Anthropomorphic wooden cult figurines, sometimes called pole gods, have been found at many archaeological sites in Central and Northern Europe. They are generally interpreted as cult images, in some cases presumably depicting deities, sometimes with either a votive or an apotropaic (protective) function. Many have been preserved in peat bogs. The majority are more or less crudely worked poles or forked sticks; some take the form of carved planks. They have been dated to periods from the Mesolithic to the Early Middle Ages, including the Roman Era and the Migration Age. The majority have been found in areas of Germanic settlement, but some are from areas of Celtic settlement and from the later part of the date range, Slavic settlement. A typology has been developed based on the large number found at Oberdorla, Thuringia, at a sacrificial bog which is now the Opfermoor Vogtei open-air museum.
The oldest of the figures is the Mesolithic find from Willemstad in the Netherlands and the latest is 13th-century, but most date from between c. 500 BCE and 500 CE. They are found as far west as Ireland (although at least one found in Britain, the Strata Florida figure from Wales, was imported [ citation needed ] ) and as far east as Gorbunovo Moor in Russia. By far the majority were preserved in wetlands of some sort; however, only one figure—from the late Bronze Age settlement at Wasserburg Buchau, near Bad Buchau in Baden-Württemberg, Germany—has been found in the lake village culture of the Alps. [1]
Locations of anthropomorphic idols are spread across the entire northwestern to eastern European region and represent a pan-European phenomenon across cultural boundaries. The documented sites shown on the map can be considered as a small subset of the true number of pole idols. It is plausible that numerous finds are still waiting in the soil of the extensive, former swamp landscapes of Europe (Baltic Sea neighbors, Germany, Netherlands, Russia, etc.), if they have not been destroyed during peat mining (see destruction of boardwalks in Wittemoor) etc. .
The earliest evidence of anthropomorphic wooden cult figures in areas that would later have Germanic-speaking inhabitants is from the Bronze Age. The Broddenbjerg idol, an ithyphallic forked-stick figure found in a peat bog near Viborg, Denmark, is carbon-dated to approximately 535–520 BCE. [2] The Braak Bog Figures, a male and female forked-stick pair found in a peat bog at Braak, Schleswig-Holstein, have been dated to the 2nd to 3rd centuries BCE but also as early as the 4th century. [3] [4] In areas with Germanic-speakers, figures have been found in an area extending from Schleswig-Holstein in Germany to Norrland in Sweden, [5] but the vast majority have been preserved in bogs or other moist environments, so it is impossible to know how widespread the practice actually was. One figure has been found on dry land, in a ditch complex on a hillside at Bad Doberan, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. [6] The great majority of the figurines are markedly more abstract than other artistic artefacts of their time. The 5th-6th century seated figure from the Rude-Eskilstrup bog in Munke Bjergby parish, Zealand, Denmark, is unusually detailed: it has a triple neck-ring or collar, a kirtle and a pronounced chin or beard, and resembles a bronze figure found at Bregneburg on Funen. [7] [8] [9] It has been suggested that this figure may have stood in a heathen temple and been placed in the bog at the conversion. [10] Furthermore, post holes have been identified such as that which forms the focal point of the "grandstand" at the 6th to 7th-century Anglo-Saxon royal hall site of Yeavering. With a side length of 56 centimetres (22 in) and a depth of approximately 1.2 metres (3 ft 11 in), it indicates a pillar of considerable size, presumably a cult pillar of some sort. [11] [12] [13]
The Old Norse term for a god áss (the singular of Æsir; derived from the Common Germanic root *ans, *ansuz and also recorded for Gothic as the Latin plural Anses by Jordanes) has a homonym meaning "pole" or "beam". Jacob Grimm proposed that as the origin of the "god word" and the etymology was accepted by some scholars; [14] [15] it would suggest that the word is derived from god-images in pole form, but relating it to the Indian asuras as a term of Indo-European origins is equally plausible. [16] Some of the wooden figures take the form of a simple pole or post, sometimes set up in a heap of stones. [17]
Tacitus states in Germania that while the Germanic peoples had idols, they did not consider it fitting to anthropomorphize them. One example he describes is the annual parading of an image of the goddess Nerthus. [18] Later Germanic peoples do not seem to have had this aversion, such as the more complex figures made of carved forked sticks that recall the "wooden people" or "tree-men" of the Eddic poem "Hávamál":
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Other more or less contemporary texts also attest to wooden cult figurines in Scandinavian paganism. Christian missionary writings refer disparagingly to wooden "idols", such as the figure of the god Freyr in Gunnars þáttr helmings . [17] The Saga of Ragnar Lothbrok describes a god on Samsø in the form of a 40 feet wooden pole shaped to look like a man that tells that it was set up by the sons of Ragnar Lothbrok in order to perform sacrifices for victory. [20] In Ibn Fadlan's early 10th-century account of the Volga Vikings, he writes that as soon as they come into harbour, they leave their ships with food and alcoholic drink and offer them at a tall piece of wood with the face of a man carved in it, which is surrounded by smaller similar figures. [21] Such an arrangement has been found at sites such as the Oberdorla sacrificial bog.[ citation needed ]
The mentions in Icelandic sagas of Öndvegissúlur carved with the images of gods, in particular Thor and Freyr, and of other idols, may be related but have been influenced by Christian concepts since the sagas were written down in the 12th to 14th centuries, centuries after the heathen period.
