Jan 5, 2024 06:39 PM
https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/...y-suggests
INTRO: A giant, enigmatic carving of a naked, bald man wielding a hefty club likely depicts the mythical Hercules, a new study finds.
The early medieval artwork, carved into the chalk bedrock on a hillside above the village of Cerne Abbas in Dorset, England, was likely created to mark a meeting point for West Saxon armies that were readying to fight the invading Vikings, according to the study, published in the January issue of the journal Speculum. Later, monks in Cerne Abbas — who likely didn't want a pagan figure in their midst — reinterpreted the huge carving to be the local saint, Eadwold, the team said.
"The monks of Cerne wouldn't have portrayed their patron saint as naked if they were carving him from scratch, but they were happy to co-opt him as an image of Eadwold for their own purposes," study co-author Tom Morcom, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas at the University of Oslo in Norway, said in a statement... (MORE - details
The Cerne Abbas Giant (wikipedia): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerne_Abbas_Giant
Archaeologists reveal likely age of enigmatic Cerne Abbas Giant ... https://youtu.be/zGrirP7BthA
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/zGrirP7BthA
INTRO: A giant, enigmatic carving of a naked, bald man wielding a hefty club likely depicts the mythical Hercules, a new study finds.
The early medieval artwork, carved into the chalk bedrock on a hillside above the village of Cerne Abbas in Dorset, England, was likely created to mark a meeting point for West Saxon armies that were readying to fight the invading Vikings, according to the study, published in the January issue of the journal Speculum. Later, monks in Cerne Abbas — who likely didn't want a pagan figure in their midst — reinterpreted the huge carving to be the local saint, Eadwold, the team said.
"The monks of Cerne wouldn't have portrayed their patron saint as naked if they were carving him from scratch, but they were happy to co-opt him as an image of Eadwold for their own purposes," study co-author Tom Morcom, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas at the University of Oslo in Norway, said in a statement... (MORE - details
The Cerne Abbas Giant (wikipedia): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerne_Abbas_Giant
Archaeologists reveal likely age of enigmatic Cerne Abbas Giant ... https://youtu.be/zGrirP7BthA