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Corleck Head

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The Corleck Head
Two of the head's three faces
MaterialLimestone
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″N 6°59′53″W / 53.9725°N 6.9981°W / 53.9725; -6.9981
Present locationNational 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 is not known for certain, its placing in the Early Iron Age is based on the iconography, which is similar to that of other northern European Celtic artefacts from that period. Archaeologists agree that it probably depicts a Celtic god and was intended to be placed on top of a larger shrine associated with a Celtic head cult. Its use probably continued through the early Christian period into early modern celebrations of the Lughnasadh, a Gaelic pagan harvest festival.

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. It was probably intended for ceremonial use at Corleck Hill, a major religious centre during the late Iron Age that became a site of celebration during the Lughnasadh until early modern times. As with many stone artefacts, its dating and cultural significance are difficult to establish. The three faces may depict an all-knowing, all-seeing god representing the unity of the past, present and future, or ancestral mother figures symbolising strength and fertility. It was found alongside the Corraghy Heads, a two-headed sculpture with a ram's head at one side and a human head on the other. The Corleck and Corraghy idols are collectively known as the "Corleck Gods". Historians assume they were hidden during the Early Middle Ages due to their paganism and association with human sacrifice, traditions the medieval Christian church suppressed.

When the Corleck Head was unearthed around 1855 it was initially treated as a local curiosity and placed on top of a farm gatepost. Almost a century later, it came to national attention in 1937 after its prehistoric date was realised by the historian Thomas J. Barron. It has been in the collection of the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin since 1937, where it is usually on display. It is included in the 2011 Irish Times anthology A History of Ireland in 100 Objects.[2]

Description

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Face with a small hole at the centre of its mouth
Narrow face with heavy eyebrows

The Corleck Head consists of a circular piece of local limestone[3] carved into a tricephalic skull cut off before the neck,[2] with three faces.[4] It is a relatively large example of the type, being 33 cm (13 in) high and 22.5 cm (8.9 in) at its widest point.[5] The head cuts off just below the chin, giving it the appearance of being disembodied.[6] Its faces are carved in low relief and could be male or female.[7][8] They are similar but not identical in form and their enigmatic, complex expressions. Each has basic and simply described features, yet they seem to convey slightly different moods.[9] They all have a broad and flat wedge-shaped nose and a thin, narrow, slit mouth. All of the embossed eyes are wide and round yet closely-set and seem to stare at the viewer, while each face is clean-shaven and lacks ears.[2][10] 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.[11][12]

Archaeologists disagree on whether it was intended as a prominent element of a larger structure containing other stone or wooden sculptures.[6] 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 suggests that the larger structure may have represented a phallus—a common Iron Age fertility symbol.[9][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.[9][16] 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] In 1972, the archaeologist and historian Etienn Rynne described it as "unlike all others in its elegance and economy of line".[13]

Composite view of the three faces showing them as they would appear if the viewer walked from left to right around the head

Dating

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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.[18][19] Dating stone sculpture is difficult as techniques such as radiocarbon dating cannot be used.[20] According to the Celtic scholar Anne Ross, the Corleck Head "correspond(s) closely to Celtic anthropoid representations of the Iron Age [suggesting] a date in the late La Tène period.[21] The Corleck Head is thus placed within this period based 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".[22] However, this view has been challenged by the writer John Billingsley, who points out that there was a folk art revival of stone head carvings in the early modern period.[22]

Although many of the Ulster group of heads are believed to be pre-Christian, others have since been identified as either from the Early Middle Ages or examples of 17th- or 18th-century folk art.[a] Thus modern archaeologists date such objects based on their resemblance to other known examples in the contemporary Northern European context.[15][23] 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.[9][24] A small number of other contemporary Irish and British anthropomorphic examples have similarly drawn faces,[25][26] including a three-faced stone bust from Woodlands, County Donegal, and two carved triple-heads from Greetland in West Yorkshire, England.[5][27] Other tricephalic and bicephalic idols include the "Lustymore" figure in Caldragh Cemetery, Boa Island, County Fermanagh,[28][29] and three-faced head found in Wiltshire, England.[30]

