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In Photos: Island of the Druids

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Island of Anglsey

(Image credit: Adam Stanford, Aerial-Cam)

The island of Anglesey, overlooking the Irish Sea from the northwest corner of Wales, has been linked for centuries with ancient and magical mysteries.

The island has been occupied since prehistoric times, more than 5,000 years ago, and it’s covered in ancient stone monuments, like the Neolithic passage tomb called Bryn Celli Ddu — Welsh for “the mound in the dark grove.” [Read more about the island of Druids]

Mona by the Romans

(Image credit: public domain)

Anglesey was called Mona by the Romans – and it keeps that name today in Welsh as “Ynys Mon” or “Mona Island.”

It acquired the name of Anglesey from Viking raiders who attacked Wales in the 10^th century.This map of Anglesey was made by the English cartographer John Speed in 1607, for an atlas of the British Isles.

The Druids

(Image credit: public domain)

For centuries, Anglesey has been linked to the mysterious order of magical priests known as the Druids, who were said to lead the Celtic British against the invading Romans after 43 A.D.

The link seems to have been made by a single Roman writer around the end of the first century A.D., Cornelius Tacitus, who wrote about a Roman attack on Anglesey, which he described as a center of British resistance.

Odd tactics

(Image credit: public domain)

Tacitus wrote that the attacking Roman soldiers were surprised to find Druids on the front lines of the defenders, throwing magical curses instead of missiles.

Neither the curses or the missiles, however, appear to have worked – and the Romans eventually occupied Anglesey and put the Druids to death wherever they found them.

Bryn Celli Ddu

(Image credit: Adam Stanford, Aerial-Cam)

Modern archaeologists have found no trace of the Druids on Anglesey, or indeed anywhere else in Britain – but their mysterious and magical role has become an almost indelible legend in the hands of later writers.

Ancient stone monuments like Bryn Celli Ddu might have been reused as ceremonial sites by later peoples – but they were built many thousands of years earlier than the supposedly Celtic Druids.

Reconstructing history

(Image credit: Adam Stanford, Aerial-Cam)

The original tomb of Bryn Celli Ddu was built around 5000 years ago; it was excavated by archaeologists in 1928 and 1929, then reconstructed.

The archaeology of the site shows it was at first a simple burial chamber surrounded by a ditch, and earthen bank, and a circle of upright stones.

Pathway

(Image credit: Cadw/Welsh Heritage)

The entrance passage to the tomb was added later, possibly hundreds of years later.

Like the Newgrange tomb in Ireland, the entrance passage lines up for a few days a year with the rising sun – but at mid-summer at Bryn Celli Ddu.

New discoveries

(Image credit: Adam Stanford, Aerial-Cam)

For the last five years, archaeologists from the University of Cardiff and the Welsh Heritage agency Cadw have been conducting excavations at a burial mound a short distance from the passage tomb at Bryn Celli Ddu.

Pieces of distinctive pottery and sophisticated flint tools found at the new site show that the burial mound is built during the Bronze Age in the region, around 1000 years later than the original Neolithic tomb.

Ceremonial center

(Image credit: Adam Stanford, Aerial-Cam)

The excavators have also found artifacts that may be even older than the passage tomb, including pieces of Neolithic pottery known as “grooved ware” and the remains of a stone axe.

Archaeologist Ffion Reynolds, who led the recent excavations, says that the finds show that the Bryn Celli Ddu landscape was used as a ceremonial center over thousands of years by different groups of ancient peoples.

Connecting past and present

(Image credit: Cadw/Welsh Heritage)

Stories of the Celtic Druids leading the British resistance of the Roman invasions from Anglesey are likely to continue.

But modern historians and archaeologists are finding real facts about this ancient landscape that may be even stranger than fiction.

Follow Tom Metcalfe on Twitter @globalbabel. Follow Live Science @livescience & Facebook.

Tom Metcalfe is a freelance journalist and regular Live Science contributor who is based in London in the United Kingdom. Tom writes mainly about science, space, archaeology, the Earth and the oceans. He has also written for the BBC, NBC News, National Geographic, Scientific American, Air & Space, and many others.

