Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race - Knowledge Rush

CHAPTER II: THE RELIGION OF THE CELTS 59god with attendant deities, sometimes it contains a crowd ofpassengers representing human souls, and sometimes the figureof a single corpse on a bier. The megalithic carvings alsosometimes show the solar emblem and sometimes not; the boatsare sometimes filled with figures and are sometimes empty.When a symbol has once been accepted and understood, anyconventional or summary representation of it is sufficient. I takeit that the complete form of the megalithic symbol is that of aboat with figures in it and with the solar emblem overhead. Thesefigures, assuming the foregoing interpretation of the design tobe correct, must clearly be taken for representations of the deadon their way to the Other-world. They cannot be deities, forrepresentations of the divine powers under human aspect werequite unknown to the Megalithic People, even after the coming ofthe Celts—they first occur in Gaul under Roman influence. Butif these figures represent the dead, then we have clearly beforeus the origin of the so-called “Celtic” doctrine of immortality.The carvings in question are pre-Celtic. They are found where noCelts ever penetrated. Yet they point to the existence of just thatOther-world doctrine which, from the time of Cæsar downwards, [76]has been associated with Celtic Druidism, and this doctrine wasdistinctively Egyptian.Egyptian Bark, with figure of Rā holding an Ankh, enclosed inSolar Disk. XIX Dynasty(British Museum)The “Navetas”In connexion with this subject I may draw attention to thetheory of Mr. W.C. Borlase that the typical design of an Irishdolmen was intended to represent a ship. In Minorca there areanalogous structures, there popularly called navetas (ships), sodistinct is the resemblance. But, he adds, “long before the caves