Myth and Materiality

OXBOW INSIGHTS IN ARCHAEOLOGY

MYTH AND MATERIALITY

John Waddell

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Front cover: Cú Chulainn and the Morrígan in the form of a raven on a cattle raid. From T. W. Rolleston, Myths & Legends of the Celtic Race, 1911; illustration by J. C. Leyendecker.

Back cover: (top to bottom): The ‘Banqueting Hall’ on the Hill of Tara; stone statue found at the Glauberg; the Leubingen tumulus.

… in the course of human events societies pass and religious systems change; the historical landscape is littered with the husks of desiccated myths. These are valuable nonmaterial fossils of mankind’s recorded history, especially if still embedded in layers of embalmed religion, as part of a stratum of tradition complete with cult, liturgy and ritual. Yet equally important is the next level of transmission, in which the sacred narrative has already been secularized, myth has been turned into saga, sacred time into heroic past, gods into heroes and mythical action into ‘historical plot’.

Jaan Puhvel, Comparative Mythology (1987)

OXBOW INSIGHTS IN ARCHAEOLOGY

EDITORIAL BOARD

Richard Bradley – Chair

Umberto Albarella

Michael J. Allen

John Baines

Ofer Bar-Yosef

Chris Gosden

Simon James

Neil Price

Anthony Snodgrass

Rick Schulting

Mark White

Alasdair Whittle

Contents

Acknowledgements

List of Illustrations

Introduction

1. The Invented Past

2. The Mythic Past

3. Sacral Kingship – The Mythology

4. Kings in Archaeology

5. The Otherworld

6. The Sacred Tree

7. The Ancestors of Epona

Epilogue

Notes

References

Acknowledgements

I am very grateful to all who have helped with the production of this work especially Conor Newman and Jane Conroy. I am also particularly grateful to Richard Bradley for his encouragement. Dr Elizabeth O’Brien kindly provided some additional information on the Farta burial. Máirín Ní Dhonnchadha was, as ever, a source of sound advice. ‘The Connacht Project’ in the National University of Ireland Galway – under her direction – was an important stimulus. This is an interdisciplinary research initiative that investigates aspects of the exceptionally rich corpus of early Irish texts relating to the ancient province of Connacht. Its archaeological component addresses the challenges posed by a number of western sites and monuments, like the royal complex of Rathcroghan, where myth, history and archaeology converge. Both Jane Conroy and Angela Gallagher deserve special thanks for their assistance with the illustrations.

The sources of the illustrations are as follows: 1.1. Author. 1.2. J. Cooke in his 1903 edition of W. F. Wakeman’s Hand-book of Irish Antiquities; The image of ‘The bier of King Dathi carried in the Alps’ comes from John Boyle O’Reilly’s Irish Songs and Ballads (1888). 1.3. Courtesy of Conor Newman. 1.4. Macalister 1919. 1.5. Lynn 1997 (© Crown DfC); Mallory 1985. 1.6. Lynn 2002. 3.1. Courtesy of the Discovery Programme.

4.1. Eogan 2001; Fritsch 2010. 4.2. Raftery 1983; Armstrong 1933. 4.3. Parfitt 1995. 4.4. Hansen 2010. 4.5 Fritsch 2010. 4.6. After Lawson 2007. 4.7. After Scarre 2013 with emendations. 5.1. Harrison 2004. 5.2. After Stead 1991. 5.3. Shepherd and Shepherd 2001; Cahill and Sikora 2011. 5.4. Jones 1984; Ellis 1942. 5.5. Raftery 1983; Ó Floinn 2009. 5.6. 1–3: Jope 2000; 4: Stead and Hughes 1997. 5.7. 1–2: Kaul 1998; 3: Aner and Kersten 1976. 5.8. Kristiansen 2010. 5.9. 1: Patay 1990; 2–3: Wirth 2006; 4: Rolley 2003.

