Celtic stone idols
Northern European stone sculptures
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The faces tend to share several characteristics, including unsophisticated or crude features such as closely set eyes, a long face, broad noses or a slit mouth. Praising this simplicity, the scholar Paul Jacobsthal described the idols as bearing "the mark of Greek humanity, shining through primitiveness and weirdness". A small number of similar, usually earlier, wooden idols have survived, including the Braak Bog Figures (2nd or 3rd century BC, Northern Germany ) and the Ralaghan Idol (c. 1000 BC, Ireland).
Origin and development
The earliest European stone idols 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.
The type spread across Northern Europe, with the most numerous examples appearing in the northeast and southeast of Gaul (notably at Roquepertuse, a major Celtic religious center near Marseille, France) and across the northern British Isles during the Romano-British period. Most scholars believe that the heads were a combination of non-representational abstract Celtic art and the monumentalism of Roman sculpture
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Dating
Dating stone sculpture is difficult as techniques such as radiocarbon dating cannot be used. The heads are thus usually dated based on stylistic similarities to works whose dating has been established. However, this approach 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.
Although many of the 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. Thus modern archaeologists date such objects based on their resemblance to other known examples in the contemporary Northern European context.
Function
Archaeologists believe that the pre-Christian stone idols were intended as centerpieces for worship sites. A majority of the surviving examples were rediscovered near sacred wells, rivers or trees. On the British Isles especially, these locations were typically adapted by early Christians for churches and monasteries.
Many of the Celtic era stone carvings are of human heads, sometimes with multiple faces or heads. The modern consensus, first articulated by the historian Anne Ross, is that the Celts venerated the head as a "symbol of divinity" and believed it to be "the seat of the soul". 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." According to both the Greek historian Posidonius and the geographer Strabo, the Gauls returned from battle with their enemies' heads hanging from the necks of their horses, before nailing them outside their homes. Strabo recorded that heads of noble enemies were embalmed in cedar oil and "exhibited to strangers".
There are numerous Insular Celtic—(that is, Celts living in Great Britain and Ireland) myths in which severed but living heads preside over feasts and/or speak prophecies. Medieval Irish legends recount severed heads returning to life when placed on standing stones or pillars. This has led to speculation as to the existence of a Celtic head cult. Decapitated human skulls have been found at Iron Age sites associated with rituals and sacrifice, such as those at Loughnashade, County Armagh. 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.
Polycephalic heads
The number three seems to have had a special significance to Roman-period Celts, both in Gaul and on the British Isles. Three-headed figures are a common feature of Celtic art, especially of Gaulish origin, and according to the archaeologist Anne Ross had a religious significance "fundamental" to early Celtic outlook. The concept was likely imported to Britain and Ireland Celts by the Guals during the pre-Roman period, with the Rimi altar becoming a major influence on Insular Celtic art. Sculptures from the period often show deities with either three faces or heads, while sacred animals such as lambs have three rather than two horns. The British Isles already had a mythological tradition of triple Mother goddesses such as the Irish gods Danu, Macha and Boann.
From surviving artefacts, it can be assumed that both multi-headed (as with the Irish "Dreenan" figure on Boa Island and the Corraghy Heads) or multi-faced idols were a common part of Celtic iconography. Archaeologists assume such figures to represent all-knowing and all-seeing gods, that probably symbolised the unity of the past, present and future.