During the Romano-British period, religious observance was woven into daily domestic life, often centred on small household shrines where local deities were integrated into the Roman pantheon. [1] Literary references to English pagan worship exist, [2] with altars and idols frequently mentioned, yet such texts seldom provide locational detail that can be reliably correlated with archaeological evidence. More valuable insights into religious practice are furnished by portable material culture, particularly altars and other explicitly religious artefacts. [3]

Roman portable altars were typically made of stone* and measured between 21 and 30 cm in height, though examples varied considerably. A copper alloy votive altar of Roman date (43–410 AD) discovered in 2015 at Great Saxham, Suffolk measured just 16.3 mm and weighed 3.86 g, while others reached up to 170 cm, though whether such large examples were truly “portable” is debatable. [4]

These objects were primarily functional, serving domestic worship and personal devotion to household gods, ancestors, or specific deities. They symbolised a transportable connection between the owner and the divine, enabling ritual purity and religious practice wherever permanent shrines were unavailable. In this way, altars facilitated private ‘cult’ practice while inscribing religion into diverse landscapes, linking intimate household practices with broader networks of movement, settlement, and sacred space. The Great Saxham find is particularly striking, demonstrating how even miniature artefacts could embody devotion, portability, and symbolic resonance.

Of the 444 complete altars known in Britain, 3 groupings of Romano-Celtic deities emerge: [5]

Silvanus and Sulis – aligned with ‘official’ cults, using conventionally sized altars, especially at Bath (90–100 cm). Their dedications, along with those to Sulis Minerva at Bath, are prime examples of syncretism between local and imperial cults.

Matres and Cocidius – linked to portable altars, typically 41–50 cm.

Coventina, Belatucadrus, and Vitiris – strongly associated with small and very small altars [6] often tied to natural features such as springs, forests, or boundary landscapes.

Of course, portable altars were dedicated to a vast array of other gods and goddesses, fostering deep connections between individuals and the genius loci, the spirit of place. This relationship was cultivated through placement, dedication, and symbolic design, as tangible expressions of the bond between worshipper and landscape.

The votive altar, as an ideotechnic device, an object that can embody and transmit ideas, beliefs, or symbolic systems, can reveal much about the interface between local and foreign cosmologies. [7] Its emulation and adaptation facilitated the construction of new identities through cult practice, even under the pervasive shadow of military occupation. This dynamic is particularly evident in the hinterland of Hadrian’s Wall, where some sixty-one altars were dedicated. [8] Traditionally, such dedications to local deities along the northern frontier have been interpreted as either a neutral blending of religious traditions or as gestures by foreign soldiers honouring the genius loci. Yet movement through and around the landscape itself shaped the perception of these numinous locations, embedding them within lived experience and ritualised spatial practice. [9]

This raises broader questions about societies and individuals: do their beliefs “lie locally or abroad”? Does myth submerge the past in the present through the agency of myth? [10] The presence of local deities on altars, often with unique iconography and inscriptions, highlights how individuals expressed their connection to the immediate environment and heritage. Landscapes are socially and symbolically constructed, representing a potential map of cultural cosmos. The act of using an altar created temporary sacred space that was ritually pure, suitable for interacting with gods even in “profane” (non-temple) locations, ensuring continuity of religious practice during travel, campaigns, or in places without public temples. [11]

At Carrawburgh, a Roman fort site on Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland, eleven portable altars dedicated to the water goddess Coventina, often associated with rivers, wells, or forests, were deliberately placed in groups, in a series of separate acts. [12] These dedications allowed individuals to honour the genius loci and seek its favour or protection. Altars to Coventina, placed in her sacred well, symbolised the intimate relationship between worshipper and spirit of the water source. Placement of altars in meaningful locations, wells, pits, or shrines reflected belief in the sanctity of place.

These acts of dedication were not only offerings but also rituals that symbolised the individual’s acknowledgement of the spiritual significance of the place. For example, the structured deposition of altars in Coventina’s Well suggests a recurring practice of honouring the spirit of the site. ​ Such practices suggest a ritualistic act to preserve the sacred connection between the deity and the water source and the goddess, emphasising the sacredness of the natural landscape. ​The repeated, deliberate nature of these acts points to a ritualised rhythm of devotion, embedding cosmological meaning into the frontier landscape.

