Corleck Head

In Irish, Corleck hill is known in Irish as Sliabh na Trí nDée or Sliabh na nDée Dána, both of which roughly translate as the "Hill of the Three Gods". Archaeological evidence indicates the hill was a site of pagan worship. It is traditionally associated with the Lughnasadh, an ancient Gaelic harvest festival.[4] Archaeologists believe it likely that the head was one of a series of objects placed at the site during the festival.[5] Corleck is one of six areas in Ulster where a cluster of presumably related stone idols have been found.[lower-alpha 1][6] Other cult objects found in the Corleck area include the wooden Ralaghan Idol (c. 1096–906 BC) and stone heads from nearby Corravilla and Corraghy.[7]

It was probably hidden at the same time as the Corraghy Head, a stone bust of a bearded man, now also in the National Museum of Ireland.[2][5] A number of early sources record that the Corleck Head was found alongside a now lost two-headed stone carving of a man with hair and a beard on one side, and a ram's head on the other.[8]

The Corleck head was discovered c. 1855 by the local farmer James Longmore Jr while searching for stones to build a house,[9] however the exact find spot is known.[10] It was probably Corleck hill, or less likely in a quarry on the nearby Drumeague Hill.[5][8][11]

After Longmore sold the farm to Sam Hall, the Corleck head was placed on the gatepost of a wall outside the farm house.[12] Emily Bryce, a relative of that family, remembered visits throwing stones at the head.[1] The head's age and significance were first recognised in 1935 by the local historian Thomas J. Barron. He contacted the National Museum of Ireland in 1937,[5] after which it was taken to Dublin for study by the archaeologist and museum's director Adolf Mahr, who secured funding to acquire it into the museum's collection.[1][13] Study of the object and its provenance preoccupied Barron until his death in 1992.[14]

Face with arched brows and a more protruding nose.[8]

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.[5] The faces are all similar in form and expression, but not identical; according to the archeologist Eamonn Kelly, each seems to express a different mood.[15] They all have enigmatic expressions, built from very basic and simply described facial features, including a broad and flat wedge–shaped nose, bossed eyes that are closely-set but staring, and a thin, narrow, slit mouth.[16][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.[17][18]

The hole under the base suggests it was created for a pedestal which would have had a tenon (a joint connects two pieces of material).[7] This indicates that it probably was part of a larger pre–Christian shrine.[19][15]

Face with a small hole at the centre of its mouth

The statue has not received significant scholarly study,[8] and dating single pieces of Iron-Age stone sculpture is extremely difficult given that they cannot be dated via techniques such as radiocarbon dating. In addition, the late-19th-century tendency to associate objects with mythical or a "Celtic Revival" viewpoint based on medieval texts or 19th-century romanticism, has been largely discredited.[20] Thus modern archaeologists date such objects based on their resemblance to other known examples in the contemporary Northern European context.[21] 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.[19]

Most known iconic (representational, as opposed to abstract) prehistoric Irish sculptures originate from the northern province of Ulster. They typically consist of a human head carved in the round in low relief. The majority are thought to have been produced between 300 BC and 100 AD.[22]

The Corleck Head probably represents a Celtic god, carved in a format derived from contemporary Romano-British iconography and symbolism.[15] Triple-head figures represented all-knowing and all-seeing gods who in Celtic religion symbolised the unity of, according to the historian Dáithí Ó Hogain, the "past, present and future".[23] According to the writer Miranda Aldhouse-Green, it may have been "used to gain knowledge of places or events far away in time and space".[24]

The head is one of the earliest known Irish anthropomorphic stone carvings, although it post-dates by around a millennium the c. 1000–500 BC Tandragee Idol found in County Armagh c. 1912.[19][25]

All of the faces in contemporary Irish examples have similar closely-set eyes, thin mouths and flat noses.[26] 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 very simple 19th-century drawing of an idol with four faces.[10]

Most surviving Irish Iron Age stone idols are cut from limestone blocks.[27] The Corleck Head is widely considered the finest example, in its simplicity of design and complexity of expression.[10][15] In 1972 the archaeologist and historian Etienn Rynne described it as "unlike all others in its elegance and economy of line."[7] Other local 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.[5][28]

• 
  The Ralaghan Idol, carved wood, c. 1096-906 BC[29]
• 
  The Tandragee Idol, c. 1000–500 BC
• 
  Stone idols, Boa Island, County Fermanagh, c. 400–800 AD. Left: the Lustymore idol, right: the Boa Island Janus.[30]