Cerne you believe it? Giant is pagan!
SEEN in folklore as a fertility symbol, the Cerne Giant has for centuries drawn visits from couples desperate for a child.
Others have interpreted the 180ft clubwielding figure as a Roman depiction of Hercules or even a satirical depiction of Oliver Cromwell. But now scientists say they can debunk these theories after dating the Dorset giant to Saxon times. This makes it more likely to be the representation of the pagan god Heil, also called Helith.
Experts at the National Trust came up with the estimate after taking soil samples from the giant’s elbows and feet. By calculating when individual grains of sand were last exposed to sunlight, they came up with a range of 700AD to 1100AD.
Dr Mike Allen, a geoarchaeologist advising the trust, said: ‘This is not what was expected. Many archaeologists and historians thought he was prehistoric or postmedieval, but not medieval.
‘Everyone was wrong, and that makes these results even more exciting.’ The new findings suggest the giant has been preserved for a long time, with successive generations rechalking its form whenever it threatened to disappear.
Dr Martin Papworth, the trust’s senior archaeologist, said: ‘This probable Saxon date places him in a dramatic part of Cerne history. Cerne Abbey was founded in 987AD, and some sources think the abbey was set up to convert the locals from the worship of an early Anglo Saxon god known as Heil or Helith.’