The Roman attack on the British Druids on Ynys Môn

The Roman writer Tacitus provides us with the only Roman account of the Druids in Britain:

Tacitus Annals XIV

xxix

He [Suetonius Paulinus] prepared accordingly to attack the island of Mona, which had a considerable population of its own, while serving as a haven for refugees; and, in view of the shallow and variable channel, constructed a flotilla of boats with flat bottoms. By this method the infantry crossed; the cavalry, who followed, did so by fording or, in deeper water, by swimming at the side of their horses.

xxx

On the beach stood the adverse array, a serried mass of arms and men, with women flitting between the ranks. In the style of Furies, in robes of deathly black and with dishevelled hair, they brandished their torches; while a circle of Druids, lifting their hands to heaven and showering imprecations, struck the troops with such an awe at the extraordinary spectacle that, as though their limbs were paralysed, they exposed their bodies to wounds without an attempt at movement. Then, reassured by their general, and inciting each other never to flinch before a band of females and fanatics, they charged behind the standards, cut down all who met them, and enveloped the enemy in his own flames.

The next step was to install a garrison among the conquered population, and to demolish the groves consecrated to their savage cults: for they considered it a pious duty to slake the altars with captive blood and to consult their deities by means of human entrails. While he was thus occupied, the sudden revolt of the province was announced to Suetonius.

Three figures dressed in cucullus (found on a shrine on Hadrians wall). The Druids may have worn similiar attire

In this scene Tacitus describes the Druids as “lifting their hands to heaven” which is in keeping with some Celtic images that we have of their shamens in prayer. They are described as cursing and under the circumstances it seems reasonable to assume that they would have been requesting the Gods to avenge the Roman invaders. We have Celtic descriptions of ‘Druids’ cursing (one hand, one eye, one foot) in a similar way to the Buddist monks of Tibet. That they formed a circle would imply that they believed that some sort of power was derived from this ritual. Tacitus may have had access to Roman military accounts but whether or not the words he records are those of the Roman commander or his own literary invention he implies that the Druids were fanatics.

In his description of the subjugation of the island, Tacitus provides further justification for the attack on this religious order. He paints the Druids in the worst terms for his Roman audience and without mention of the intellectual prowess accorded to them by many other classical writers. He is writing as a Roman and there is reason to suspect that his account is tinged with the propaganda of the conqueror. Tacitus’ description of the sacred groves and altars slaked in blood is similar to that given by the Roman writer Lucan writing about Julius Caesar’s encounter with a site near Marseilles in Southern Gaul: “Interlacing boughs enclosed a space of darkness and cold shade, and banished the sunlight from above. … Gods were worshipped there with savage rites, the altars were heaped with hideous offerings, and every tree was sprinkled with human gore. On these boughs … birds feared to perch; in those coverts wild beasts would not lie down. … Legend also told that often the subterranean hollows quaked and bellowed, that yew-trees fell down and rose up again, that the glare of conflagration came from trees that were not on fire, and that serpents twined and glided round the stems. The people never resorted thither to worship at close quarters, but left the place to the gods. When the sun is in mid-heaven or dark night fills the sky, the priest himself dreads their approach and fears to surprise the lord of the grove ( dominum luci ).” [1]

The Celtic place names ‘Nemeton’ and ‘Llanerch’ are associated with Celtic religious centres. These words can be translated as a clearing in the woods and this seems to support the idea that the clearings in the woods rather than the groves themselves were the central place of worship. Old trees like the yew and the oak were important to their religion and the title Druid or Derwyddon in Welsh actually means oak knowledge. The yew tree (as mentioned in Lucan’s poem above) also seems to have been associated with these places and it survived in the Welsh ‘Llan’ or churchyards of Celtic Christianity. Some yew trees like the bleeding yew at Nevern in Pembrokeshire actually wooze out a red sap which looks like blood. These early Christian enclosures followed the same circular plan of the pagan religious centres that they supplanted.

Whist Tacitus’ account may be tainted with predjudice it also seems to contain more than a grain of truth. Some modern schools of thought tend to argue that the Roman sources are wrong about the Druids performing human sacrifice but this is to ignore the historical and archaeological records. The evidence of human bodies ritually strangled and placed in bogs etc. The Gundestrup Cauldron shows that cauldrons were used to ritually drown their victims.

