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Corleck House takes it's name from the Corleck Head
The three-faced Corleck Head is 2nd Century B.C. and can be seen on the first floor. It is shaped like an Egyptian alabaster mace-head, of the full size of a human head. It has three faces cut upon it with straight features and thin lips, of a strangely refined nature. The faces are not identical but are very similar, the mouths shown as narrow slits and the expression on each face remote and withdrawn. A hole in the bottom of the figure is taken to indicate that it was originally affixed by means of a dowel to some other stone or object. Total height is c. 32cm.
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| The tricephalic head (tricephalos) from Co. Cavan is a stone sphere carved with three faces dated based on stylistic terms as a work of the Iron Age. The features of the three faces are characteristically abstract. All of the necessary elements are present but the closely set eyes, elongated nose and thin slash for a mouth are more stylized than naturalistic. The tricephalos also features a hole on its underside which is an indication that it was once placed on a pike or a pillar of some sort, much in keeping with Celtic rituals of the cult of the head.
Although this particular example has three distinct faces of the same size, others of the same genus vary in this respect. A tricephalos from roughly the same period from La Pouquelaie, Geurnsey has not only three faces but three heads connected to each other at the back and sides. A second example from Ireland (Nat. Museum, Dublin) has two larger faces and one smaller face cut on the left side of one of the other faces. Our tricephalos doesn’t fall into this category, but unusual features such as a single shared ear or slots where the ears of animals might have been placed are often part of the design of these artifacts as well.
Much of the evidence surrounding the spiritual associations of these objects points away from any connection to the goddess Brigid; the faces are generally male and sometimes even have mustaches, not to mention the obvious phallic symbolism of the head on a pike. Regardless, to totally dismiss the tricephalos as insignificant to Brigid’s cult would be naïve. The fluidity and ambiguousness of Celtic religion in general makes it nearly impossible to make distinct classifications, rather the degree of separation must be deciphered. Within the same family of Iron Age or Celtic-Romano sculptural heads, both single and multiple, there are examples of female heads. Examples such as the Towcester head (Dumfrieshire), which may actually be a representation of Brigid (Brigantia), indicate that female types, although less frequently, were also used symbolically (229, Ross).
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