Boa Island

Boa Island is a narrow island near the north shore of Lower Lough Erne in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. Boa Island is named after Badhbh, sometimes spelled, Badb, the Celtic goddess of war. Badhbh sometimes took the form of a carrion crow, most notably on the shoulder of the warrior, Cúchulainn, after he died in battle. At other times she is depicted as a wolf.

She is one of a triad of Celtic war goddesses that included her sisters, Macha and Morrigan. They were born to a mother goddess, Ernmas, who is mentioned in Lebor Gabála Érenn and Cath Maige Tuired as one of the Tuatha Dé Danann.

Caldragh graveyard is found on the island and dates from the Irish early Christian period (400–800 AD). In this graveyard are found two of the most enigmatic statues on the island of Ireland. One is called the Boa Island figure and the other is the Lustymore Island figure.

‘The larger of the figures is the Boa Island bilateral figure. It is regarded as one of the most enigmatic and remarkable stone figures in Ireland. It is called a Janus-figure because it has two faces, reminding some of the Roman two-headed deity Janus, however, it is not a representation of Janus. It is thought to represent a Celtic deity and could represent a Celtic goddess as readily as a god, especially given the name of the island. In Celtic culture, heads were very important because they were thought to contain a person’s spirit after their death. Severed heads were taken in triumph after battles.

The Boa Island bilateral figure is 73 cm (29 in) high, 45 cm (18 in) wide on its two broader surfaces, and 30 cm (12 in) wide on its two narrow surfaces. Each side of the figure has a face and torso. On the sides of the stone where the two carved figures are joined, is an interlace design that may represent hair. The faces are large and pointed ovals in shape, with big eyes, straight noses, and half open mouths with protruding tongues above the pointed chins.

The figure has no neck, with its head resting directly on its torso. The torso is a square block with hunched shoulders, crossed arms, and a belt. The figure ends just below its waist. The lower section of the figure—two hands with elongated fingers carved in relief—was broken away from the top part at an unknown time in the past. This base was recently discovered half-buried in the ground close to the figure.’

‘The Lustymore Idol was discovered in an early Christian graveyard on Lustymore Island, located due south of Boa Island in Lower Lough Erne. It was brought to the Caldragh graveyard on Boa Island in 1939. It is placed with its back to the indigenous bilateral figure. Lacking details of the facial features, it is less impressive visually, and is approximately 70 cm (28 in) in height. It is, however, thought to be older than the bilateral ‘Janus’ figure – which is less worn than the Lustymore figure. Irish archaeologist Eileen Murphy states in Warrior Women (2002) that the Lustymore Idol is thought by some Irish scholars to be the precursor to Sheela na gigs: her arms lie across the torso and point toward the inverted V that represents the top of the vulva (page 204). A Sheela-na-gig is a female figure with enlarged genitals held open by her hands.’

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boa_Island

The reasons for creating these stone sculptures and the dates of their creation are not certain. They may have been part of pre-Christian religious sites, or they may have been made by early Christians who included older pagan beliefs in their grave sites.

While researching another blog, I came across an image of a stele, or monument, sometimes used as a grave marker.

This is a stele of a man (Usatovo culture) ca. 3000 BCE–ca. 2800 BCE, found in the Varna Museum of Archaeology in Bulgaria. The similarities are striking. The blog that I was researching was in relation to the origin of Celtic languages and their beginnings in the Indo-European culture.

‘The Yamnaya culture (also known as Pit Grave culture) flourished between c.3600 and 2300 BCE in Ukraine and southern Russia. Some of the Yamnaya people were farmers and cultivated the land, and others were nomads who roamed across the steppe with their flocks. Before c.3500 BCE, two groups branched off from the Yamnaya people. The first of these moved to the east, probably as shepherds looking for new fields in Siberia, and settled in the west of what is now China.

Archaeologists call these people the Afanasievo culture. These eastern settlers would continue to live there for centuries. Later, they would convert to Buddhism, and because we know the central concepts of this religion, the Buddhist texts written in western China can be understood. Their languages, which are closely related to the oldest Indo-European language, are called Tocharian A and Tocharian B.

The palace of Anitta at Kaneš, one of the first known Indo-European-speaking kings

The second group moved to the south, to the area of the Caucasus Mountains, where they must have lived for quite some time before they proceeded to Anatolia. Perhaps they were identical to the Maykop Culture. They shared words for yoke and thill with the Indo-Europeans (proving that they had left after the Yamnaya culture had learned agriculture), but did not share the words to describe wagons, wheels, naves, axles, and so on. This proves that they left before the invention of the wheel and the wagon, which in turn proves that they branched off before c.3500 BCE.

The Usatovo Expansion

The arrival of this second group in Anatolia is documented in cuneiform texts found at Kültepe (ancient Kaneš), which refer to several wars. It is likely that at some stage, Kaneš itself was taken over. The descendants of these immigrants spoke Palaic, Hittite, and two Luwian languages, which can be documented in the Bronze Age. In the Iron Age, we find late forms of Luwian in Lydia (western Turkey), Lycia, and Caria (both in southwestern Turkey).

These languages have retained an element of the Proto-Indo-European language: passive voice endings with /r/. In the homeland, this characteristic was lost. It can also be found in a third group to move away at a very early stage, Proto-Italo-Celtic (below). The speakers of this language can probably be identified with the people of the Usatovo culture. (All identifications in this article are, of course, very tentative, if only because there is no one-on-one match between language and archaeological culture.)’

https://www.livius.org/articles/people/indo-europeans/#pic

I think that the similarity of these monuments may give some credence to the assertion that ‘the speakers of this (Celtic) language can probably be identified with the people of the Usatovo culture.’ This could be the match between language and archaeological culture.