Neolithic Passage Tomb Art Around the Irish Sea Iconography and Spatial Organisation

UNIVERSITÉ DE NANTES UFR HISTOIRE, HISTOIRE DE L'ART & ARCHÉOLOGIE Year 2008 Number assigned by the library esis to obtain the degree of DOCTEUR DE L'UNIVERSITÉ DE NANTES Discipline : Archaeology Presented and defended in public by Guillaume Robin on the 4th of November 2008 Title : Neolithic passage tomb art around the Irish Sea Iconography and spatial organisation Volume : text Supervisors: Mr Serge Cassen (Chargé de Recherche, CNRS) Mr Muiris O'Sullivan (Professor, University College Dublin) International PhD cotutelle convention JURY Mr Serge Cassen Chargé de Recherche, CNRS Supervisor Mr Muiris O'Sullivan Professor, University College Dublin Supervisor Mr André D'Anna Directeur de Recherche, CNRS Rapporteur Mr Julian omas Professor, University of Manchester Rapporteur Mrs Elizabeth Shee Twohig Senior Lecturer, University College Cork Examiner Mr Alasdair Whittle Professor, Cardiﬀ University Examiner 2 Acknowledgements We address our most profound thanks to Mr Serge Cassen (CNRS) for having believed, four years ago, in our PhD project and for having given us daily an exceptional supervision. This work, the orientation of its questions of research and its results would have been quite different without the priceless scientiic inluence of the director of the Laboratoire de Recherches Archéologiques (LARA) in Nantes University. Our work owes much to Mr Muiris O'Sullivan (University College Dublin) who accepted to cosupervise it. We thank him for his scientiic investment, the personal documentation he put at our disposal and for allowing our work in the site of Knockroe. We thank the rapporteurs, Messrs André D’Anna (CNRS) and Julian Thomas (University of Manchester), and the examiners, Mrs Elizabeth Shee Twohig (University College Cork) and Mr Alasdair Whittle (Cardiff University), for accepting to evaluate this work. This PhD could not have been done without the inancial support of the Doctoral School 80 « Connaissances Langages Cultures » of Nantes University and of the UMR 6566 « Centre de Recherche en Archéologie, Archéosciences, Histoire » (CNRS). The setting up of the international PhD cotutelle convention owes much to Mr Bruno Manguy, director of the Division of the Research and Doctoral Studies in Nantes University. We also thank, on the French side, Mrs Marie-Beatrice Trichet and Mrs Véronika Kindl. On the Irish side, the convention could be established thanks to the work of Mr Muiris O' Sullivan, Mrs Elizabeth Noonan and Mrs Agnes Legutko (University College Dublin) and the advice of Misses Helen Maulion (cotutelle with University College Cork) and Noémie Beck (cotutelle with University College Dublin). We particularly thank Mrs Angela McAteer (University College Dublin) for her availability, its effectiveness and its constant kindness. Our research beneited from the opinions and advice of many colleagues. The question of carved stone reuse was the object of several interesting discussions with Mrs Blaze O'Connor (University College Dublin). Mr Cyril Chaigneau’s light on the ancient perception of megalithic monuments were determining in the orientation of certain questions. The support of Mrs Elizabeth Shee Twohig, in particular at the time of our very irst research in University College Cork, was of precious help. We thank Mrs Christine Boujot (SRA Bretagne) for her bibliographical indications on the analysis of Neolithic funerary space. Our work is also very indebted to the bibliographical indications provided by Mr Thierry Piel (Université de Nantes) in the ield of Etruscan funerary architectures. Lastly, we address our thanks to Miss Denise Philibert (Université Lyon 3) to whom we owe our initiation to the research in Prehistory and whose repeated encouragements nourished our motivation. Various people contributed to the good continuation of our research. We thank Eliska and Jiri Zikmund for lending their camera and tripod, material necessary to our irst ieldwork. We are also grateful to Mrs Patricia Keenan and Mr Tony Roche (Department of the Environment, Heritage, and Local Government - Ofice of Public Work) for digital images of the excavations of Knowth passage tomb. The advice of Renaud Nallier (University Paris 1) in computer graphics allowed to improve our methodology of carving recording from digital photographs. The specialized counsultings of Miss Claire Portal and Mr Ion Tillier (Université de Nantes) were of precious help in ields of topography and geology. We thank Miss Louise Macdonald and Mr Thomas Macdonald for the proofreading of the English text. We are inally very indebted to my wife Stéphanie whose judicious corrections, daily support and encouragements allow our work to be completed. May her courage, determination and rigour continue to inspire us. 4 Acknowledgements ...........................................................................................................................................3 Contents ..............................................................................................................................................................5 INTRODUCTION...................................................................................................................................................9 Part one – Framework of the study 1. OBJECT, SUBJECT AND METHODOLOGY......................................................................................................13 1.1. DEFINITION OF THE OBJECT OF STUDY AND PRÉSENTATION OF THE CORPUS ..........................................13 1.1.1. Terminological remarks ........................................................................................................13 1.1.2. Passage tomb architecture arround the Irish Sea..............................................................15 1.1.3. Parietal art: deinition and corpus of the sites ..................................................................17 1.2. DEFINITION OF THE SUBJECT .....................................................................................................................32 1.2.1. Origin of the subject.............................................................................................................32 1.2.2. Working hypotheses and initial questions ..........................................................................32 1.2.3. Problematics and objectives of the research .....................................................................33 1.3. METHODOLOGY..........................................................................................................................................33 1.3.1. Means and methods of investigation..................................................................................34 1.3.2. Means and methods of representation...............................................................................37 2. HISTORY OF THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH ON IRISH PASSAGE TOMB ART .....................................39 2.1. INVENTORIES, RECORDINGS AND DESCRIPTIONS OF PASSAGE TOMB ART...................................................40 2.2. THE ANALYSES OF PASSAGE TOMB ART .......................................................................................................41 2.2.1. The identiication of the techniques of execution...........................................................41 2.2.2. The classiications of the signs............................................................................................43 2.2.3. The deinition of « styles » ...................................................................................................44 2.2.4. The research of a relative chronology of the carvings....................................................47 2.3. THE INTERPRETATIONS OF PASSAGE TOMB ART................................................... .......................................47 2.3.1. Symbols or ornaments? Questionings about the possibility of a meaning...................47 2.3.2. Anthropomorphic motifs and cult of the Mother Goddess...........................................50 2.3.3. Star motifs and astronomical worship ................................................................................53 2.3.4. Altered states of consciousness, entoptic visions and shamanism ................................54 2.4. CONCLUSION: FOR A SPATIAL ANALYSIS OF THE CARVINGS........................................................................57 Part two – the iconographic repertoire of passage tomb art 3. THE SIGNS : forms and variations of a graphic « vocabulary »....................................................61 3.1. THE CIRCULAR AND SEMICIRCULAR SIGNS ..................................................................................................62 3.1.1. Dots and cupmarks................................................................................................................62 3.1.2. The circular signs ...................................................................................................................62 3.1.3. The spirals...............................................................................................................................63 3.1.4. The arcs ...................................................................................................................................63 3.1.5. The radiate circular signs ......................................................................................................64 3.1.6. The radiate semicircular signs..............................................................................................65

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