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A study of the mysterious stone carvings of naked females exposing their genitals on medieval churches all over the British Isles.
An illustrated and comprehensive account of the Sheela-na-gigs (carvings of female images) of Britain and Ireland.
"Sheela-na-gigs are carvings of naked females posed in a manner which displays and emphasises the genitalia. In recent decades, interest in the figures has grown and they have often been a source of controversy. Once thought of in negative terms only, they have more recently come to be regarded in a positive light. There is little tradition or folklore recorded in Ireland which provides any useful insight into their origin or function. Here Eamonn P. Kelly of the National Museum of Ireland examines the examples throughout the countryside and others held for display, and makes comparisons with similar figures occuring in Britain and the rest of Europe." --
Jack Roberts' research calls 'bollocks' on the staid academic view of Sheela-na-gigs and brings readers back to the time when they were created and revered. His is an artistic and highly-researched history of Ireland's mysterious symbol of female divinity, the Sheela-na-gig.
Sexually explicit sculptures may be found on a number of medieval churches in France and Spain. This fascinating study examines the origins and purposes of these sculptures, viewing them not as magical fertility symbols, nor even as idols of ancient pre-Christian religions, but as serious works that dealt with the sexual customs and salvation of medieval folk, and thus gave support to the Church's moral teachings.
Every human being is born and has gone through a process of birth. Yet the topic of birth remains deeply underrepresented in the humanities, overshadowed by a scholarly focus on death. This book explores how imagery is used ritualistically in religious, secular, and nonreligious ways during birth, through analysis of a wide variety of art, iconography, poetry, and material culture. Objects central to the book’s study include religious figurines, paintings about birth, and other items representative of pregnancy, crowning, or giving birth that have an historical or original meaning connected to religion. Contemporaryartists are also creating new art in which they represent birth and mothering as nonreligious events that are sacred or divine. Framed through the concept of social ontology, which examines the nature of the social world and studies how people create meaning out of the various objects, images, and processes that make up human social life, the book theorizes a social ontology of birth, focusing on how the meaning of imagery undergoes metamorphosis between the spheres of religion, secularity, nonreligion, and the sacred when used during birth as a rite of passage. Included in the study are more than thirty images of birth, some of which have never been written about before.
This book represents a move towards a detailed, accurate and archaeologically sensitive record of the sheela-na-gigs in Britain and Ireland, and establishes their study firmly within the orbit of mainstream research. Throughout, context is a central concern.
The variety of subjects and disciplines represented here testify both to the elusiveness of virginity and to its lasting appeal and importance. Medieval Virginities shows how virginity's inherent ambiguity highlights the problems, contradictions and discontinuities lurking within medieval ideologies.