The Celtic World (Routledge Worlds)

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• Chapter Twenty-Three -

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Figure 23.4 Incomplete bronze implement, probably a flesh-fork, ornamented with a pair of

ravens and two swans with three cygnets. Dunaverney, Co. Antrim, Ireland. (R. Mcgaw and

V. Mcgaw, CeLtic Art, London 1989: 25, fig. 9.)

Figure 23.5 Epona with seven ponies, a tree-stump borne on a cart drawn by

three horses, and two priests about to sacrifice a young boar which one priest holds by the back

legs. Beihingen, Stuttgart, Germany. (E. Espcrandieu, Recueil generaL des bas-reLiefs, statues et

bustes de La Germanie romaine, Paris and Brussels 193 I: 404.)

Dog sacrifice is well attested archaeologically. Danebury produced several

examples of this (Cunliffe 1968: 15 5f.), and there are numerous other occurrences of

ritual deposits in Britain which contain the remains of dogs. At the religious site

of Ivy Chimneys, Essex, a ditch contained dog teeth arranged in the form of a neck-

lace. In the Upchurch Marshes, Kent, puppies were found buried in urns, one with

an adult bitch; and these are paralleled by the pots containing dogs and dating to the

pre-Roman Iron Age and earlier, which have been found in Jutland. Some of

the bones were in pots, and some scattered generously round these (Todd 1975:

197ff.: for dog sacrifice, see Green 1986: 155, 168, 176). The shaft, with a depth of

440

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