Eight-Foot-Tall, 1,600-Year-Old Statue of Pagan Deity Found in Ireland

Eight-Foot-Tall, 1,600-Year-Old Statue of Pagan Deity Found in Ireland

The well-preserved wooden sculpture may have been part of a ritual site where animal sacrifices were carried outmal sacrifices were carried out

By Livia Gershon
SMITHSONIANMAG.COM
AUGUST 17, 2021 12:40PM

Researchers have recovered an eight-foot-tall, 1,600-year-old wooden sculpture from a bog in the Irish townland of Gortnacrannagh. As Pat Flynn reports for the Clare Herald, Archaeological Management Solutions (AMS) discovered the artifact while conducting excavations ahead of a road construction project.

The Iron Age figure was made from a split oak trunk. It has what appears to be a human head and a series of horizontal notches carved along its body.

“The Gortnacrannagh Idol was carved just over 100 years before St. Patrick came to Ireland; it is likely to be the image of a pagan deity,” says dig leader Eve Campbell, an archaeologist at AMS, in a statement. “Our ancestors saw wetlands as mystical places where they could connect with their gods and the Otherworld,” a supernatural realm in Celtic mythology.

Campbell says the team also found animal bones and a ritual dagger at the site, suggesting that animal sacrifices may have taken place there.

Per the Irish Examiner’s Greg Murphy, only 11 similar sculptures have been found in Ireland to date. The Gortnacrannagh statue is the largest discovered so far. Ancient wooden artifacts are frequently found in bogs because the wet, anaerobic conditions help preserve them.

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