows, another has a small hole at the centre of its mouth, a feature of unknown significance found on several contemporary Irish stone heads and examples from England, Wales and Bohemia. [10] [11]

The Corleck Head cuts off just below the chin, giving it the appearance of being disembodied. Archaeologists do not believe it was created as a prominent element of a larger structure containing other stone or wooden sculptures. [12] However the hole under its base suggests it may have been intended to be placed on top of a pedestal, likely on a tenon (a joint connecting two pieces of material). [13] This indicates that the larger structure may have represented a phallus—a common Iron Age fertility symbol. [8] [14] [15]

The Corleck head is widely considered the finest of the Celtic stone idols, largely due to its contrasting simplicity of design and complexity of expression. [8] [16] In 1972, the archaeologist and historian Etienn Rynne described it as "unlike all others in its elegance and economy of line", [13] while in 1962 the archaeologist Thomas G. F. Paterson wrote that only the triple-head idol found in Cortynan, County Armagh, shares features drawn from such bare outlines. According to Paterson, the simplicity of the Corleck and Cortynan heads indicates a degree of sophistication of craft absent in the often "vigorous and ... barbaric style" of other contemporary Irish examples. [17]

History

Corleck Hill

Corleck Hill hill's Irish names include Sliabh na Trí nDée (the "Hill of the Three Gods") and Sliabh na nDée Dána (the "Highland of the Three Gods of Craftsmanship"). The archaeological evidence indicates that Corleck Hill was a significant Druidic (the priestly caste in ancient Celtic cultures) site of worship during the Iron Age; [18] [19] and was once known as "the pulse of Ireland". [18] [20] Corleck is traditionally associated with the Lughnasadh, a medieval harvest festival celebrating the ancient Celtic god Lugh, believed to have been a warrior, king and master craftsman of the Tuatha Dé Danann—one of the foundational Irish tribes in Irish mythology. [21] Archaeologists think the head was one of a series of objects placed at the site during the festival. [5]

The hill once held three Neolithic passage graves, [22] the largest of which was known locally as the "giant's grave". A local man, John O'Reilly, described to the historian and folklorist Thomas J. Barron how the hill contained a stone circle on its peak until at least 1836. [23] The monuments were excavated during the 18th and 19th centuries to make way for farming land. [22] [23] According to O'Reilly, during the excavation of the giant's grave the entrance stones were "drawn away ... [revealing] a cruciform shaped chamber ... the stones from the mound were used to build a dwelling house nearby, known locally as Corleck Ghost House." [23]

Corleck is one of six areas in Ulster where clusters of seemingly related stone idols have been found. [lower-alpha 1] [25] Other cult objects from the broader area include the 1st century BC wooden Ralaghan Idol, also brought to attention by Barron [lower-alpha 2] [22] [26] and the contemporary stone heads from the nearby townlands of Corravilla (a small spherical head) and Corraghy (a now partially destroyed two-headed sculpture which included a bearded head with an unusually long neck, also in the NMI). [13] [17]

Discovery

The head was unearthed around 1855 by the local farmer James Longmore while looking for stones to build the farmhouse that became known colloquially as the "Corleck Ghost House". [27] [23] While the exact find spot is unknown, [16] it was probably on Corleck Hill in townland of Drumeague, on the site of a large c. 2500 BC passage grave that was then under excavation. [5] [28] The head was uncovered along with the Corraghy Heads; a mostly lost janiform sculpture with a ram's head on one side and a human head with hair and a beard on the other, that is very much stylistically very different to the Corleck Head. [23] [28] [29] Archaeologists assumed the Corleck and Corraghy Heads once formed elements of a larger shrine and were buried around the same time, probably to hide them from the Christian iconiclasts which sought to suppress the memory of older pagan idols, and especially, according to the archaeologist Ann Ross, the suggestion of "surrogate sacrificial heads." [30] [31] The historian John Waddell believes the majority of contemporary stone idols were destroyed and "then forgotten". [32] Groups of artefacts were often hidden at sacred places such as ancient megaliths or Sacred wells. [5] [31] [33]

Thomas J. Barron, who also brought the Corraghy Heads and the wooden Ralaghan Idol to national attention. Thomas James Barron.jpg
Thomas J. Barron, who also brought the Corraghy Heads and the wooden Ralaghan Idol to national attention.

