Few practices of the ancient Celtic world have attracted more attention, and more misunderstanding, than the custom of taking the heads of enemies killed in battle. Classical writers from the fourth century BCE onward reported, with a mixture of fascination and horror, that the Celtic warriors they encountered cut off the heads of slain enemies, preserved them, and displayed them in their homes or nailed them to the walls of their houses. The practice is also attested in the heroic literature of early medieval Ireland and Wales, and in the archaeology of the Celtic world, where the careful burial of severed heads in special deposits has been identified at a number of sites. To understand the Celtic practice of headhunting is to understand a custom that was at once religious, social, and tactical, and that was an integral part of the battle tactics of the Celtic warrior in the wider context of Celtic warfare and warriors.
The Classical Evidence
The earliest and most detailed classical account of Celtic headhunting is that of the fourth-century BCE Greek writer Posidonius, preserved in the works of later authors including Diodorus Siculus and Strabo. Diodorus, drawing on Posidonius, describes how Celtic warriors would cut off the heads of enemies killed in battle, attach them to the necks of their horses, and carry them back to camp, where they would be displayed on poles or fixed to the walls of the warriors’ houses. The heads of the most distinguished enemies were preserved in cedar oil or in other preparations, and were kept in chests as heirlooms that could be brought out to impress visitors.
Pomponius Mela, the early-first-century CE Roman geographer, repeats the description with the added detail that the heads were sometimes embalmed and shown to strangers as proof of the warrior’s prowess in battle. The practice was reported by writers across a wide range of periods and regions, from the third century BCE to the first century CE, and from Spain to Galatia. The consistency of the reports, although they were sometimes exaggerated for effect, suggests that headhunting was a real and widespread practice in the Celtic world of the Iron Age.
The Religious Dimension
The taking of an enemy’s head was not merely a matter of trophy-hunting or psychological warfare. It was a religious act, embedded in the Celtic belief system. The head, in Celtic religion, was the seat of the soul, the location of the personality, and the dwelling of the divine spark that distinguished the human being from the brute. The heads of ancestors, of chieftains, of revered druids, and of enemies killed in honourable combat, were objects of special veneration. The Gundestrup cauldron, the great silver vessel found in a Danish bog and probably manufactured in a Thracian or Danubian Celtic workshop in the second or first century BCE, shows a sequence of figures in which a number of severed heads appear, often in the company of a horned deity who may be Cernunnos.
The Roman writer Livy, in his account of the Roman wars with the Boii and the Insubres of Cisalpine Gaul in the third century BCE, describes how the Celtic chieftains brought the heads of Roman generals to their own camp as offerings to the gods. The Gaulish chief who took the head of the Roman consul Postumius after the disaster of the Silva Litana in 216 BCE, according to Livy, used the skull as a ritual vessel, lining it with gold and using it as a cup for libations and feasting. The story, although certainly exaggerated, captures the religious dimension of headhunting: the head of a distinguished enemy was not merely a trophy but a sacred object, the dwelling of a powerful spirit, that could be incorporated into the religious life of the victors.
The Social Dimension
The display of a head in the warrior’s house was a public statement of his prowess in war. The classical accounts are explicit that the heads were nailed to the walls of the house, where they could be seen by visitors, and that the warrior who had taken the most heads was the most honoured member of his community. The Irish and Welsh heroic literature preserves a similar picture. In the Táin Bó Cúailnge, the head of a champion killed in single combat is brought back to the victor and displayed as a sign of his victory, and the Mabinogion contains a number of episodes in which the head of a defeated enemy is the visible sign of a successful encounter.
The social recognition that came with the taking of a head was a powerful incentive. In a society where status depended on personal prowess in war, and where the young warrior had to prove his worth before he could take his place among the adult males of the community, the head of a slain enemy was the visible proof of the warrior’s courage and skill. The taking of a head was, in this sense, a rite of passage as well as a military act.
The Tactical Dimension
The display of severed heads had a tactical purpose on the battlefield as well as a social and religious meaning. The sight of a warrior bearing the head of a famous enemy, or the sight of a row of heads displayed on the walls of a Celtic house, was a powerful form of psychological warfare. It demonstrated, to friend and enemy alike, that the warriors of this community were fierce, that they were victorious, and that they were willing to take the most extreme measures against those who opposed them. The Roman and Greek accounts of the effect of Celtic headhunting on the morale of their own soldiers are explicit: the practice inspired terror in the enemy, and it reinforced the courage of the Celtic warriors themselves.
The tactical dimension of headhunting was particularly important in the kind of irregular, ambush-based warfare in which Celtic armies specialised. In an ambush, the rapid display of a head taken from a sentry or an outlying picket could be used to convince an enemy that his position had been turned, that his forces had been surrounded, and that further resistance was useless. The practice was, in this sense, a tactical multiplier: it allowed a smaller force to have a disproportionate effect on a larger one.
The Archaeological Evidence
The archaeological evidence for Celtic headhunting is more limited than the literary evidence, but it is consistent with it. The careful burial of severed heads, sometimes with grave goods, has been identified at a number of Celtic sites in Britain, in Gaul, and in central Europe. The most striking single find is the deposit of severed heads at the hillfort of Entremont in Provence, a Celtic oppidum of the second and first centuries BCE, where a row of stone statues of seated warriors with severed heads in their laps was found incorporated into a shrine. The deposit at Entremont shows that the severed head had a place in the formal religious life of the Celtic community, and that the head of a defeated enemy was a sacred object, deserving of careful treatment and of inclusion in the sanctuary.
Other archaeological evidence, including the careful disarticulation of certain skulls in Celtic burials and the inclusion of head-shaped amulets and charms in Celtic graves, suggests that the head had a particular religious and social significance in the Celtic world. The practice of headhunting was part of a wider system of beliefs about the head and its powers, and it is in this context, as well as in the context of warfare and of social status, that it should be understood.
The Disappearance of the Practice
The practice of headhunting gradually disappeared from the Celtic world with the Roman conquest. The Roman administration discouraged the practice, and the Christianization of the Celtic-speaking regions from the fourth to the sixth centuries CE replaced the older religious framework with Christian beliefs that had no place for the ritual of the severed head. The practice survived in attenuated form in the heroic literature of the early medieval period, where the display of a head remained a literary motif, and in the folk traditions of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, where the legends of headless horsemen and of skulls used as drinking cups remained current for centuries. By the early medieval period, however, the practice had become a literary and folkloric memory rather than a living custom.
Related Topics
- The battle tactics of the Celtic armies are examined in detail
- The Celtic religion, mythology, and spirituality of the head
- The famous Celtic warriors and leaders who displayed heads
- The Celtic art and craftsmanship of the Celtic head cult
- The history of the Celtic civilization provides the broader context