Discovery

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The Corleck 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".[31][32] While the exact find spot is unknown,[16] it was probably on Corleck Hill in the townland of Drumeague, on the site of a large c. 2500 BC passage grave that was then under excavation.[5][33] The head was uncovered alongside the Corraghy Heads—a mostly lost and stylistically very different janiform sculpture with a ram's head on one side and a human head on the other.[31] 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 iconoclasts who sought to suppress the memory of older pagan idols, and especially, according to the archaeologist Ann Ross, the suggestion of "surrogate sacrificial heads".[34][35] The archaeologist John Waddell believes the majority of the contemporary stone idols were destroyed and "then forgotten".[36]

The historian and folklorist Thomas J. 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.[37] During his initial research, he interviewed Emily Bryce, a relative of the Halls, who remembered childhood visits to the farm and throwing stones at the head, having no idea of its age.[1] Through his interviews he found that after Longmore had sold the lease on the farm to Thomas Hall in 1865, Hall's son, Sam, placed the Corleck head on a gatepost. He also uncovered that around this time Sam Hall had inadvertently destroyed a large part of the Corraghy Idols while trying to separate its two heads.[35] Barron contacted the National Museum of Ireland (NMI) in 1937, after which its director Adolf Mahr arranged the Corleck Head's permanent loan to the museum for study.[5][38] In a lecture to The Prehistoric Society that year, Mahr described the head as "certainly the most Gaulish looking sculpture of religious character ever found in Ireland".[39] He secured funding to acquire it for the museum, while study of the head and similar stone idols preoccupied Barron until his death in 1992.[40][41]

Corleck Hill

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Corleck 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,[42][43] and was once known as "the pulse of Ireland".[42][44] Corleck Hill was a major site for the Lughnasadh, an ancient harvest festival celebrating the 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.[45] Archaeologists believe that the head was one of a series of earlier objects placed at the site during the festival.[5] Until the 19th century, the hill held three Neolithic passage graves,[46] the largest of which was known locally as the "giant's grave". Barron's interviews with locals in the 1940s indicate that the hill had a stone circle on its peak until at least 1836.[31] The monuments were excavated during the 18th and 19th centuries to make way for farming land.[46][31] According to Barron's sources, during the excavation 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."[31]

Corleck is one of six areas in Ulster where clusters of seemingly related stone idols have been found.[b][47] Other ancient objects from the area around Corleck include the 1st century BC wooden Ralaghan Idol (also brought to attention by Barron),[c][46][48] a small contemporary spherical stone head from the nearby townlands of Corravilla and the Corraghy Heads, also in the National Museum of Ireland.[13][17]

Function

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The Tandragee Idol,c. 1000 – c. 500 BC. St Patrick's Cathedral, Armagh[48]

The 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[15] and the Ralaghan Idol, c. 1100 – c. 900 BC, found less than five miles east of Corleck Hill.[13] Archaeological evidence suggests a complex and prosperous Iron Age society in Ireland that assimilated many external cultural influences.[24] Although numerous Iron Age carved stones survive, a relatively small number are iconic and just seven examples from the British Isles have three faces.[49][50][51] Two of the examples are Irish; the other is a later and unlocalised multi-faced ivory pendant head also in the NMI.[52]

Celtic stone heads

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The earliest European stone idol heads appeared in the Nordic countries during 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. Both types are assumed to have been created for cultic sites, but early examples are rare, especially in wood. Only around eight prehistoric Nordic stone heads are known to have survived.[53] The type spread across Northern Europe, with the most numerous examples appearing in 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 non-representational abstract Celtic art and the monumentalism of Roman sculpture.[39][54] The early forms of Celtic religion were introduced to Ireland around 400 BC.[34]