Longmore sold the lease on the farm to Thomas Hall in 1865. Hall's son, Sam, placed the Corleck head on a gatepost, and also destroyed a large part of the Corraghy sculpture while trying to separate its two heads. [31] Barron was the first to recognise the Corleck Head's age and significance after seeing it in 1934 while a researcher for the Irish Folklore Commission. [36] During his initial research, Barron interviewed Emily Bryce, a relative of the Halls, who remembered childhood visits to the farm and throwing stones at the head, having no idea as to its age. [1]

Barron contacted the National Museum of Ireland (NMI) in 1937, [5] after which the NMI director Adolf Mahr arranged the Corleck Head's permanent loan to the museum for study. [34] In a lecture that year to the Prehistoric Society (a learned society promoting the study of prehistoric archaeology), Mahr described the head as "certainly the most Gaulish looking sculpture of religious character ever found in Ireland". [37] Mahr secured funding to acquire it for the museum, [1] [35] while study of the head and similar stone idols preoccupied Barron until his death in 1992. [35] [38]

Dating

Most surviving iconic—that is representational as opposed to abstract—prehistoric Irish sculptures originate from the northern province of Ulster. The majority consist of human heads carved in the round in low relief and are mostly thought to date to from 300 BC to 100 AD; at the end of the La Tène period. [39] [40] However dating stone sculpture is extremely difficult given that techniques such as radiocarbon dating cannot be used. [41] The Corleck Head is dated to the La Tène period on stylistic similarities to contemporary works whose dating has been established, mainly due to its use of the Celtic ideal of what Ross describes as "sacred triplism". [42] However this view has been challenged, notably by the writer John Billingsley, who noted that there was a revival of stone head carvings in the early modern period. [42]

Although many of the Ulster group of heads are believed to be pre-Christian, a number of others have since been identified as either from the Early Middle Ages or examples of 17th- or 18th-century folk art. [lower-alpha 3] Thus modern archaeologists date such objects based on their resemblance to other known examples in the contemporary Northern European context. [15] [43] The Corleck Head's format and details were likely influenced by a wider European tradition, in particular from contemporary Romano-British (between 43 and 410 AD) and Gallo-Roman iconography. [8] [44]

A small number of faces on contemporary Irish and British anthropomorphic examples have similar closely-set eyes, simply-drawn mouths and broad noses, [24] [45] including a three-faced stone bust from Woodlands, County Donegal, and two carved triple-heads from Greetland in West Yorkshire, England. [5] [46] Similar tricephalic and bicephalic idols include the "Lustymore" figure on Boa Island and the head found in Caldragh, County Fermanagh, on the lower part of Lough Erne. [47] [48]

Function

The Corleck Head is one of the earliest known figurative stone sculptures found in Ireland, with the exception of the c. 1000 – c. 500 BC Tandragee Idol from nearby County Armagh, which may also have been produced for a religious site of worship. [15]

Although historical knowledge of the Irish Celts is, according to the archaeologist Eamonn Kelly "sketchy and incomplete", the archaeological evidence suggests a complex and prosperous society that assimilated and adapted external cultural influences. [44] Numerous Iron Age carved stones survive, only a small number are iconic, and very few have three-faces. [29] [49]

Celtic stone heads

The Tandragee Idol,c. 1000 - c. 500 BC. St Patrick's Cathedral (COI), Armagh Armagh St. Patrick's Cathedral of the Church of Ireland North Aisle "Tandragee Man" 2019 09 09 (cropped).jpg
The Tandragee Idol,c. 1000 – c. 500 BC. St Patrick's Cathedral (COI), Armagh