6.1. After Wyss 1954; Brennand and Taylor 2003. 6.2. Andrén 2014. 6.3. Tonnochy and Hawkes 1931; Marco-Simón 1998. 6.4. A: Lynn 1997 (© Crown DfC); B: Mallory 1985; C: Auboyer 1959. 6.5. Powell 1971. 6.6. 1, 4: Stollner 2014; 3: Ginoux 2007; 4: Jacobsthal 1944. 7.1. Koch 2010. 7.2. 1–4: Duval 1987, 5: Duval 1975. 7.3. Giraud 2015. 7.4. Méniel 1992. 7.5. Stead 1991. 7.6. Collins 1952. Back cover photo: the Leubingen tumulus: author 2009.

List of Illustrations

Fig. 1.1. Rathcroghan Mound and the results of geophysical survey.

Fig. 1.2. Dathi’s Mound at Rathcroghan and ‘The bier of King Dathi carried in the Alps’.

Fig. 1.3. The ‘Banqueting Hall’ on the Hill of Tara.

Fig. 1.4. Medieval drawing of the great Banqueting Hall on the Hill of Tara and R. A. S. Macalister’s reconstruction.

Fig. 1.5. Plan of Navan Fort and an artist’s impression of Navan Fort today.

Fig. 1.6. Schematic plan of Navan Site A–C and the sequence of circular enclosures at Site B.

Fig. 3.1. LiDAR image of the Hill of Tara.

Fig. 4.1. Bronze cardiophylax from Loughnaneane, Co. Roscommon, and a stone statue from Capestrano.

Fig. 4.2. Gold torcs from Knock and gold beads from Tumna, Co. Roscommon.

Fig. 4.3. Burial at Mill Hill, Deal, Kent.

Fig. 4.4. Reconstruction of the Hochdorf burial.

Fig. 4.5. Stone statue found at the Glauberg.

Fig. 4.6. Reconstructed plan of the Bush Barrow burial dug in 1808.

Fig. 4.7. A pattern of social stratification in prehistoric Europe.

Fig. 5.1. Engraved slab from Cabeza de Buey, Badajoz.

Fig. 5.2. Chariot grave at Kirkburn, Yorkshire.

Fig. 5.3. Inverted pottery from Findhorn, Moray, and Ballyvool, Co. Kilkenny.

Fig. 5.4. Scenes from Nordic mythology: picture-stone at Tängelgårda, Gotland, and a wooden carving from Hylestad, Norway.

Fig. 5.5. Solar imagery: the Petrie Crown and pairs of bronze discs.

Fig. 5.6. Solar imagery: the Battersea shield, the Aylesford bucket and two mirrors.

Fig. 5.7. Solar journeys: bronze razors and the Trundholm ‘chariot of the sun’.

Fig. 5.8. Upright and inverted boats in Scandinavian rock art.

Fig. 5.9. Solar images on bronzes.

Fig. 6.1. Sacred trees 2000 years apart.

Fig. 6.2. Scandinavian tree settings.

Fig. 6.3. Image of sacred trees from Rivenhall, Essex, and Arcóbriga, Spain.

Fig. 6.4. The axis mundi and the solar wheel at Navan and Amaravati.

Fig. 6.5. Sketch of a panel on the Gundestrup cauldron.

Fig. 6.6. Stylized sacred trees on belt-hooks and a scabbard.

Fig. 7.1. The Ekurini inscription.

Fig. 7.2. Coins of the Redones.

Fig. 7.3. A horse burial found at Cagny (Normandy).

Fig. 7.4. Sacrificed stallions at Vertault (Côte d’Or).

Fig. 7.5. Horse burial found at Kirkburn, Yorkshire.

Fig. 7.6. Plan of the hillfort at Blewburton Hill, Oxfordshire.

Introduction

Famous places like Tara, Co. Meath, and Navan, Co. Armagh, are called ‘royal sites’ because they are closely associated with kings and queens in medieval myth and legend. Surprisingly, perhaps, they also have Otherworldly links for supernatural beings are frequent visitors, and these are sometimes friendly, sometimes hostile. For the poet W. B. Yeats, however, this Otherworld was a place where ‘where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood, but joy is wisdom, time an endless song’. I know of one gateway to this magical realm and I was first able to stand on its threshold many years ago when investigating the archaeology of Rathcroghan, a royal site in the west of Ireland. Like Tara, this is a complex of ancient monuments that figures prominently in Irish medieval literature and carries an outstanding weight of myth and legend.