Romano-Celtic altars thus served as media connecting individuals with cosmological beliefs and the surrounding landscape. Through personal dedications, specific placements, and symbolic imagery, they reflected the intertwining of the divine, the natural world, and personal identity. Through their placement, design, and use, they wove together personal, spiritual, and environmental dimensions of life, creating a harmonious bond between worshipper and the sacred spirit of place.

*Footnote. Buff sandstone, Gritstone, Limestone, Millstone, Red sandstone, sandstone, white marble. [13]

References

1. Bird, D., (2006). Roman religious sites in the landscape. In: J. Cotton, G. Crocker and A. Graham, eds. Aspects of Archaeology and History in Surrey: Towards a Research Framework for the County. Guildford: Surrey Archaeological Society.
2. Bede, 731 (1990). Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Translated by L. Sherley-Price, R.E. Latham and D.H. Farmer. London: Penguin Classics, a copy of the letter which Pope Gregory sent to the Abbot Mellitus then going into Britain. 601 A.D.
3. Historic England 2018 Shrines (Roman and Post-Roman): Introductions to Heritage Assets. Swindon. Historic England.
4. King, A. (2017) ‘Carrying the Gods with them? Provenance and portability of altars to Romano-Celtic deities in Britain’, in Haeussler, R. & King, A. (eds) Celtic Religions in the Roman Period: Studies in Celtic Religion, Culture and Mythology. Celtic Studies Publications. Aberystwyth: University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies.
5. King, A. (2017) Ibid
6. King, A. (2017) Ibid
7. Goldberg, D.M., (2009). Contextualising ritual practice in later prehistoric and Roman Britain. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.
8. Goldberg, D.M. (2009) Ibid.
9.  Goldberg, D.M. (2009) Ibid.
10. Evans, C. (1985). ‘Tradition and the cultural landscape; an archaeology of place’. Archaeological review from Cambridge vol.4.issue 1.
11. Evans, C. (1985) Ibid.
12. King, A. (2017) Ibid.
13. King, A. (2017) Ibid.

In the Middle Iron Age there was a funerary tradition of human bodies being placed in a crouched position within pits, where the deceased were sometimes associated with grave goods; typically joints of meat, stone objects such as quern stones and pottery and objects associated with weaving, whether spindle whorls or loom weights. [1]

A spindle whorl, being usually either a disc or bead‑shaped object with a hole in the centre, is used as part of a drop spindle in the craft of hand spinning. The whorl attached to the spindle acted as a weight to help provide momentum whilst spinning and twisting the fibres together. A wooden shaft fits into the hole in the spindle whorl and together they are spun to create yarn. This method of preparing yarn has been in use since prehistoric times through to post‑medieval periods. In contrast, clay loom weights were employed in weaving rather than spinning, serving to keep the warp threads taut on a vertical loom and thus enabling the production of woven cloth.

Whilst some of the objects associated with weaving described above might be considered solely functional and rudimentary, both the activity of weaving and the objects central to the act itself have been symbolically associated with worldwide cosmologies spanning many centuries.

Across Suffolk, loom weights have been documented at 11 locations out of 29 Iron Age sites. [2] Clay loom weights were a distinctive part of the material culture of the Early to Late Iron Age. [3] Their presence is unusually rare in the Southeast, and they are “found in few sites” across East Anglia during the Iron Age period. [4]

A chalk spindle whorl accompanied an elderly Middle Iron Age woman buried at Rudston in grave R92 and appears to have been placed at the right shoulder, as if worn as a pendant. [5] The deposition of spindle whorls in late Bronze Age burials which generally appear to have been well made and finished, similar to the workmanship of the one discovered at Cumberland’s Mount, would indicate that these “may have been valued personal possessions”. [6] They have also often been found in Late Bronze Age–Early Iron Age barrows in Buckinghamshire at Bledlow Cop and in Late Iron Age to Roman cremation burials at Aston Clinton, associated with high status activity or ritual function. [7] This structured deposition and funerary practice continued into Late Antique and early medieval cremation graves where objects typically would include brooches, glass beads and vessels, spindle-whorls, tweezers, shears, and combs. [8]

Whilst the spindle whorl discovered at Cumberland’s Mount, Staverton, in Suffolk, was undecorated on its surface, Iron Age symbols on other objects, such as glass beads, frequently use a whirl or ray motif which “would have been hypnotic when [in motion]”. It may also be significant that these simple designs are also found in the first few stages of entoptic phenomena, which are seen during altered states of consciousness”. [9, 10] The mystery of Iron Age burials includes the diverse treatment of the deceased, including inhumations, cremations, completely disarticulated pieces of human bone and semi-articulated portions of bodies, such as a jawbone. “There are even pieces of modified human bone like the pierced femur heads from some sites where they seem to have been used as spindle whorls, or the pierced skull plates that seem to have been hung on strings for display”. [11]

