Corleck Head

Altar depicting a three-faced "Celtic" god identified as Lugh/Lugus. Found in Reims, France, 1852

The discovery date of the Corleck head is estimated at around 1855, but the exact circumstances are unclear.[4] It was found either in Corleck townland, or in a quarry on the nearby Drumeague Hill during the disassembly of a passage grave located within a stone circle.[5][6][7] It was probably hidden at the same time as the Corraghy Head, a stone bust of a bearded man, found nearby and now also in the National Museum of Ireland.[1][6] A number of early sources record that the Corleck Head was found alongside a now lost two-headed stone carving showing a man with hair and a beard on one side, and a ram's head on the other.[5]

In Irish, Corleck Hill is known the Sliabh na Trí nDée or Sliabh na nDée Dána, both of which roughly translate as the "Hill of the Three Gods". Archaeological evidence indicates it was a site of pagan worship. It is traditionally associated with the Lughnasadh, an ancient Gaelic harvest festival, suggesting that the head was one of a series of objects placed at the site during the festival.[6] Corleck is one of six areas in Ulster where a cluster of, presumably related, stone idols have been found.[lower-alpha 1][8] Other cult objects found within the Corleck area include the wooden Ralaghan Idol, and heads from nearby Corravilla and Corraghy.[9]

After its discovery the head was placed on top of a farm gatepost. A friend of that family recalled spending "days as children" throwing stones at the head.[10] Its age and significance were first recognised in 1935 by the local historian Thomas Barron. He contacted the National Museum of Ireland in 1937, and it was brought to Dublin for study by the Austrian archaeologist Adolf Mahr, then the museum's director. Mahr secured funding to acquire it into the museum's collection.[10][11] Study of the object preoccupied Barron until his death in 1992 and he became closely associated with it.[12]

Face with arched brows and a more protruding nose.[5]

The Corleck head 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.[6] Each face has very basic features consisting of a broad and flat, wedge-shaped nose, bossed eyes that are closely-set but staring, and a thin, narrow mouth.[13] All three have equally enigmatic expressions but slightly different features.[3] One face is heavily browed. Another one, at the center of its mouth, has a small hole, a feature of several contemporary stone heads found in Yorkshire in England, Wales and Bohemia.[14][15]

The hole under the statue's base suggests it was created for a pedestal which would have had a tenon.[9] This indicates that it probably was part of a larger pre–Christian shrine.[16][17]

The statue has not received significant examination or study.[5] Dating single pieces of Iron Age stone sculpture is extremely difficult, given that unlike wood carvings, they cannot be dated via techniques such as radiocarbon dating. In addition, the late-19th-century tendency to associate objects with mythical deities, or through a "Celtic" or Roman Iron Age viewpoint based on medieval texts or later romanticism, has been largely discredited.[18] Thus modern archaeologists date such objects based on their resemblance to other known examples in the contemporary Northern European context.[19] While the majority of the stone heads found in the Northern Irish counties since the 19th century are now believed to be pre-historic, others have since been identified as either from the Early Middle Ages or examples of 17th- or 18th-century folk art.[16]

Face with a small hole at the centre of its mouth

The majority of surviving prehistoric Irish stone sculptures in the iconic (representational) format originate from the Northern Irish provence of Ulster. They typically consist of a human head carved in the round in low relief. The majority are thought to have been produced within a five hundred year period ending in the first century AD.[20]

The Corleck Head probably represents a Celtic god, carved in a format derived from contemporary Romano-British iconography and symbolism.[17] The triple-head motif seems to have represented an all-knowing and all-seeing god, worshiped as a symbol of the unity of the "past, present and future".[21] According to the writer Miranda Aldhouse-Green, it was "used to gain knowledge of places or events far away in time and space".[22]

Face

The head is one of the earliest known Irish anthropomorphic stone carvings produced during the Iron Age, although it post-dates by around a millennium the c. 1000–500 BC Tandragee Idol found in County Armagh,[16][23] All of the faces in contemporary examples have similar closely-set eyes, thin mouths and flat noses.[24] The hole at the Corleck's base indicates that it was once attached to a larger structure, perhaps a pillar comparable to the 6-foot wooden carving found in the 1790s in a bog near Aghadowey, County Londonderry, which is now lost but known from a 19th-century drawing of an idol with four faces.[4]

Most of the surviving Irish Iron Age stone idols are also cut from limestone blocks.[25] The Corleck Head is widely considered the finest example in both its simplicity of design and complexity of expression;[4][17] in 1972 the archaeologist and historian Etienn Rynne described it as "unlike all others in its elegance and economy of line."[9] Other examples include a triple-head found before 1935 in Cortynan, County Armagh, an object found in Glejbjerg, Denmark, and two carved triple-heads from Greetland in England.[6][26]

• 
  The Ralaghan idol, carved wood, c. 1096-906 BC[27]
• 
  The Tandragee Idol, c. 1000–500 BC
• 
  Stone idol, Boa Island, County Fermanagh, c. 400–800 AD. Left: the "Lustymore" idol, right: the Boa Island Janus.[28]