A brand-new study has actually dated the Cerne Giant, a mysterious hillside figure in Dorset, to in between 700 and 1100 A.D, revealing its possible ties to early middle ages history and unmasking previous misconceptions about its origins. Credit: Pete Harlow– This file was originated from: The Cerne Abbas Giant– 011.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0 For hundreds of years, the Cerne Giant– a monumental hillside engraving in Dorset of a naked male wielding a club and covering 180 feet– has captivated both travelers and locals. The history of the giant, however, and in particular, its age, has actually long been a secret. A brand-new paper in Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies proposes that the Cerne Giant can in fact be dated to the early Middle Ages, and, as a result, its cultural context and significance more plainly understood.The paper, composed by authors Thomas Morcom and Helen Gittos, acknowledges that previous attempts to date the giant positioned its production either at some point in prehistory or in the early contemporary period. Using a method called optically promoted luminescence, scientists for the National Trust theorize that the hillside monolith was actually built in the period in between 700 and 1100 A.D, and possibly used as a summoning website for West Saxon armies.Reevaluating Historical TheoriesThis dating breakthrough also sheds new light on different historic interpretations of the Cerne Giants identity. Numerous scholars had presumed that the giant was designed on the myth of Hercules, and although, as the authors write,” [a] t initially glance, an early middle ages date seems odd for a figure which looks like the classical god Hercules,” there remained in fact a swell of interest in the Greek hero throughout the ninth century, lending credence to this hypothesis.Another popular theory concerning the motivation for the giant was its basis on Saint Eadwold. The authors propose that the residents of a Benedictine monastery, integrated in Cerne in the late tenth century, actively propagated this concept, rerouting interest in the giant away from Greek associations and towards Christian ones.One final personality bestowed upon the giant was that of a pagan god called Helith. The authors of the Speculum paper compose that this identification was a mistaken one, the outcome of a misreading, in the thirteenth century, of an account of the giant composed in Latin.The new findings concerning the Cerne Giants age and history make greater sense of this string of theories regarding its identity. Eventually, as the authors write, this complicated bio is all “part of the history of the giant and what continues to bring in so numerous individuals to him.” Reference: “The Cerne Giant in Its Early Medieval Context” by Thomas Morcom and Helen Gittos, January 2024, Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies.DOI: 10.1086/ 727992.