The ancient Finnish festival of kekri coincided with the start of the year in late autumn, close to our present All Saints’ Day, 1 November. [12] The word kekri comes from kekräj, an Indo-European loan word from around 2000 BC and means “wheel” or “cycle” and according to Ridderstad may have originally been a solar festival attached to the mid-quarter date in November. [13] The Finnish word kehrä means the disk of the sun, thus kekri relates to the wheel of the solar year, with both words relating to kehrata, “to spin” with the cycle starting anew. [14]

Spinning was a key activity of the solar goddesses Paivatar and Kuutar, whose threads were the rays of the moon and sun, controlling both the annual vegetation cycle and the fates of humanity when the wheel of time turned and both were later Christianised as the Virgin Mary. [15]

Cosmologies often included viewing the celestial pole and the circumpolar constellations as rotating around an invisible ‘celestial spindle’ which cosmically wove the fates of existence and symbolically linked with ideas of fortune telling, all inherently related to the cosmic spindle or loom of time, such as the Greek Moirai, the Germanic Norns, the Roman Parcae, the Hattic goddesses Estustaya and Papaya and the Lithuanian Verpeia. [16]

The art of weaving was considered to have revealed something about the secrets of space-time that ruled “the cycles of life and death.” [17] As such, looms and spindles came to symbolise fate which dominated “the cosmos, spinning the threads of life, in particular the human existence.” [18]

References

1. Cooper, L., Garrow, D., Gibson, A., Giles, M. & Wilkin, N. (2021) Grave Goods: Objects and Death in Later Prehistoric Britain. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
2. Rippon, S. (2018) Kingdom, Civitas, and County. The Evolution of Territorial Identity in the English Landscape. Oxford University Press.
3. Rippon, S. (2018) Ibid.
4. Rippon, S. (2018) Ibid.
5. Stead, I.M. (1991) Iron Age Cemeteries in East Yorkshire. Excavations at Burton Fleming, Rudston, Gartonon-the-Wolds, and Kirkburn. London: English Heritage/British Museum Press.
6. Brown, N and Medlycott, M. (2013) The Neolithic and Bronze Age Enclosures at Springfield Lyons, Essex: Excavations 1981–1991, East Anglian Archaeology, 149, Chelmsford: Essex County Council.
7.  Gregory, A. (1992) Excavations at Thetford, 1980-82, Fison Way. East Anglian Archaeology Monograph.
8. Lucy, S. (2000) The Anglo-Saxon Way of Death. Stroud: Sutton Archaeology No. 53
9. Foulds, E., M. (2014) Glass Beads in Iron Age Britain: a social approach. Doctoral thesis, Durham University.
10. Lewis-Williams, J. D. (1997) Agency, Art and Altered Consciousness: A Motif in French (Quercy) Upper Palaeolithic Parietal Art. Antiquity, 71( 274).
11. The mystery of Iron Age burials, Sean Lisle1 Monday, February 13, 2017. https://archaeologyorkney.com/2017/02/13/the-mystery-of-iron-age-burials/
12. Ridderstad, M. P. (2016) The Bear and the Year: on the origin of the Finnish Late Iron Age folk calendar and its connection to the Bear Cult, Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry. International Journal, vol. 16, no. 4.
13. Ridderstad, M. P. (2016) Ibid.
14. Ridderstad, M. P. (2015) Solar and Calendrical Symbolism in the Early Medieval Finnish Church Murals. SEAC 2011 Stars and Stones: Voyages in Archaeoastronomy and Cultural Astronomy.
15. Ridderstad, M. P. (2015) Ibid.
16. Rappenglück, M. (2007) : Cosmic spinning and weaving: Making the Texture of the World. BAR S1647 Pasztor (Ed.) Archaeoastronomy in Archaeology and Ethnography. Archaeoastronomy in Archaeology and Ethnography Papers from the annual meeting of SEAC (European Society for Astronomy in Culture) held in Kecskemét in Hungary in 2004
17. Rappenglueck, M. (2007) Ibid.
18. Rappenglueck, M. (2007) Ibid.