Unlike Tara, it has an entrance to this Otherworld, the síd or otherworldly place of ancient Crúachain as it is called in early Irish, and we shall explore it in due course. The early study of Rathcroghan’s monuments did confirm its archaeological importance, a conclusion strengthened by extensive geophysical survey there in the 1990s, but I was at a loss to explain why medieval story tellers should leave us a picture of a prehistoric royal settlement with such puzzling otherworldly associations. Indeed I ended my paper with the question how does an archaeologist recapture the importance of an entrance to an Otherworld?¹ Part of the answer lies in its mythology.

The aim of this book is to promote the thesis that myth may illuminate archaeology and that on occasion archaeology may shed light on myth using Irish evidence as a starting point. Medieval Irish literature is rich in mythic themes that in some cases at least may prompt archaeologists to take a fresh look at the materials they investigate. Some of these themes are of great antiquity but some elements were invented by contemporary authors in the middle ages. It is a challenging source as I indicated in an earlier study, Archaeology and Celtic Myth, published in 2014. It is not always easy to distinguish a genuine archaism from a medieval invention – and, to complicate the picture, there is plenty of evidence of Classical and Christian influences in this material too.

Early Irish literature is written in Old Irish (roughly AD 600–900) and Middle Irish (approximately AD 900–1200). It is the richest literary legacy in a Celtic language and is unique in both volume and range. It is by far the largest body of written material in a non-Latin tongue in western Europe. The narrative literature includes the Ulster or Heroic Cycle of tales where Rathcroghan figures prominently as the splendid court of Queen Medb and her husband Ailill, king of Connacht. Her royal residence was the rath or fort of Crúachain – a great mound in the centre of the Rathcroghan complex. That extensive geophysical survey just mentioned demonstrated that this mound was a ceremonial monument with a protracted prehistory and not a habitation site. There is clearly a significant divergence between text and archaeology. Yet it is the mythology attached to Rathcroghan that gives us some idea of the role this site may have had and the rituals that may have been practised there in pre-Christian times. The same may be said about the other major royal sites: Navan Fort – the Emain Macha of these medieval tales – and Tara.

Among the numerous mythic themes in these medieval texts, some are certainly of archaeological interest because they may reveal something about the prehistoric past not just in Ireland but elsewhere in Europe too. Each of these royal sites had their associated goddess of sovereignty who played a key role in the inauguration rites of successive kings. Representing the land and fertility, these divinities had martial and equine aspects as well. Besides a belief in a complex Otherworld and these sovereignty figures, allusions to the institution of sacral kingship recur again and again. The medieval evidence leaves no doubt that sacral kingship was a prehistoric tradition in ancient Ireland. Its decline in early Christian times was hastened by the rise of a multitude of medieval kin groups. This process culminated in great dynasties such as the Uí Néill in the east and north, the Uí Bhriain in Munster and the Uí Chonchobair in Connacht whose modern namesakes, O’Neills, O’Briens and O’Conors, are now scattered around the world.

Female deities, sacral kings and the Otherworld are just some of the major themes that may have left traces in the archaeological record. Their origins may lie in an Indo-European world and take us back to the Bronze Age – if not before in some cases. Most European languages belong to the Indo-European language family and with few exceptions (such as Basque and Finnish) today’s linguistic landscape has been fashioned by this inheritance. Further afield, the Hittite language is recorded in cuneiform script on clay tablets in Anatolia around 1700 BC. The oldest texts, in Indo-Iranian, are in Vedic Sanskrit and appear in the 2nd millennium BC as does Mycenaean Greek. In Europe, Celtic and Italic languages are attested in the 1st millennium BC. No scholar of Irish, Welsh or Continental Celtic will deny the Indo-European origins of these languages. Language was not just a vehicle for the transmission of phonemes and hopefully many will agree that mythic themes (akin to the mythemes of Claude Lévi-Strauss) travelled down the ages too.

