Myths & Legends of the Celtic RaceRolleston, T. W. (Thomas William)
Religion
Myths & Legends of the Celtic Race
Rolleston, T. W. (Thomas William)
Celts -- Religion; Mythology, Celtic
In Egypt the solar boat is sometimes represented as containing the solar
emblem alone, sometimes it contains the figure of a god with attendant
deities, sometimes it contains a crowd of passengers representing human
souls, and sometimes the figure of a single corpse on a bier. The
megalithic carvings also sometimes show the solar emblem and sometimes
not; the boats are sometimes filled with figures and are sometimes empty.
When a symbol has once been accepted and understood, any conventional or
summary representation of it is sufficient. I take it that the complete
form of the megalithic symbol is that of a boat with figures in it and
with the solar emblem overhead. These figures, assuming the foregoing
interpretation of the design to be correct, must clearly be taken for
representations of the dead on their way to the Other-world. They cannot
be deities, for representations of the divine powers under human aspect
were quite unknown to the Megalithic People, even after the coming of the
Celts—they first occur in Gaul under Roman influence. But if these figures
represent the dead, then we have clearly before us the origin of the
so-called “Celtic” doctrine of immortality. The carvings in question are
pre-Celtic. They are found where no Celts ever penetrated. Yet they point
to the existence of just that Other-world doctrine which, from the time of
Cæsar downwards, has been associated with Celtic Druidism, and this
doctrine was distinctively Egyptian.
[Egyptian Bark, with figure of Rā holding an Ankh, enclosed in Solar Disk.
XIX Dynasty]
Egyptian Bark, with figure of Rā holding an _Ankh_, enclosed in Solar
Disk. XIX Dynasty
(_British Museum_)
*The **“**Navetas**”*
In connexion with this subject I may draw attention to the theory of Mr.
W.C. Borlase that the typical design of an Irish dolmen was intended to
represent a ship. In Minorca there are analogous structures, there
popularly called _navetas_ (ships), so distinct is the resemblance. But,
he adds, “long before the caves and _navetas_ of Minorca were known to me
I had formed the opinion that what I have so frequently spoken of as the
‘wedge-shape’ observable so universally in the ground-plans of dolmens was
due to an original conception of a ship. From sepulchral tumuli in
Scandinavia we know actual vessels have on several occasions been
disinterred. In cemeteries of the Iron Age, in the same country, as well
as on the more southern Baltic coasts, the ship was a recognised form of
sepulchral enclosure.”(49) If Mr. Borlase’s view is correct, we have here
a very strong corroboration of the symbolic intention which I attribute to
the solar ship-carvings of the Megalithic People.
*The Ship Symbol in Babylonia*
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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