The Gundestrup Cauldron shows Celtic warriors being ritually dunked into the cauldron of rebirth

In a similar fashion the captives of the Cimbri are recorded by Strabo as having their throats cut over a cauldron:
“Their wives, who would accompany them on their expeditions, were attended by priestesses who were seers; these were grey-haired, clad in white, with flaxen cloaks fastened on with clasps, girt with girdles of bronze, and bare-footed; now sword in hand these priestesses would meet with the prisoners of war throughout the camp, and having first crowned them with wreaths would lead them to a brazen vessel of about twenty amphorae; and they had a raised platform which the priestess would mount, and then, bending over the kettle, would cut the throat of each prisoner after he had been lifted up; and from the blood that poured forth into the vessel some of the priestesses would draw a prophecy, while still others would split open the body and from an inspection of the entrails would utter a prophecy of victory for their own people; and during the battles they would beat on the hides that were stretched over the wicker-bodies of the wagons and in this way produce an unearthly noise. ” (3)

It is unlikely that the Druids themselves would have regarded these sacrificial acts as ‘pious’ as Tacitus indicates but more likely as necessary to recruit the help of their Gods. Offerings were made to the Gods in return for protection and good fortune and this is common to many religions. The ritual deposition of items in Llyn Cerig Bach in Anglesey include swords,

spears, chariot fittings, horse bridles, cauldrons, a trumpet, currency bars, animal bones and two sets of slave chains. Many of these items were damaged before they were put into the lake and symbolise the destruction of wealth which is being given to the Gods. From the archaeological record it generally seems that human sacrifice was not as common as the provision of other gifts to the Gods. However, in the case of Llyn Cerig Bach the resident engineer on the excavation recorded human remains too but these did not appear in the report written by Cyril Fox who did not conduct the excavation and may have had reason to hide such a find. (2) Other similar sites have invariably included human remains. The bodies found at Lindow Moss and in particular Lindow man do show us that human sacrifice was definatlely taking place at the time of the Roman invasion of Britain. For the Celts, the ultimate sacrifice was a human one which might have been considered necessary in certain circumstances, for instance if the Romans were coming to take your land, destroy your power and culture and kill anyone who resisted! The extreme religious practices of the Celts don’t sit easy with the modern mind and so most of the Pagan reconstructionists of today deny that it was part of the religion of these ancient people. The Roman writers may also have been equally horrified by what they call acts of savagery but it was used as an excuse for the destruction of the power of the Celtic people. Whilst the Romans attempt to take the moral high ground we should remember also the savagery of the Romans who themselves performed the ritual sacrifice of the Gallic leader Vergingetorix in the Colosseum not to mention the execution and horrific deaths of countless Christians and others in the name of entertainment.

There is probably artistic licence in Tacitus’ description of the women who were amongst their adverseries on the shores of Anglsey but at the same time it is quite likely that there were women amongst the British who were encouraging their men who were about to do battle. The women in the description are likened to the ‘Furies’ of classical mythology who were the furious avengers of wrongful deeds. These mythical women are indeed depicted as being robed in black and are often depicted brandishing torches or sometimes snakes. To Tacitus’ Roman readership the description would have emphasised the strangeness of the Celts and would also have been symbolic of Celtic irrationality versus the good sense of the Romans. Playing along with Tacitus and in the context of the Druids the description of the women dressed in black reminded me of ‘gwrach’ or witches. The Furies also symbolised vengeance and rebirth and Tacitus’ analogy may have been a good one given the revenge that Boudica and the Iceni were about to inflict on the Romans.

Orestes tormented by the Furies for killing his mother

The causes of the revolt of the Iceni led by Boudica tend to be viewed in isolation from the events that occured in Anglesey even though the Roman forces were recalled from there to deal with the revolt. The Romans attack on the religious heart of Celtic Britain would surely have been viewed very gravely by all of the Celtic tribes. The Iceni’s attack on the Roman Capital of Colchester may not have been the best military target but it was their religious centre in Britain and had previously been an important religious centre for the Iceni.