The bird-men stone from Burra, Shetland, in an area called Papil, is a cross-slab with bizarre mythical iconography that continues to elude clear explanation.

The bird-men stone stands out as one of the most enigmatic examples among the roughly 350 carved stones attributed to the Picts (a term generally applied to the peoples living north of the Forth-Clyde line from around 300 to 843 AD) and is described as “by far the most unusual.” [1]

The site of St Laurence’s Church, where the stone was found was a major early medieval monastic centre and possibly the principal monastery for southern Shetland. [2] The slab’s date is also disputed, ranging from the 7th century, based on the circular cross head [3] or from towards the end of the 8th century, aligning it with the onset of Viking expansion across the North Atlantic [4] with the stone now more commonly dated to the 9th century. [5]

The stone’s dominant cross may suggest a Christian context; however, the bird-men motif resists an easy theological interpretation. The deliberate positioning of the stone within a ritualised landscape potentially invites consideration of its symbolic or cosmological significance, one that may have been intended to align it with natural features, such as water sources, promontories, or sightlines.

The bird-men are strikingly detailed, with their beaks measuring 10 cm long, while they stand on thin, elongated, spindly bird legs with bulbous protruding knees, terminating with taloned feet. The bird-man on the left measures 37 cm in height with the figure on the right slightly shorter at 36 cm. [6] Both wear unbelted tunics, and each grips a T-shaped axe with a slender shank. Between their beaks, the figures grasp a small, incised human head with almond-shaped eyes, to which they appear to “convey their insidious messages into the ears of a human head” [7] a scene suggestive of symbolic communication or spiritual confrontation. Does the head represent a victim, perhaps even a severed head? Is it a soul in peril, suspended between demonic tempters?

The symmetrical composition and central placement of the human head may imply a deliberate visual balance, possibly reflecting cosmological dualities, judgment, transition, or or spiritual mediation, reflecting cosmological dualities such as light and dark, or the human and the otherworldly.

Through comparison with Irish sculptural traditions, the bird-headed figures have been read in relation to the temptation of St Antony in the Vita Antonii by Athanasius of Alexandria (4th century AD), in which Antony is tormented by demons who appear in animal or bird form whispering in a malevolent fashion. [8] This interpretation has, however, been questioned, particularly where it is seen to impose continental Christian motifs onto a visual tradition that appears distinctly local in character. [9]

Mythological scenes are largely absent from Irish Christian monuments, though parallels can be drawn with certain Norse cross-slabs, which do incorporate imagery derived from pre-Christian mythologies. [10] The Papil Stone has close parallels with other Insular stones that depict aggressive, otherworldly figures, suggesting a shared perception of spiritual struggle or liminal confrontation. [11] As such, might we be witnessing liminal beings, mediating between human and supernatural realms, something that perhaps echoes broader Pictish and Celtic traditions, one where landscape features such as springs, hills and burial grounds were seen as portals or boundaries? In this schema, the enigmatic figures could be seen as supernatural warriors or guardians and part of a broader Pictish iconographic tradition of armed, hybrid figures. These beast-headed or monstrous otherworldly figures are often depicted in martial or ritual contexts, and may suggest “the Pictish concept of an otherworldly struggle.” [12]

The Papil Stone may be read within the framework of a ritual landscape. Its original placement at a monastic site, likely chosen for its proximity to natural features and visibility within the local terrain, may hint at a spatial logic beyond mere decoration. The opposition between the bird-men and the human head may mark a symbolic threshold between sacred and profane, life and death, human and otherworldly. Such oppositions are common in Insular iconography and may encode a ritual logic in which the stone functions as a visual mediator between realms. 

Rather than a Christian allegory alone, the stone’s composition may reflect a logic rooted in indigenous cosmology, in which it may have functioned as part of a ritual geography, encoding mythological narratives and beliefs into the landscape itself. Today, the stone’s imagery and interpretation remain caught between forces, worlds, and meanings.