The earliest European stone idol heads appeared in the Nordic countries in the late Bronze Age, where they continued to be produced, including in Iceland, until the end of the Viking Age in the 11th century AD. The very early examples resemble contemporary full-length wooden figures, and both types are assumed to have been created for cultic sites. However, early examples are rare; only around eight known prehistoric Nordic stone heads have been identified. [50] The type spread across Northern Europe, with the most numerous examples appearing in both the northeast and southeast of Gaul (notably at Roquepertuse, a major Iron Age cultic centre near Marseille, France) and across the northern British Isles during the Romano-British period. Most scholars believe that the British and Irish heads were a combination of abstract Celtic art and the monumentalism of Roman sculpture. [37] [51]

The "Lustymore" Janus figure, Boa Island, around 400-800 AD JanusandLustymoreFigures (cropped).jpg
The "Lustymore" Janus figure, Boa Island, around 400–800 AD

The early forms of Celtic religion were introduced to Ireland around 400 BC. [30] From surviving artefacts, it can be assumed that both multi-headed (as with the Corraghy head) or multi-faced idols were a common part of their iconography and represented all-knowing and all-seeing gods, symbolising the unity of the past, present and future. [52] According to the archaeologist Miranda Aldhouse-Green, the Corleck Head may have been used "to gain knowledge of places or events far away in time and space". [12]

Typically, stone idols were utilised at larger worship sites, of which the known Irish examples are usually near sacred wells or groves. [44] The hole at the Corleck Head's base indicates that it was once attached to a larger structure, perhaps a pillar comparable to the now lost six ft (1.8 m) wooden structure found in the 1790s in a bog near Aghadowey, County Londonderry, which was capped with a figure with four heads. [lower-alpha 4] [53]

Head cult

Tricephalic head found at Roquepertuse, a major Celtic religious centre destroyed by the Romans in the 2nd century BC. Two-headed 'herm' 6017 from Roquepertuse (Marseille, Mus d'arch med).jpg
Tricephalic head found at Roquepertuse, a major Celtic religious centre destroyed by the Romans in the 2nd century BC.

Representations of human heads are often found at Insular or Gaulish Celtic artefacts. [33] Ross notes that in several early Insular vernacular accounts, the head was venerated by the Celts, who believed it "the seat of the soul, the centre of the vital essence" and assumed it had divine powers. [56] Classical Roman sources mention instances of Celts retaining the severed heads of their enemies as war trophies, claiming that they practised head-hunting and placed severed heads on stakes near their dwellings. [56] Other accounts indicate that the Celts believed that placing a severed head on a standing stone or pillar would bring it back to life. [57] [58] These and later claims are circumstantially supported by Iron Age burial sites found to contain multiple decapitated bodies or severed skulls. [33]

This has led to much speculation among archaeologists as to the existence of a Celtic head cult centred around, according to Kelly, a practice of "ritual and sacrifice", in which stone or wooden heads played a central idolatry role. [33] While the Roman and Insular accounts resemble others from contemporary Britain and mainland Europe, the Irish vernacular records were mostly set down by Christian monks who would have had, according to the folklorist Dáithí Ó hÓgáin, "theological reasons" to slant the oral traditions in an unfavourable light compared to their own beliefs. [30]

Notes

  1. ↑ The others are Cathedral Hill in Armagh town, the Newtownhamilton and Tynan areas in County Armagh, the most southern part of Lough Erne in County Fermanagh, and the Raphoe region in north-west County Donegal. [24]
  2. ↑ The townland of Ralaghan is located around 7 km (4.3 mi) south-east of Corleck Hill. [16] According to Barron, he was approached one day in a bog by a man holding a large stick-like object which turned out to be the Ralaghan Idol. The man told him that he intended to throw it back into the bog and that "we're getting dozens of these carved sticks and putting them back. You see, you can't take what's been offered ... the other day one of us got a beautiful bowl, bronze or gold ... carved and decorated all over." When Barron asked him where the bowl was now, he said they had thrown it back "at once, fearing bad luck to have kept it. [22]
  3. ↑ In addition, the late-19th-century tendency to associate objects with a mythical or a late-19th-century Celtic Revival viewpoint, based on medieval texts or contemporary romanticism, has been largely discredited. [41]
  4. ↑ The Aghadowey pillar was carved from a tree trunk and had four heads each with hair, that is today known only from a very simple 19th-century drawing annotated as a "Heathen image found in the bog of Ballybritoan Parish Aghadowey". [53]