The number 'three' seems to have had a special significance to Iron Age and Roman-period Celts, both on the British Isles and in Gaul.[55] Three-headed (tricephalic) figures are a common feature of Celtic art, especially of Gaulish origin, and according to Ross had a religious significance "fundamental to early Celtic thought and outlook".[51] Triple-"mother-goddesses" are common, as are sculptures of the hooded figues know as Genii Cuucullati.[56] From surviving artefacts, it can be assumed that both multi-headed (as with the Boa Island figures and the Corraghy Heads) 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, or in cosmological terms, the upper-world, the underworld and the middle-world.[57] 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".[6]

Stone idols were typically used as part of larger worship sites, and many of the surviving Irish examples were unearthed near sacred wells, rivers or trees, usually on sites later adapted by early Christians for churches and monasteries.[24][58] The hole at the Corleck Head's base indicates that it was periodically 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 originally capped with a figure with four heads.[d][59]

Head cult

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Tricephalic head found at Roquepertuse, a major Celtic religious centre destroyed by the Romans in the 2nd century BC[61][62]

Many Iron Age stone carvings from Celtic regions are of human heads, sometimes with multiple faces.[63] The modern consensus, as articulated by Ross, is that the Celts venerated the head as a "symbol of divinity" and believed it to be "the seat of the soul".[64] Classical Greek and Roman sources mention that Celtic peoples practised headhunting and used the severed heads of their enemies as war trophies, and would, in the words of Ross: "tie them to the necks of their horses, bearing them home in triumph...the more severed heads a warrior possessed the greater was his reputation as a hero."[64] According to both the Greek historian Posidonius and the geographer Strabo, the Gauls rode home from battle with their enemies' heads hanging from the necks of their horses, before nailing them outside their homes. Strabo wrote that heads of noble enemies were embalmed in cedar oil and "exhibited to strangers".[65][66]

There are many Insular Celtic (that is Celts living in Great Britain and Ireland) myths in which severed "living heads" preside over feasts and/or speak prophecies.[65] Medieval Irish legends tell of severed heads coming back to life when they are placed on standing stones or pillars.[67][68] This has led to speculation among archaeologists as to the existence of a Celtic head cult.[65] Decapitated human skulls have been found at Iron Age sites associated with rituals and sacrifice, such as those at Loughnashade, County Armagh.[63] 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.[34]

Notes

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  1. ^ 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.[20]
  2. ^ 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.[25]
  3. ^ The townland of Ralaghan is about 7 km (4.3 mi) south-east of Corleck Hill.[16] Barron recalled being approached 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.[46]
  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".[59]