References

1. Kilpatrick, K.A. (2011) ‘The iconography of the Papil Stone: sculptural and literary comparisons with a Pictish motif’, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 141.
2. Thomas C (1971) The Early Christian Archaeology of North Britain. London. Oxford University press for the University of Glasgow.
3. Curle, C L 1939–40 ‘The Chronology of the Early Christian Monuments of Scotland’, Proc Scot Antiq Scot 74, Curle, C L 1940 ‘The Chronology of the Early Christian Monuments of Scotland’, Proc Soc Antiq Scot, 74 (1939-40) .
4. Stevenson, R.B.K. (1981) ‘Christian sculpture in Norse Shetland’, Frodskaparrit: Annales Societatis Scientiarum Færoensis, 29.
5. Kilpatrick, K.A. (2011) Ibid.
6. Kilpatrick, K.A. (2011) Ibid.
7. Henderson, I. (1997) Pictish monsters: symbol, text and image. Cambridge: Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, University of Cambridge. (H.M. Chadwick Memorial Lectures, 7.
8. Henderson, I. (1997) Ibid.
9. Kilpatrick, K.A. (2011) Ibid.
10. Bailey, R.N. (2000) ‘Scandinavian myth on Viking-period stone sculpture in England’, in Barnes, G. and Clunies Ross, M. (eds) Medieval Scandinavia and Christian Europe in the Middle Ages: Papers from the 10th International Saga Conference. Sydney: Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Sydney.
11. Kilpatrick, K.A. (2011) Ibid.
12. Kilpatrick, K.A. (2011) Ibid.

The Sandbach Crosses are a pair of richly decorated stone monuments in Sandbach, Cheshire, often regarded as among the most significant surviving early medieval monuments. [1] Originally among the tallest in England, the larger cross measures 16 feet 8 inches, while the smaller, more fragmentary, stands at 11 feet 11 inches. [2] If its circular head measured three feet across, the taller cross would have reached nearly twenty‑five feet. [3] Iconographic evidence suggests the larger was carved in the early 9th century, with the smaller being completed in the middle of the 9th century. [4]

The stepped base, nearly 5 feet high, is contemporary with the monuments. [5] In 1816 the crosses were relocated to their current location, based on a 16th century arrangement from an unknown site. [6] The crosses are traditionally linked to Peada, son of Penda of Mercia, baptised in 653 to marry Oswiu’s daughter. Although Penda remained pagan, Sandbach’s frontier position suggests they marked the first Mercian preaching of Christianity, [7] though this view is disputed. [8]

The crosses display rich ornamentation and early Christian figural scenes, including the Adoration of the Magi and the Nativity. All faces of the crosses are carved with figures, animals, and vine scrolls, while other panels show varied motifs of creatures and foliage. The figures are characterised by thinly outlined heads and pleated skirts with scalloped hems. Animal ornament is consistent with heraldic poses and winged beasts with gaping muzzles. [9] The original form of the crosses’ heads is uncertain, though two surviving arms, each defined by concave curves, reflect a design common in Northumbria, though in this instance they may have belonged to a large circular head with three open circles, set between the arms. [10]

Precursors to the cross in Christianity and Judaism included sacred trees and pillars. [11] Bintley explores this in his study of the ‘Ancestors of Christ’ panel on the southern cross, where sacred rods, branches and staffs beside eight of thirteen figures symbolise arboreal imagery in early medieval spirituality [12]. Such symbols may have marked a transition from tree veneration to the doctrine of the crucifix, [13] with Eden’s trees of life and death serving as precursors to the cross as tree of life. [14]

In pre-Christian Britain, stapols were sacred posts or pillars “not merely commemorative, but more potent: markers denoting important places conceived as significant in local identity, myth and legend.” [15] The vertical structure of the cross may symbolise the axis mundi, a mythological motif linking heaven and earth, with figural panels ascending toward divine revelation. [16] As “didactic and symbolic structures,” the crosses mediated between earthly viewers and divine truths in a cosmological model that saw the vertical shaft as a conduit, anchoring ascent. [17] In many cultures the centre of a temple was the axis mundi, anchored to the apparent dome of the sky, creating a bipartite division of the world – above and below the horizon. [18] There are early medieval parallels that mirror the symbolic axis mundi in the form of timber uprights that point to the symbol of a ‘world-pillar, a cosmic axis’. Referred to as Irminsul, the most notable historical account records one being destroyed by Charlemagne in 772, at a time when heathens in Hesse, in present-day Germany, were venerating the Robor Lobis, the Oak of Jupiter. [19] Comparable monuments, known as Jupiter Columns, are also attested. [20] Later Romanesque adaptations of this Germanic symbolism depict columns “supporting the sky or reaching to the gods.” [21]