Günter Behm-Blancke classified the anthropomorphic figurines into four groups based on the finds at Oberdorla:
Most of the figures which have been preserved are of oak, which was probably preferred for its endurance in the mostly wet locations where they were deposited.
It is impossible to determine the exact purpose of the figurines, or their relationship to the named Germanic gods and goddesses, with whose worship they overlap; examples are found dating to as late as the Viking Age. We cannot determine how typical those which have happened to survive and be found, or their locations, are; and our surviving written sources of information on Germanic paganism are likewise incomplete. [27] They have been interpreted, in particular by Behm-Blancke, as the site of fertility sacrifices, based on the indications of male and female sexual characteristics and the frequent association with potsherds and the bones of animals and, at Oberdorla, of humans. They may originate in a phallus cult, although there are few indications of such a cult in Germanic paganism. Alternatively, since the veneration of pillars extends beyond the Germanic cultural area, they may originate in the belief in the world pillar (as seen in the Saxon Irminsul and the Old Norse Yggdrasill) and thus derive from an archaic tree cult. [17]
Heiko Steuer has suggested that in the case of the male and female Wittemoor figures, which stood on either side of a plank causeway through a marsh, there may have been a secular decorative motive in addition to the spiritual luck-bringing and warding (apotropaic) functions. [28]
Relatively few figurines have been found in areas of Celtic-speaking settlement, and because of overlap with Germanic-speaking settlement, particularly in the North Sea region, [29] it is sometimes difficult to assign a figure to one or the other group of people.
A fragment of an anthropomorphic figurine made of oak dating to the 2nd century BCE was found in a possibly sacrificial shaft inside a Viereckschanze enclosure in the Schmiden section of Fellbach in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It originally depicted a person, apparently seated, between two rams, with hands around their rumps; only the hands survive from the human figure. [30] [31] [32]
Lucan's Pharsalia refers to a sacred grove near Massilia (Marseille) which was a location of human sacrifice and had stone altars and rough-hewn wooden idols. [33]
In a stone replica of a xoanon found at Euffigneix in Haute-Marne, France, the sculptor has reproduced the knot-holes as eye-like openings on the sides. Two maple-wood columns with torcs found in the cultic enclosure of Libenice near Kolín, in Central Bohemia, date to the Roman period. A 3-metre (9.8 ft) oak sculpture of a "guardian deity" wearing a cowl was found in the old harbour basin of Geneva, Switzerland. [34] [35] And primitively carved wooden stelae have been found at sites of worship of goddesses of water-sources, such as the so-called Pforzheim Sirona. [36] [37] An oak statue belonging to the La Tène culture was found at the mouth of the River Rhone in Lake Geneva, near Villeneuve, Vaud, Switzerland. It is 1.25 metres (4 ft 1 in) tall and clothed in a tunic. It was dated by means of three Celtic silver coins of the 2nd century BCE which were in a fissure in the statue, and is thought to depict a late 2nd to mid-1st century Celtic deity, apparently associated with the river or the lake. [34] [35] [38] Finally, a wooden figure 58 centimetres (23 in) was found in Montbouy, west of Orléans in central France. It is presumed to be male and the location of the find, in the well of a Roman temple, suggests it served a devotional purpose; the style of the figure resembles that of pre-Roman figures from North Germany. [39]
To date twenty three anthropomorphic figures are known from Ireland, dating from the Early Bronze Age to the Late Iron Age. The figures come from eleven wetland sites across Ireland. They include two figures known only from paper records: one from the Golden Bog of Cullen, County Tipperary, found in the late-late eighteenth century, and a second from Ballybritain, County Londonderry, found in the 1790s. [40] In 1930, Adolf Mahr published the discovery of a prehistoric anthropomorphic figure found during turf cutting in a bog at Ralaghan, County Cavan, Ireland, called Ralaghan Man . It has a genital opening containing a piece of white quartz, which may represent a vulva or may have been an attachment point for a penis. [41]
In 1934, the first archaeologically excavated figure was identified during excavations at Lagore crannog, County Meath by Hugh O'Neill Hencken. The figure is one of two explicitly anthropomorphic figures in the corpus, the remainder being more stylized. It is 0.47 m tall and consists of a heart-shaped face, a square torso without arms, and two simple legs ending in feet. A slight bump in the pubic area is interpreted as indicating male genitals. [42] The Lagore figure is the earliest to have been found in Ireland and dates to 2135–1944 cal. BC.
