The Corleck Head Stone Idol
Ancient treasures and wonders of Ireland, mysterious gems and gold, lost creatures and Irish wonders
No catching this one by surprise
The Corleck stone head is believed to be an ancient pagan idol, representing perhaps some ancestor or deity from the pre-Christian era in Ireland. The most striking aspect of the Corleck stone head is its three faces, set in strange, almost unsettling expressions, all the more remarkable for their simplicity of design, lacking ears or detailed features. The three faces are nonetheless markedly different, with one having heavy eyebrows and another with an odd hole in the mouth.
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.
It is about 33cm high and 22.5cm across at its widest point, fashioned from a single block of limestone around the first or second century AD, at the end of the La Tène period in Ireland. It may be considerably older but has been dated to the late iron age due to its similarity to other stone heads found across Europe. There is a hole underneath the idol which might have been used to fix it on a pedestal.
The head was found in the mid 19th century in County Cavan, near to a building which was known as the "Corleck ghost house". Most likely it was unearthed in a nearby passage tomb, one of three that was being excavated, known locally as the "giants grave", dating back to 2500 BC. Jon O'Reilly described to an archaeologist how, at least until 1836, Corleck hill had a passage tomb and a stone circle on its summit, with a surrounding embankment some seventy yards across.
According to O'Reilly, during the tomb's 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."
Local folklore relates the following about the house:
"This house is situated on the top of a high hill and is quite visible for a long distance on every side. It is a large two story house and was built in the beginning of the last century. It has a very beautiful and healthy aspect and yet it is unoccupied. This house is haunted.
Peculiar sounds such as the barking of dogs or the neighing of horses come from the inside of the house at night and many are the stories that are told about the same.
An old man Pat Fay going home from a céile one night thought there were horses kicking each other and prancing about in one of the out offices. But when he went over he could not get the door opened. He then went on home and when he reached his destination he suddenly remembered that the house was haunted and then he got a great fright.
The following day he went over to see what was wrong and when he opened the stable door he saw that there had been no horses or other animals there for months as the house was full of hay."
The area is known in Irish as Sliabh na Trí nDée, meaning the "Hill of the Three Gods", or Sliabh na nDée Dána, which means the "Highland of the Three Gods of Craftsmanship". Archaeological evidence indicates that Corleck was an important Druidic place of worship and scholarship during the early iron age, since numerous stone heads and idols have been found in the area and was once known as "the pulse of Ireland".
Corleck is also associated with Lughnasadh, an ancient pagan harvest festival. To the north there is another set of Iron Age stone carvings which appear to be centred on Emain Macha, the main political and ritual site of ancient Ulster.
It was placed on a farmer's fence-post for the best part of a century until a researcher from the Irish folklore commission happened across it, and it was purchased by the museum.
The three-faced stone idol was found along with another stone head called the Corraghy head which had a ram's head on one side and a human head with hair and a beard on the other. It is widely thought the idol was once part f a larger shrine, and may have been connected via the hole in the mouth of one of the faces to a bigger structure. Rumours persist that the worship of the idol may have involved human sacrifice, with blood running into the hole from some elevated altar, which might have explained why it was hidden - to preserve it from Christians keen to destroy such paganry.
Celtic head-cults were widespread cross Europe at this time, and would have been represented in the prosperous and sophisticated Irish Celtic culture. The head was venerated by the Celts who believed it "the seat of the soul, the centre of the vital essence" and thought it had divine powers. Some stories indicate that the Celts believed that placing a severed head on a suitably enchanted standing stone or pillar would animate and bring it to life. These and later claims are supported by a number of iron age burial sites found to contain decapitated bodies or severed skulls.
There is much speculation as to what the three-faced idol represented, with some suggesting it was the three faces of a female goddess, maiden mother and crone, others that it simply represented omniscience, an all-seeing god, the past, present and future, or something to do with fertility. It is thought the head was one of a series of objects used during festival celebrations, perhaps set on top of a pillar comparable to the lost 1.8 m wooden structure found in the 1790s in a bog near Aghadowey, County Derry, which was capped with a figure containing four heads.
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".
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