The crosses were erected with their sides facing north, south, east, and west. The lozenge pattern on the eastern side of the smaller cross is thought to represent the four cardinal directions. [22] At the base of the larger obelisk is a circular motif enclosing several figures, oriented towards the east. This arrangement has been interpreted as an ecclesiastical allusion to sunrise, recalling similar carvings on monumental obelisks in regions once associated with sun‑worship. [23] The symbol of the four‑armed cross relates to the ritual importance of the two solstices (summer and winter) and the two equinoxes (spring and autumn). It later evolved into the Germanic four‑spoked wheel cross, seen on Swedish rock carvings evoking a ‘sky wheel,’ before becoming the Christian cross. [24]

Dragon-like creatures or serpents appear at least seven times on both crosses. In one instance, their long tongues are tied in a double Staffordshire knot over what is believed to have been Peada’s heathen followers. [25] Within Scandinavian cosmology, the World Serpent is frequently portrayed as encircling the vast ocean, surrounding the earth, at whose centre stands the World Tree. While the tree offers sustenance to the valleys below, its roots are simultaneously gnawed and eroded by various creatures, including serpents. [26]

The Sandbach Crosses potentially redefined a frontier space as a symbolic centre, their imposing scale ensuring visibility as focal points for assemblies, processions, and public gatherings. At the same time, the vine scrolls, animal forms, vertical axis and solar symbolism, evoked broader early medieval cosmological motifs, linking the monuments to a landscape already imbued with mythic and ancestral resonance.

References

1. Tait, A.C.F. (1946) The Sandbach Crosses. Paper presented at the Society of Antiquaries of London, September 1946.
2. Tait, A.C.F. (1946) Ibid.
3. Heywood, N. (1911) ‘The Crosses at Sandbach’, Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 29
4. Hawkes, J. (2002) The Sandbach Crosses: Sign and Significance in Anglo-Saxon Culture. Dublin: Four Courts Press.
5. Tait, A.C.F. (1946) Ibid.
6. Radford, R.A. (1956) The Sandbach Crosses, Cheshire. London: HMSO.
7. Ormerod, G. (1816) The History of the County Palatine and City of Chester. Vol. 3. London: Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, and Jones.
8. English Heritage. Sandbach Crosses: History. Available at: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/sandbach-crosses/history/
9. Hawkes, A.J. (1989) The Non-Crucifixion Iconography of the Pre-Viking Sculpture in the North of England: Carvings at Hovingham, Masham, Rothbury, Sandbach and Wirksworth. PhD thesis. Newcastle University.
10. Tait, A.C.F. (1946) Ibid.
11. Bintley, M.D.J. (2013) ‘Recasting the role of sacred trees in Anglo-Saxon spiritual history: the South Sandbach Cross “Ancestors of Christ” panel in its cultural contexts’, in Bintley, M.D.J. and Shapland, M. (eds.) Trees and Timber in the Anglo-Saxon World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
12. Bintley, M.D.J. (2013) Ibid.
13. North, R. (1997) Heathen Gods in Old English Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
14. Karkov, C.E. (2001) Text and Picture in Anglo-Saxon England: Narrative Strategies in the Junius 11 Manuscript. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
15. Semple, S. (2013) Perceptions of the Prehistoric in Anglo-Saxon England Religion, Ritual, and Rulership in the Landscape, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
16. Waddell, J. (2018) Myth and Materiality. Oxbow insights in Archaeology. Oxbow books. Oxford.
17. Hawkes, A.J. (1989) Ibid.
18. Prendergast, F. (2015) An Architectural Perspective on Structured Sacred Space-Recent Evidence from Iron Age Ireland. In Skyscapes in Archaeology: The Role and Importance of the Sky, edited by Silva, F & Campion. Oxbow Books. Oxford & Philadelphia.
19. Semple, S (2013) Perceptions of the Prehistoric in Anglo-Saxon England: Religion, Ritual, and Rulership in the Landscape. Oxford University Press. Oxford.
20. Browne, G. F. (1916) The Ancient Cross-shafts at Bewcastle and Ruthwell, Cambridge
21. Browne, G. F. (1916) Ibid.
22. Harper, C.G. (1909) The Manchester and Glasgow Road: This Way to Gretna Green. London: Chapman & Hall.
23. Harper, C.G. (1909) Ibid.
24. Green, M.J. (1991) The Sun-Gods of Ancient Europe. Batsford, London.
25. Tait, A.C.F. (1946) Ibid.
26. Davidson, H.R.E. (1988) Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe: Early Scandinavian and Celtic Religions. Manchester: Manchester University Press.