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References

Citations

  1. 1 2 3 Smyth (2012), p. 24
  2. 1 2 O'Toole, Fintan. "A history of Ireland in 100 objects: Corleck Head". The Irish Times , 25 June 2011. Retrieved 4 February 2022
  3. ↑ Aldhouse-Green (2015), p. 43
  4. ↑ Rynne (1972), pp. 79–93
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Kelly (2002), p. 142
  6. ↑ Cooney (2023), p. 349
  7. ↑ Ross (1958), p. 13
  8. 1 2 3 4 Kelly (2002), p. 132
  9. ↑ Ross (1958), pp. 13–14, 24
  10. ↑ Waddell (1998), pp. 360, 371
  11. ↑ Kelly (2002), pp. 132, 142
  12. 1 2 Aldhouse-Green (2015), p. 46
  13. 1 2 3 Rynne (1972), p. 84
  14. ↑ Ross (1958), p. 22
  15. 1 2 3 Waddell (1998), p. 362
  16. 1 2 3 Waddell (1998), p. 360
  17. 1 2 Paterson (1962), p. 82
  18. 1 2 Barron (1976), p. 100
  19. ↑ Ross (1998), p. 200
  20. ↑ MacKillop (2004), p. 104
  21. ↑ Ross (2010), p. 111
  22. 1 2 3 4 Ross (2010), p. 65
  23. 1 2 3 4 5 Waddell (2023), p. 320
  24. 1 2 Rynne (1972), p. 80
  25. ↑ Rynne (1972), p. 78
  26. 1 2 Warner (2003), p. 27
  27. ↑ Barron (1976), pp. 98–99
  28. 1 2 Waddell (1998), p. 371
  29. 1 2 Waddell (2023), p. 209
  30. 1 2 3 Ó Hogain (2000), p. 20
  31. 1 2 3 Ross (2010), p. 66
  32. ↑ Waddell (2023), p. 210
  33. 1 2 3 4 "A Face From The Past: A possible Iron Age anthropomorphic stone carving from Trabolgan, Co. Cork". National Museum of Ireland. Retrieved 22 April 2023
  34. 1 2 "Thomas J. Barron. Cavan County Libraries. Retrieved 3 March 2024
  35. 1 2 3 Duffy (2012), p. 153
  36. ↑ Ross (2010), pp. 65–66
  37. 1 2 Smyth (2023), The History
  38. ↑ Smyth (2012), p. 88
  39. ↑ Rynne (1972), p. 79
  40. ↑ Ross (1958), p. 14
  41. 1 2 Gleeson (2022), p. 20
  42. 1 2 Armit (2012), p. 37
  43. ↑ Morahan (1987–1988), p. 149
  44. 1 2 3 Kelly (1984), p. 10
  45. ↑ Waddell (2023), p. 321
  46. ↑ Rynne (1972), plate X
  47. ↑ Warner (2003), pp. 24–25
  48. ↑ Warner (2003), p. 24
  49. ↑ Kelly (1984), pp. 7, 9
  50. ↑ Zachrisson (2017), p. 355
  51. ↑ Zachrisson (2017), pp. 359—360
  52. ↑ Ó Hogain (2000), p. 23
  53. 1 2 Waddell (1998), pp. 361, 374
  54. ↑ Armit (2012), pp. 161, 163
  55. ↑ Ross (1958), p. 24
  56. 1 2 Ross (1958), p. 11
  57. ↑ Ross (1967), pp. 147, 159
  58. ↑ Zachrisson (2017), p. 359

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