The latest is the Gortnacrannagh Figure dating to cal. AD 252–413 (1715±28 BP; UBA-43937), from a fen flanking the Owenur River in County Roscommon. [43]
In 1880, an almost lifesize female figure carved out of an oak log was found near Ballachulish in Scotland. The genitalia are emphasised and pieces of quartz have been inserted as eyes. The figure had been deposited in a ritual context with other objects, within an enclosure marked off with woven branches, similar to cultic finds on the continent. It has been carbon-dated to between 700 and 500 BCE. [44] [45]
The several wooden anthropomorphic figures found in the West Slavic settlement areas around the Elbe, for example the temple finds from Groß Raden (now part of Sternberg) and Ralswiek and those from Neubrandenburg, all in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and Altfriesack (now part of Fehrbellin, Brandenburg) [46] possibly depict deities. Saxo Grammaticus describes the Temple at Arkona as containing a great four-headed idol, far taller than a man. [47] However, Slavic anthropomorphic figures do not occur until the 10th century, presumably under the influence of neighbouring cultures. [48]
Sebastian Brather distinguishes between idols in plank and pole form. He regards the former as primarily votive in purpose,[ citation needed ] like those described by Saxo and by others including Thietmar of Merseburg, but their identification with specific deities can only be speculation. Also, as with Celtic and Germanic, Slavic paganism was not universally standardised but included decentralised, local cult centres and practices, of which the wooden images would have formed a part. [49]
Leszek Słupecki considers the figure from Fischerinsel near Neubrandenburg one of the most significant Slavic idols. Dated to the 11th–12th century, it takes the form of a two-headed male bust mounted on a column of hewn oak, and is 178 centimetres (5 ft 10 in) high. The beard, eyes, and nose are emphasised. [50] It is the only multi-headed sculpture extant from a Slavic region, but the location of the find does not indicate any sort of temple or shrine. [51]
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sculptural processes originally used carving and modelling, in stone, metal, ceramics, wood and other materials but, since Modernism, there has been almost complete freedom of materials and process. A wide variety of materials may be worked by removal such as carving, assembled by welding or modelling, or moulded or cast.
Slavic mythology or Slavic paganism is the religious beliefs, myths, and ritual practices of the Slavs before Christianisation, which occurred at various stages between the 8th and the 13th century. The South Slavs, who likely settled in the Balkan Peninsula during the 6th–7th centuries AD, bordering with the Byzantine Empire to the south, came under the sphere of influence of Eastern Christianity, beginning with the creation of writing systems for Slavic languages in 855 by the brothers Saints Cyril and Methodius and the adoption of Christianity in Bulgaria in 864 and 863 in Great Moravia. The East Slavs followed with the official adoption in 988 by Vladimir the Great of Kievan Rus'.
Germanic paganism or Germanic religion refers to the traditional, culturally significant religion of the Germanic peoples. With a chronological range of at least one thousand years in an area covering Scandinavia, the British Isles, modern Germany, and at times other parts of Europe, the beliefs and practices of Germanic paganism varied. Scholars typically assume some degree of continuity between Roman-era beliefs and those found in Norse paganism, as well as between Germanic religion and reconstructed Indo-European religion and post-conversion folklore, though the precise degree and details of this continuity are subjects of debate. Germanic religion was influenced by neighboring cultures, including that of the Celts, the Romans, and, later, by the Christian religion. Very few sources exist that were written by pagan adherents themselves; instead, most were written by outsiders and can thus present problems for reconstructing authentic Germanic beliefs and practices.
The Alcis or Alci were a pair of divine young brothers worshipped by the Naharvali, an ancient Germanic tribe from Central Europe. The Alcis are solely attested by Roman historian and senator Tacitus in his ethnography Germania, written around 98 AD.
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The Dębczyn culture is an archeological culture in Pomerania from the third to sixth centuries. It was derived from the neighboring Wielbark culture with influences from the Elbe region. The culture was superseded as the result of the later migrations of West Slavs, in particular of the Pomeranians.
The Rani or Rujani were a West Slavic tribe based on the island of Rugia (Rügen) and the southwestern mainland across the Strelasund in what is today northeastern Germany.
Hercules' Club is a Roman Empire and Migration-era artefact type.
