The Gods of the Celts by Green Miranda

Author:Green, Miranda [Green, Miranda]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: The Gods of the Celts
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2011-09-29T16:00:00+00:00

Pits – Entrances to the Underworld

The custom of digging deep pits or shafts in the ground, where the primary function was apparently religious rather than utilitarian dates back, in Europe, to at least the Middle Bronze Age. In the Graeco-Roman world bothroi and mundi, pits which linked the underworld to earth, were used in acknowledgement of the dualistic chthonic and celestial powers. It is a fair assumption that ‘ritual’ pits occurring outside the main sphere of Mediterranean civilisation performed similar roles, though the evidence is far from clear. Shafts at Wilsford and Swanwick date from the later second millennium BC; waterlogged wooden finds at Wilsford have yielded a radiocarbon date of 1380–±90 bc. The Swanwick pit is especially interesting: it is about eight metres deep and at the bottom were remains of a wooden post with traces of human flesh and blood adhering to it. A precisely similar occurrence is recorded much later at Holzhausen, Bavaria, where an Iron Age viereckshanze or square religious earthwork contained three shafts, including one with an upright pole and organic remains. Here we have very possible evidence for human sacrifice to appease the underworld gods. At Iron Age Danebury, it has been suggested that ritual was associated with digging grain-storage pits, in that the gods of the underworld may have been disturbed and required propitiation. Indeed the storage of crops underground implies a certain trust in chthonic powers. Evidence for veneration of plutonic deities manifests itself here, for instance, in special pit-bottom deposits: groups of pots or iron implements, layers of grain and animal-burials. The sheer number and recurring patterns of deposition in these pits suggest complex and ordered religious behaviour. Similar evidence of the appeasement of chthonic gods exists on the Continent. In Aquitaine, deep pits dated to 50–30 BC contain cremations and animal bones including those of toads, suggested as having magical properties. In St Bernard (Vendée) one shaft contained a cypress trunk, antlers and the figurine of a goddess; the presence of a tree is interesting in that, with its tall branches reaching towards the sky and its roots burrowing deep underground, the tree possesses perhaps similar symbolism to the pits themselves which bridge earth and underworld. In this context, certain aspects of tree-iconography are of relevance: at Paris and Trier, for instance, a god, Esus, fells a tree containing birds. It may be that here the Tree of Life is being felled, but with its constant regeneration symbolised by the birds in a life-death-rebirth image.

The great majority of so-called ‘ritual pits’ belong to the late pre-Roman and Romano-Celtic periods in Britain, and are clustered geographically in the south-eastern (Belgic) areas. Of Ross’s 220 lowland examples, I believe about a quarter only to be genuinely ritual in function. Some contained dedications to, or depictions of, deities; some had special chambers; others contained complete dog-skeletons: here, the Muntham Court 200-foot pit associated with a shrine contained numerous dog-burials, and the known association (Chapter Six) between dog and the underworld would seem to support their chthonic purpose.

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