Some have argued that Suetonius’ recall from Anglesey to deal with the revolt of the Iceni allowed elements of Druidism to survive. Others argue that it died there and then. Although we are told that Anglesey was the Druidic centre it does not follow that all Druids were in Anglesey at the time of the attack. The Roman writers tell us that during the Boudica Revolt which followed that the Iceni performed sacrifices to the Goddess of revenge, Andraste. They also tell us that the Celts will not perform sacrifices without their Druids. By inference there appear to have been Druids amongst the Iceni. However, the attack on Anglesey was undoubtably a crippling blow to Druidism and whilst elements of it did survive in remote parts of Britain and in Ireland they would never weild such power again. More importantly perhaps the collective memory of the illiterate British tribes was also dealt an almost fatal blow for the Druids were the retainers of that knowledge.

It is interesting to note that the Romans only ever banned two religions and they were the Druidic practices and Christianity. They were banned because they were considered to have a powerful influence. The Druids were probably more of a threat than the Celtic chiefs as it seems that they were trying to co-ordinate attacks on the Romans. The Romans policy was to divide and rule and it was a shrewd move to try to eliminate them even though it probably added fuel to Celtic anger and was almost certainly a contributing cause in the Boudicca revolt.

[1] Nora Chadwick, The Celts, Penguin books, 1991 p. 146

[2] http://www.britarch.ac.uk/BA/ba53/ba53feat.html

[3] Strabo gives this vivid description of the Cimbric folklore ( Geogr. 7.2.3, trans. H.L. Jones)

Article © Nigel Cross 2009

Discover more about the Druids

Children’s Reading

The Cut-throat Celts (Horrible Histories) by Terry Deary

The Ancient Celtic Festivals: and How We Celebrate Them Today by Clare Walker Leslie

Sacred Earth Celebrations by Glennie Kindred

Roman Britain (Usborne History of Britain)
by Ruth Brocklehurst

Read our reviews of these and other Celtic Books

Specialized Reading

The Annals of Imperial Rome (Classics)
by Cornelius Tacitus

Caesar’s Druids: Story of an Ancient Priesthood by Miranda Aldhouse-Green

A Brief History of the Druids (Brief Histories) by Peter Berresford Ellis

War, Women, and Druids: Eyewitness Reports and Early Accounts of the Ancient Celts by Philip Freeman

Conquest: The Roman Invasion of Britain by John Peddie

Boudica Britannia
by Miranda Aldhouse-Green

More Celtic books for the general reader

DVD

History Books and Resources

Our site is full of FREE historical information and interactive history resources for classroom use. You can also read reviews of history books and history websites.

Mona Islands | it’s… What is the Mona Islands?

This term has other meanings, see Mona.

Mona Islands is a group of islands in the Kara Sea off the western coast of the Taimyr Peninsula (Russia). Administratively they belong to the Taimyrsky Dolgano-Nenetsky District of the Krasnoyarsk Territory.

Geography

Consist of six large and five small (nameless) rocky granite islands, stretched from west to east along the coast of Khariton Laptev – the eastern coast of the Taimyr Peninsula, at a distance of 20 to 40 kilometers from it. The distance from the easternmost to the westernmost island of the group is a little over 35 kilometers. The size of the islands does not exceed 4.7 kilometers in length. The highest point of the islands is 42 meters. Named after the famous Norwegian meteorologist Heinrich Mohn. They are part of the Great Arctic Reserve.

Mona Islands

Composition

(from west to east):