Sinthgunt is a figure in Germanic mythology, attested solely in the Old High German 9th- or 10th-century "horse cure" Merseburg Incantation. In the incantation, Sinthgunt is referred to as the sister of the personified sun, Sunna, and the two sisters are cited as both producing charms to heal Phol's horse, a figure also otherwise unattested. The two are then followed by Friia and Uolla, also alliterative and stated as sisters.
After the glaciers of the Ice Age in the Early Stone Age withdrew from the area, which since about 1000 AD is called Pomerania, in what are now northern Germany and Poland, they left a tundra. First humans appeared, hunting reindeer in the summer. A climate change in 8000 BC allowed hunters and foragers of the Ertebølle-Ellerbek culture to continuously inhabit the area. These people became influenced by farmers of the Linear Pottery culture who settled in southern Pomerania. The hunters of the Ertebølle-Ellerbek culture became farmers of the Funnelbeaker culture in 3000 BC. The Havelland culture dominated in the Uckermark from 2500 to 2000 BC. In 2400 BC, the Corded Ware culture reached Pomerania and introduced the domestic horse. Both Linear Pottery and Corded Ware culture have been associated with Indo-Europeans. Except for Western Pomerania, the Funnelbeaker culture was replaced by the Globular Amphora culture a thousand years later.
The Braak Bog Figures are two wooden carvings discovered in 1947 in a peat bog in Braak, Schleswig-Holstein, Northern Germany. Part of a larger tradition of similar figures spanning the period from the Neolithic to the Middle Ages, they are human-like in appearance and have been carbon dated to the 2nd or 3rd century BCE; the Schleswig-Holstein state archaeology museum puts them as far back as 400BCE. Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain their function and what they may represent, from depictions of deities to ancestor worship.
The Broddenbjerg idol is a wooden ithyphallic figure found in a bog at Broddenbjerg, near Viborg, Denmark and now in the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen. It is dated to approximately 535–520 BCE.
The Opfermoor Vogtei is an open-air museum at the location of a prehistoric and protohistoric sacrificial bog in the municipality of Vogtei, Thuringia, in Germany. It lies within the former municipality of Oberdorla, approximately 200 metres (220 yd) from Niederdorla, and the site is also known by those names.
The Wittemoor timber trackway is a log causeway or corduroy road across a bog at Neuenhuntdorf, part of the Berne in the district of Wesermarsch in Lower Saxony, Germany. Originating in the pre-Roman Iron Age, it is one of several such causeways which have been found in the North German Plain, particularly in the Weser-Ems region. It was excavated in 1965 and 1970 and prehistoric wooden cult figurines were discovered in association with it. It is trackway number XLII (IP).
The Dagenham idol is a wooden statue of a naked human figure, found in Dagenham, East London, England in 1922. The statue has been carbon dated to around 2250 BC, during the late Neolithic period or early Bronze Age, making it one of the oldest human representations found in Europe.
The Ralaghan idol, also known as the "Ralaghan figure", is a late Bronze Age anthropomorphic, carved wooden figure found in a bog in the townland of Ralaghan, County Cavan, Ireland. It is held by the National Museum of Ireland.
The Deity Figure from Rarotonga is an important wooden sculpture of a male god that was made on the Pacific island of Rarotonga in the Cook Islands. The cult image was given to English missionaries in the early nineteenth century as the local population converted to Christianity. It was eventually bought by the British Museum in 1911.
A ceremonial pole is a stake or post utilised or venerated as part of a ceremony or religious ritual. Ceremonial poles may symbolize a variety of concepts in different ceremonies and rituals practiced by a variety of cultures around the world. In many cultures, ceremonial poles represent memorials and gravemarkers. In The Evolution of the Idea of God, Grant Allen notes that Samoyeds of Siberia, and Damara of South Africa plant stakes at the graves of ancestors. Ceremonial poles may also be raised during celebrations and festivals, as with Gudi Padwa in Indian State of Maharashtra and the maypole dance in Europe. In some cultures they may represent sacred trees or tools wielded by deities. They may also symbolise the axis mundi or world tree. In religious ceremonies, they may be venerated as idols or representations of tutelary deities.
Trees hold a particular role in Germanic paganism and Germanic mythology, both as individuals and in groups. The central role of trees in Germanic religion is noted in the earliest written reports about the Germanic peoples, with the Roman historian Tacitus stating that Germanic cult practices took place exclusively in groves rather than temples. Scholars consider that reverence for and rites performed at individual trees are derived from the mythological role of the world tree, Yggdrasil; onomastic and some historical evidence also connects individual deities to both groves and individual trees. After Christianisation, trees continue to play a significant role in the folk beliefs of the Germanic peoples.
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