1. A wooden head was first seen by members of the Cambrian Archaeological Association when they visited Llanio Roman fort, near Tregaron, in 1878. The landowner reported that it had been found around 50 years previously (perhaps in the 1820s) whilst digging peat in Cae Gwerful, a boggy tract of ground to the north of the Roman fort, later bisected by the railway. The head has plain features but elaborately carved hair in a melon-style coiffure, which stylistically dates it to around AD 200. The head was found with hands with part of an arm, which have been subsequently lost, and the head is socketed at its base suggesting it was affixed to a larger object.

Jeffrey Davies writing in the Cardiganshire County History (1994, 316-317) suggests that this is part of `?a small cult statue or ex voto from a shrine situated in or close to a spring or pool in the previously marshy Cae Gwerful?. Such a shrine may have had pre-Roman origins but flourished under military patronage. This suggests further finds or structural remains may yet survive in the wetland area of Cae Gwerful.

T. Driver, RCAHMW, 5th March 2015

2. Cae Gwerful and the Llanio head: the site of a lost shrine?

`The eyes of the Llanio head were inlaid, but not with the slips of glass or metal generally employed: the carefully worked sockets are unusually deep (8 to 9 mm.), and probably held thorn-like pieces of bone or some other substance, exactly fitting or perhaps driven in.? (Boon 1978, 620).

This remarkable wooden head was first documented by members of the Cambrian Archaeological Association when they visited Llanio Roman fort, near Tregaron, in 1878. It had been found about 50 years previously during peat-digging in Cae Gwerful, a small bog to the north of the Roman fort. The scene in 1878 was described as follows: `Mr Samuel Evans Jones of Pont Llanio, called attention to a female head carved in wood... Valuing the head as a family relic, Mr Jones declined to part with it otherwise than as a loan... Mr Jones said there were ?hands with part of an arm? belonging to the head, but they had been lost many years.? [end note: R W Banks 1879, 82-3) The head measures 17.6 centimetres high, or as long as an adult hand. It has plain features but elaborately carved hair in a `melon-style coiffure?, which stylistically dates it to around 200 AD in Romano-British times. The head is socketed at its base, suggesting that it had originally been fixed to a larger object.

The entry for the head in the Cardiganshire County History suggests that this remarkable object was part of `? a small cult statue or ex-voto from a shrine situated in or close to a spring or pool in the previously marshy Cae Gwerful? [end note: Davies, J.L. 1994, 316-317). An ex-voto is a votive offering to a divinity given in thanks for treatment received, taking the form of a gift or statue or even a model of a healed body part ? perhaps explaining the find of the hand and arm in this case. Such offerings would be placed in a shrine to demonstrate to other visitors the kind of help that had been received. Thus: `... there is no reason why there should not have been a sacred pool or spring in Cae Gwerful, and that its real or fancied therapeutic properties should not have resulted in the offering of carvings of [wooden] limbs, or the like ...? [end note: George Boon 1978).

The Roman fort at Llanio, like that at Trawsgoed Roman fort to the north, is thought to have been occupied from the Roman conquest in the 70s AD up about 130 AD, and thereafter largely abandoned. The probability that a Romano-British shrine, containing a votive statue or statues, may still have stood close by nearly a hundred years later, alongside a sacred spring or pool, is tantalizing for our understanding of Ceredigion in Romano-British times. A lowland shrine in this wetland area may well have appropriated a pre-Roman religious site in the shadow of nearby hillforts. If a shrine stood at Cae Gwerful it may have comprised a small wooden building and perhaps a raised timber causeway or jetty over the boggy ground. Perhaps some day more may be learned about this tantalising site and its remarkable wooden head.

From: Driver, T. 2016. Hillforts of Cardigan Bay. Logaston Press. pp.110-112

References:
R. W. Banks, Archaeologia Cambrensis, 1879, 81-5.
G. Boon, Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies, 27 (1978), 619-24.
J. L. Davies in the Cardiganshire County History, 1994, 316-317
Driver, T. 2016. Hillforts of Cardigan Bay. Logaston Press.