Confessions of a Hedge Witch

Patrick MCcafferty (QUB) presented an enticing, if speculative (?) paper, The Royal Palace at Emain Macha: a new interpretation.  His abstract:

For centuries, Navan Fort was thought to be a royal site.  Medieval tales described it as the palace of King Conchobar mac Nessa, a seat of military power.  However, Dudley Waterman’s excavations revealed an enigmatic site whose primary function was ritual, to occupation–further undermining the credibility of medieval Irish tales and reducing the likelihood that they might somehow provide a ‘window on the Iron Age’.

This paper shows that medieval descriptions of the site can be reconciled with the archeological evidence.  To begin with, the paper shows how some of the descriptions of royal palaces in medieval tales seem to fit what was happening at the site in the Iron Age.  The paper goes further by suggesting that the site is based on a coherent philosophy; that the structure built in 95 BCE was designed to be a model of the cosmos incorporating the latest knowledge of the era; and that elements based on this particular cosmic model are to be found in medieval Irish tales.  Whether those elements were based primarily on information transmitted from the Iron Age or on medieval philosophy remains an open question.

This presentation roused much murmuring and head gesturing from the audience, as well as lively questions at the end.  Patrick provided a robust hand-out, with many citations.

He bagan the discussion by giving an over-view of the occupation of Emain Macha: from the Neolithic occupation, to the Bronze Age farming, and Iron Age figure 8 structure.  Then it all changed.  In 95 BCE a unique 40 meter circular building was constructed around a central massive oak trunk / post.  Four concentric rings of posts expanded outward, with a western opening avenue (note that prehistoric dwellings invariably had eastern — sunrise — facing entrances) , and a floor covered with stones arranged in radial segments….then the whole thing was deliberately burnt down before being covered  in a mound of turf and earth.

Patrick noted that though the western opening was possibly unique in Ireland, contemporaneously it was similar to the public basilica in Rome.  And while the tales indicate a military royal fortress, the archeology describes a religious site.

Mac Datho‘s pig is noted in connection with the central oak post: ‘For there were slain one thousand and four hundred armed men both of Ulster and Connacht, so that seven streams of blood and gore burst through the seven doors…then Fergus took the great oak that was in the middle of the enclosure to the men of Connacht, after having torn it from its roots.’

The 7 spaces between the rings, in the wooden concentric structure, are discussed by Chris Lynn (Navan Fort: Archeology and Myth): ‘The size, material, layout and location of the Navan timber structure accord sufficiently well with the stock description of the magical hostel of the literary tradition as to raise the possibility that the two may be related[…] It is possible that the design of the Iron Age ceremonial building in navan was based on a mythical prototype.  The same myth may have survived to become the stock description of the hostel or king’s hall in the Ulster cycle of Tales.’

A ritual conducted within a temple (or space) designed to represent all the worlds, influences all the worlds.  

Non-nativisits suggest the division of Navan Fort represents the 12 apostles, and could be the influence of Christianity on the writing of the tale.  Nativists look to the model of the zodiac, with the central post as the axis mundi.

7 doors?  7 windows??
12 7’s : 7 days of the week, 7 heavenly bodies (earth, sun, five planets)

Navan Fort was built in 95 BCE, so the question is, ‘what was the model of the known solar system at that time?’

The Pantheon, in Rome, has similar dimensions and layers.  We need not only look to christianity for symbolism, though.  Mithraism, based on an Iranian god, had temples using a very similar structure.  In Britton, during the 1st century CE, there were 10 temples to Mithras.  These temples used 7 “stages” (or steps) – a shared concept with Navan Fort.

The Mithraic path to the stars, the seven plus one gates, is explained by Celsus, via Origen (hardly a fan of Celsus), and recorded by A S Geden:

