1,600-Year-Old Wooden Pagan Deity Statue Chanced Upon In Ireland Wetlands
Image via Roscommon County Council
While working on a road project in the west of Ireland, a team from the Archaeological Management Solutions (AMS) unearthed an eight-foot-tall pagan idol made of wood during a pre-Christian era.
This rarity was discovered in a bog in Gortnacrannagh, a town located northeast of the prehistoric royal site of Rathcroghan, in the Roscommon County. It’s revealed to be more than 1,600 years old.
The figure appears to have been made from a split oak trunk, donning a human head and horizontal notches carved on the length of its body. According to the History Blog, it was found facedown and in two pieces, indicating that it had been “decommissioned” and possibly sacrificed.
Image via Roscommon County Council
Alongside the statue, animal bones and a dagger used in rituals were also found, reports the Smithsonian Magazine. This hints towards animal sacrifices, presumably as part of a religious ceremony.
According to a statement published by the Roscommon County Council, only a dozen such idol sculptures have been found in Ireland as of now, and the Gortnacrannagh idol is the largest of them all.
Cathy Moore, a wood specialist, points out that the lower ends of a few of these sculptures were “worked to a point suggesting that they may once have stood upright.”
While the meanings remain open to interpretation, she suggests that they may have indicated special points in the landscape, individuals or deities. They could “perhaps have functioned as wooden bog bodies, sacrificed in lieu of humans.”
Dr Eve Campbell of AMS, who directed the site’s excavation efforts, states that the idol was carved “just over 100 years before St Patrick came to Ireland; it is likely to be the image of a pagan deity.”
“Our ancestors saw wetlands as mystical places where they could connect with their gods and the Otherworld,” she explains. The wetlands’ waterlogged conditions are also to credit for the preservation of the wood.
Together with AMS staff, the University College Cork and the University College Dublin are making a replica of the statue, which will be displayed at the Rathcroghan Center.
At the same time, Susannah Kelly, a conservator at University College Dublin, is beginning a three-year effort to preserve the original artifact. This will then be transferred to its new home in the National Museum of Ireland.
ANCIENT PAGAN IDOL FOUND IN GORTNACRANNAGH
Posted by Roscommon County Council on Sunday, August 15, 2021
Irish archaeologists have unearthed a wooden pagan idol in the west of...
[via The Smithsonian Magazine, images via Roscommon County Council]
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