Sculptors Cave.
“On the beach below, (Hopeman Golf Course), is a proper wonder. Access is tricky, a hazardous descent on steep slopes and bare rock; or a slippery scramble around headlands on the shore at low tide. But we feel that a little danger adds spice to our wonder. More than two thousand years ago, spiritual Celts sought out this gloomy cavern for a grizzly cult: a pagan veneration of the human head as a source, symbol and esoteric power. The cavern roof was hung with severed heads: criminals executed for unspeakable crimes; warrior heroes decapitated in battle; apostates beheaded in bloody auto da fe; wise forebears exhibited for their posterity’s veneration. And later Celtic people – Picts on the cusp of Christianity – came here to chisel their arcane symbols into the soft sandstone of the cave walls. We have to search to find the sculptures – small and rudely carved among a gallery of subsequent graffiti.”
John R. Barrett
Walks and Wonders – Knock News No. 30
August 09