Although today the Celts are usually associated with Ireland, Wales and other areas along Europe’s Atlantic rim, from 1000 B.C. through the end of the first century A.D. they lived all the way from the Iberian Peninsula in the west to Anatolia in the east, and from Scotland in the north to Italy’s Po Valley in the south. This pair of limestone heads was found at the Celtic sanctuary of Roquepertuse, near Aix-en-Provence in the south of France, together with a number of other religious sculptures dating from the third or second century B.C.
Stone sculptures of the Celts that have been unearthed throughout Europe bear a number of similar motifs. Leaf-shaped crowns, like the one shared by these two heads, appear frequently on freestanding sculptures and in low reliefs. The severed head is also a recurring theme in Celtic art: Apparently severed heads, which were carved on friezes, lintels and freestanding pillars, had cultic significance. A column found at the Roquepertuse site even has niches for real human heads.
Barry Cunliffe, professor of European archeology at Oxford University, says that in Celtic life, “the art of the sculptor is art in the service of the gods.” The gods of Celtic religion were found in nature; certain watery places such as springs, rivers and bogs were sacred, as were groves of trees. Though the same basic belief in gods who demanded propitiation is found throughout the Celtic territories, the specific offerings made to the gods varied from place to place. Human beings were sacrificed by the Druids, members of a priestly class of Celts who controlled all public and private rituals. Containers of butter recently found in bogs in Scotland and Ireland may have been offered by a pastoral community hoping to produce a satisfactory milk yield. These limestone heads, however, exemplify the most common method of making offerings to the gods: Such luxury goods were placed in deep shafts or wells dug in sanctuaries throughout Celtic Europe to serve as ritual depositories for offerings.
Although today the Celts are usually associated with Ireland, Wales and other areas along Europe’s Atlantic rim, from 1000 B.C. through the end of the first century A.D. they lived all the way from the Iberian Peninsula in the west to Anatolia in the east, and from Scotland in the north to Italy’s Po Valley in the south. This pair of limestone heads was found at the Celtic sanctuary of Roquepertuse, near Aix-en-Provence in the south of France, together with a number of other religious sculptures dating from the third or second century B.C. Stone sculptures of the Celts […]
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