References

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Citations

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  1. ^ a b Smyth (2012), p. 24
  2. ^ a b c O'Toole, Fintan. "A history of Ireland in 100 objects: Corleck Head". The Irish Times, 25 June 2011. Retrieved 4 February 2022
  3. ^ Rynne (1972), pp. 79–93
  4. ^ Aldhouse-Green (2015), p. 43
  5. ^ a b c d e Kelly (2002), p. 142
  6. ^ a b c Aldhouse-Green (2015), p. 46
  7. ^ Cooney (2023), p. 349
  8. ^ Ross (1960), p. 13
  9. ^ a b c d Kelly (2002), p. 132
  10. ^ Ross (1960), pp. 13–14, 24
  11. ^ Waddell (1998), pp. 360, 371
  12. ^ Kelly (2002), pp. 132, 142
  13. ^ a b c d Rynne (1972), p. 84
  14. ^ Ross (1960), p. 22
  15. ^ a b c Waddell (1998), p. 362
  16. ^ a b c Waddell (1998), p. 360
  17. ^ a b Paterson (1962), p. 82
  18. ^ Rynne (1972), p. 79
  19. ^ Ross (1960), p. 14
  20. ^ a b Gleeson (2022), p. 20
  21. ^ Ross (1967), p. 124
  22. ^ a b Armit (2012), p. 37
  23. ^ Morahan (1987–1988), p. 149
  24. ^ a b c Kelly (1984), p. 10
  25. ^ a b Rynne (1972), p. 80
  26. ^ Waddell (2023), p. 321
  27. ^ Rynne (1972), plate X
  28. ^ Warner (2003), pp. 24–25
  29. ^ Warner (2003), p. 24
  30. ^ Ross (1967), pp. 53–56
  31. ^ a b c d e Waddell (2023), p. 320
  32. ^ Barron (1976), pp. 98–99
  33. ^ Waddell (1998), p. 371
  34. ^ a b c Ó hÓgáin (2000), p. 20
  35. ^ a b Ross (2010), p. 66
  36. ^ Waddell (2023), p. 210
  37. ^ Ross (2010), pp. 65–66
  38. ^ "Thomas J. Barron. Cavan County Libraries. Retrieved 3 March 2024
  39. ^ a b Smyth (2023), The History
  40. ^ Duffy (2012), p. 153
  41. ^ Smyth (2012), p. 88
  42. ^ a b Barron (1976), p. 100
  43. ^ Ross (1998), p. 200
  44. ^ MacKillop (2004), p. 104
  45. ^ Ross (2010), p. 111
  46. ^ a b c d Ross (2010), p. 65
  47. ^ Rynne (1972), p. 78
  48. ^ a b Warner (2003), p. 27
  49. ^ Waddell (2023), p. 209
  50. ^ Kelly (1984), pp. 7, 9
  51. ^ a b Ross (1960), p. 15
  52. ^ Ross (1960), pp. 11, 13
  53. ^ Zachrisson (2017), p. 355
  54. ^ Zachrisson (2017), pp. 359—360
  55. ^ Aldhouse-Green (2015), p. 47
  56. ^ Ross (2010), p. 66
  57. ^ Ó hÓgáin (2000), p. 23
  58. ^ Aldhouse-Green (2015), p. 48
  59. ^ a b Waddell (1998), pp. 361, 374
  60. ^ "Boa Island". Tuatha, 8 June 2022. Retrieved 26 October 2025
  61. ^ Armit (2012), pp. 161, 163
  62. ^ Ross (1960), p. 24
  63. ^ a b "A Face From The Past: A possible Iron Age anthropomorphic stone carving from Trabolgan, Co. Cork". National Museum of Ireland. Retrieved 22 April 2023
  64. ^ a b Ross (1960), p. 11
  65. ^ a b c Koch (2006), pp. 897–898
  66. ^ "Strabo, Geography, Volume II: Books 3-5". Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press. Retrieved 3 October 2024
  67. ^ Ross (1967), pp. 147, 159
  68. ^ Zachrisson (2017), p. 359

Sources

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  • Gleeson, Patrick. "Reframing the first millennium AD in Ireland: archaeology, history, landscape". Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 2022
  • Kelly, Eamonn. "The Iron Age". In Ó Floinn, Raghnall; Wallace, Patrick (eds). Treasures of the National Museum of Ireland: Irish Antiquities. Dublin: National Museum of Ireland, 2002. ISBN 978-0-7171-2829-7
  • Kelly, Eamonn. "The Archaeology of Ireland 3: The Pagan Celts". Ireland Today, no. 1006, 1984
  • Kelly, Eamonn. "Late Bronze Age and Iron Age Antiquities". In: Ryan, Micheal (ed). Treasures of Ireland: Irish Art 3000 BC – 1500 AD. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 1983. ISBN 978-0-9017-1428-2
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  • Zachrisson, Torun. "The Enigmatic Stone Faces: Cult Images from the Iron Age?". In Semple, Sarah; Orsini, Celia; Mui, Sian (eds). Life on the Edge: Social, Political and Religious Frontiers in Early Medieval Europe. Hanover: Hanover Museum, 2017. ISBN 978-3-9320-3077-2
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