The Artifact Redux: The Corleck Head

Published Apr 6, 2022, 10:01 AM

In this episode of STBYM’s The Artifact, Robert discusses a fascinating Celtic artifact...

Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of My Heart Radio. Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and this is the Artifact, a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind, focusing in on particular objects, ideas, and moments in time. As we discussed in our recent episodes on brain and head theft, many ancient peoples found supernatural significance in the human head. Myths and legends told of heads that still retained life and could perhaps be used as instruments of communication with realms beyond one. Such people were the ancient Celts, an early Indo European people who spread over much of Europe between the second millennium BC and the first century BC. Their ideas concerning the human head were long interpreted as a quote cult of the head, and tales of Celtic head hunting were long noted by historians, but, as Ian Armatt points out in the book Head Hunting and the Body and Iron Age Europe, modern archaeologists have pushed back against this interpretation. Still, the Celts may have valued the head as the seat of human emotion and power. Many a stone head can be found in the British Isles, heads that show little sign of having ever been attached to a stone body, though some are thought to have been made from mounting on wooden poles. As historian Dr Brian Lacy told BBC News, in the ancient Celts carved and preserved heads in various ways, and many have been unearthed, though many more imitation heads from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries also exist. According to Lacey, true Celtic stone heads are rare and Ireland has probably produced no more than a hundred of them, but one head, the so called Corlic Head, found in County Covon, stands out as a masterpiece. This Iron Age stone artifact is especially notable because it has not one face but three, seemingly related to the sacred properties of the number three in Celtic cosmology, visible in the triskelion and other Celtic motifs. Is it the head of a god, a watcher, a monster, a protector. Is it meant to represent something about the human soul? It remains a mystery. The Corlak Head, along with other stone heads, is currently in the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin. Here, it's six eyes continue to stare out across the centuries tune into additional installments of the artifact each week, hosted by either Joe or myself. As always, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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