• Ringnes is the largest island of the group, has an elongated form from west to east, about 4.65 kilometers long and up to 1.5 kilometers wide in the central part. The cliffs of the island reach 38 meters in height. The banks are steep, up to 20 meters high in the southern part. It is covered with rare tundra vegetation – stiff grass and mosses. In the western part of the island there is an astronomical point. The nearest large island of the group is Granite, which lies 6 kilometers to the northeast. To the southwest of the island lie two small unnamed islands no more than 650 meters long. Named after the Norwegian brewing company Ringnes, which financed the Arctic expedition of Otto Sverdrup.
• Granite – located in the northwestern part of the group, 6 kilometers northeast of Ringnes Island and 9.5 kilometers northwest of Hercules Island. It has an elongated shape about 270 meters long and a little less than 100 meters wide. The maximum height of the island is 6 meters. 300 meters northeast of Granite lies a tiny unnamed island about 90 meters long.
• Hercules – lies in the central part of the Mona Islands, 6.8 kilometers west of Kravkov Island and 9,3 kilometers east of Ringnes Island. It is a granite rock up to 15 meters high with a base 770 meters long and up to 430 meters wide. Cliffs up to 12 meters high. 900 meters to the west of it is a small unnamed rounded island with a diameter of less than 150 meters. Initially, it was named Veysel Island, but later renamed in memory of the motor-sailing schooner Hercules, on which Vladimir Rusanov made polar expeditions.
• Kravkova – also located in the central part of the group. The northernmost of the Mona Islands and the second largest after Ringnes Island. The nearest islands are Hercules and Uzky (4.6 kilometers to the southeast). It has a shape slightly elongated from west to east, 2.5 kilometers long and a little over 1.5 kilometers wide. Most of the island is occupied by granite rocks up to 42 meters high (the highest point of the entire group), while the shores of the island are flat. In the western part is the Kravkova polar station, now closed. Named in honor of the Soviet hydrographer Sergei Nikolaevich Kravkov, who died in the besieged Leningrad ^[1] .
• Uzky is a small elongated island southeast of Kravkov Island. It is 1.2 kilometers long and up to 300 meters wide. In the central part of the island there is a rock up to 18 meters high. The banks are steep, up to 10 meters high.
• Extreme is the easternmost of the Mona Islands, hence its name. It has a shape elongated from west to east, a little less than 1.3 kilometers long and up to 550 meters wide in the wide eastern part. The highest point of the island is 15 meters. The banks are steep, up to 10 meters high. The nearest island is Narrow, located 8 kilometers to the southwest.

In addition, 5 very small nameless islands off the coast of the Ringnes, Granitny, Herkules and Kravkova islands.

History

Memorial plaque on the island of Hercules

The islands were discovered in August 1893 by the expedition of Fridtjof Nansen on the ship “Fram” ^[2] . At the same time, Kravkov Island was discovered only in 1940 by a hydrographic expedition led by S. G. Karandashov, who was engaged in hydrographic research off the coast of Taimyr ^{[3] [4]} .

In 1934, researchers who were doing topographic work on Hercules Island (then Veysel Island) came across a wooden pole dug into the ground with the inscription “Hercules 1913”. Twenty years earlier, somewhere in the area of ​​the Kara Sea, the Hercules vessel, sailing under the leadership of polar explorer geologist Vladimir Rusanov, disappeared. In 1913, Rusanov intended to take the Hercules along the entire northern coast of Russia. Searches then did not give results, and the opening of the pillar indicated the presence of members of Rusanov’s team on the island. This was confirmed by subsequent finds – the remains of clothing, cartridges, a compass, a camera, a hunting knife and other things that belonged to the members of the expedition on the Hercules, found on the island of Popova-Chukchina (at that time nameless) ^[2] . In memory of the deceased expedition, Veizel Island was renamed Hercules Island and a memorial plaque was installed on the island.

During the Great Patriotic War in the area of ​​the Mona Islands, battles between the ships of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany repeatedly broke out. So, on September 23, 1944, off the coast of Kravkov Island, patrol ships SKR-29 and AM-120 sank a German submarine, while AM-120 was sunk by another German submarine ^[2] . 28 August 19For 43 years, the Soviet steamship Dikson sank there, on September 29 of the same year, the steamship Arkhangelsk was sunk, and on October 1, the steamship Sergei Kirov ^[3] .

See also

• Scott-Gansen Islands
• Tillo Islands

Notes

1. ↑ Autographs on maps S. V. Popov.
2. ↑ ^{1 2 3} Big Arctic Reserve. Scientific activity
3. ↑ ^{1 2} M. I. Belov “History of the discovery and development of the Northern Sea Route” v.4
4. ↑ Boris Mamlin, Polar Diary

Sources

• Map sheet S-45-III, IV o. Ringnes . Scale: 1:200,000. 1956 Edition
• Card sheet S-45-V,VI polar Art. Kravkova . Scale: 1 : 200,000. State of the area for 1961-1964. Edition 1986
• Map sheet S-45.46 Khariton Laptev shore . Scale: 1:1,000,000. 1988 Edition

This term has other meanings, see Mona.

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