Celsus following Plato affirms that souls proceed to and from the earth by way of the planets…and further being desirous of exhibiting his learning in controversy with us he expounds certain Persian mysteries also, and among them the following: “These doctrines are contained in the traditions of the Persians and in the cult of Mithra which they practise. For the latter gives a kind of representation of the two heavenly spheres, the one fixed and the other assigned to ‘the planets, and of the journey of the soul through these. There is an ascending road with seven gates, and an eighth at the summit. The first gate is of lead, the second of tin, the third of bronze, the fourth of iron, the fifth of mixed metal, the sixth of silver, and the seventh of gold. The first is dedicated to Kronus, the lead symbolizing the planet’s slow motion. The second to Aphrodite, the resemblance consisting in the bright and malleable nature of the tin. The third, firm and resistant, to Zeus. The fourth to Hermes, in that like the iron Hermes is the tireless and efficient worker and producer of wealth. The fifth to Ares, because of the variable and irregular nature of the alloy. The sixth, of silver, to the Moon; and the seventh, of gold, to the Sun, from a comparison of their colours.” Later Celsus investigates the reason for this definite assignment of the stars in whose names the remainder of the physical universe finds symbolical expression, and he expounds further the doctrines of harmony in which the Persian theology is set forth. In addition to these he is so ambitious as to publish a second treatise dealing with the principles of music. In my judgement however, for Celsus to propound his theory in these is absurd; it is like his procedure in the matter of his denunciation of Christians and Jews where he makes irrelevant quotations from Plato, and is so far from being satisfied with these that he drags in the Persian mysteries as he calls them of Mithra also with all their details. For whether these things are true or false in the belief of those who preside over the Mithraic rites of the Persians, why did he choose them for exposition and interpretation rather than any other mysteries? for Greeks have no preference for mysteries of Mithra rather than those of Eleusis or the traditional rites of Hecate which they celebrate in Aegina. And why if he felt it incumbent upon him to set forth foreign mysteries did he not rather prefer the Egyptian, in which many take an interest, or the Cappadocian worship of Artemis in Comana, or the Thracian, or even those of the Romans themselves in which the most high-born senators take part? but if he regarded it as unsuitable to his purpose to adopt anyone of these on the ground that they furnished no support to his denunciation of Jews or Christians, how is it that he did not draw the same conclusion with regard to his exposition of the Mithraic rites? (Geden)

Also, Lismullin Henge has been proposed as a model of the cosmos, dating from 520-370 BCE, at Tara.  Other cosmological 7’s include the 7 stars at Dowth, the 7 cows.

Patrick suggests that Irish royal houses have celestial attributes, and that the 40m Navan Fort is a model of the sky.

The Gundostrop cauldron, it was suggested, is a map of the cosmos, with the 7 deities and the northern castle / lake on the bottom.  (??)
Stonehendge has 30 y and z holes respectively, and 30 years is the orbit of Saturn. 7 noble stars.
30, 12, 7
These numbers are repeated over and over.

He quotes the Saltair na Rann: ‘the firmament, great renown, and the seven noble stars have a single course, a brilliant feat, since the hour they were shapes.’

Patrick quotes O’Sullivan’s ‘Folktales of Ireland’ and Brian O’Cuív’s ‘The Motif of the threefold death’ :

Queen of the Planets–‘putting her head down into the boiling pot… put her head into the noose, and hanged herself… fetched a razor and cut her throat.
Threefold death–‘the phrase ro loisced 7 ro báided 7 ro gonad is used in a prose section with reference to twenty-five kings in the Christain period… Among the kings listed are Muirchertach mac Erca and Diarmait mac Cerbaill who are supposed, according to other sources, to have sufferered the threefold death.’

Did Navan Fort’s 40m structure undergo the threefold treatment?

Is the structure quite literally the Queen of the Planets?

The cairn at Navan is arranged in 8 radial segments.  What if each segment represented the deaths in the 1 year period previous? He quotes The Destruction of Da Derga’s Hostel here:

The reavers […] bring a stone for each man to make a cairn; […]

For two causes they built their cairn, namely, first since this was a custom in marauding, and, secondly, that they might find out their losses at the Hostel. Every one that would come safe from it would take his stone from the cairn: thus the stones of those that were slain would be left, and thence they would know their losses. And this is what men skilled in story recount, that for every stone in Carn leca there was one of the reavers killed at the Hostel. From that Cairn Leca in Húi Cellaig is so called.

One may have had to see the burning of Navan Fort and its segments (ritual burning), with the burning of human remains at Samhain.

The suggestion being, that Emain Macha was designed as a ritual structure, built over a period of time incorporating the deceased of the tribe in a ritualistic way, and when ritualy destroyed by fire and burial, it became a banqueting hall in the otherworld which the tribe could use.