The formation of the Navan Research Group by Jim Mallory and others in 1986 and the appearance of its journal Emania, devoted to the study of the archaeological landscape and literary associations of Navan, were important developments in the multidisciplinary study of the royal sites in general. Equally significant was the Discovery Programme’s survey of Tara initiated in 1991 under the direction of Conor Newman. It too was a multidisciplinary effort and its objective was to address the archaeological, historical and literary dimensions of this famous site. The major survey report on the hilltop complex and its broader landscape was published six years later. This and a comprehensive annotated bibliography of Tara that embraced the history, mythology and literary associations of this centre of pagan and medieval kingship was just the beginning of a programme of research that has fundamentally changed our understanding of ‘Tara of the Kings’.² Its associations with the rituals of sacral kingship in myth and history indicate that some of its monuments were once the setting for spectacular ceremonies.

In a good illustration of myth illuminating archaeology, these kingly associations inspired Newman to re-evaluate the archaeological significance of the great linear earthwork known as the ‘Banqueting Hall’ since medieval times.³ Aerial images of this monument give little sense of its scale and depth. In an imaginative interpretation of this enigmatic site he points out that it is both a ceremonial avenue that played a key part in kingly inaugurations and a semi-subterranean space (Fig. 1.3). When you stand within its two parallel earthen banks, you realise you cannot see over the banks which, of course, were once even higher. This is the one monument on the hill where views to the outside world are deliberately denied. Starting at the northern lower end, a visitor ascending gently to the hilltop, finds themselves in an enclosed space and, in an almost literal sense, enters Tara. As a processional way, however, it has other perplexing features – there are puzzling gaps in the banks on either side that from time to time allow a sight of the world outside.

Newman imagines a royal party slowly processing towards an inauguration ceremony in the summit sanctuary, the domain of the gods. Here the gaps in the banks have a crucial role to play for they offer glimpses of the burial mounds of the ancestral kings and queens of Tara on the right-hand side. One of these burial mounds is associated with a mythical king whose reign ended catastrophically. Reflecting on the lives of such ancestors, these monuments serve to remind a king-to-be of the burden of responsibility that comes with World Kingship, and of the fact that in re-enacting an inauguration ceremony he is about to take his place in history.

On the left-hand side, the Hill of Skreen is visible to the east. One of the famous legendary kings of Tara was banished to Skreen after being blinded by a bee sting, and because he was physically blemished he was disqualified from kingship. This is the limbo that awaits those who break the conventions of kingship. On the path to inauguration, the future king would reflect on the qualities and achievements of his mythic and historical predecessors and on the challenges and responsibilities he faced. This scenario is an excellent example of one way in which myth may be invoked to inspire fresh archaeological thinking.

Another instance is provided by the strange theme of asymmetry of form in some Irish tales.⁴ In the story Togail Bruidne Da Derga (The Destruction of Da Derga’s Hostel), a tale we will encounter again, a woman named Calib arrives at night demanding to enter the dwelling. She is of unprepossessing appearance to say the least with long black shins, pubic hair reaching to her knees, and her mouth is on one side of her head. She declares her many names – two of which are the names of war-goddesses – and is clearly from the Otherworld. She casts an evil eye on the assembled company and, standing on one leg and holding up one hand, she prophesizes the destruction to come.⁵

It is obviously a long leap from medieval Ireland to Iron Age Burgundy but here we have some evidence that supports the suggestion that the celebrated ‘princess of Vix’ was a woman who had a ritual role in society. She was buried with all the symbols of superior rank of the 5th century BC: a four-wheeled wagon, rich personal ornaments and a drinking set that included an immense bronze wine vessel capable of holding nearly 1100 litres made in a Greek colony in southern Italy. The female imagery on some of these objects is remarkable. Grotesque gorgons form the handles of the great vessel, a small statue of a veiled female stands in the centre of its lid, and images of Amazons decorate a Greek cup. These details and the fact that she was not physically distinguished, being of small stature (about five feet in height) and was marked by asymmetrical facial features and hip dysplasia that may have impaired her walking, have all prompted the proposition that she was a high-status ritualist with a role in the ceremonial serving of wine.

Another exceptional female burial of about AD 100 from Juellinge on the Danish island of Lolland was also accompanied by rich grave goods that included a bronze cauldron, a ladle, a wine-strainer, two glass beakers and two drinking horns. It is