Rude Man of Cerne Abbas | Chalk Man Dorset England
For generations, dreamers, writers and designers have found inspiration in the rolling hills and fascinating reefs, dotted with nostalgic and lonely lighthouses of Dorset County, southern England. Its Jurassic Coast is also a unique heritage in the world for geologists; with its 95 kilometers of coastline encrusted with fossils dating back to the Mesozoic, it tells us, like a monumental stone book, the last 180 million years of our planet.
The Cerne Abbas Giant
It is precisely on one of the hills of Dorset, that of Cerne Abbas, that a very old rebus appears to be carved which has still not been deciphered. He is known as the Cerne Abbas Giant : it is a chalk figure depicting a towering naked man wielding a huge club. Carved into the belly of the hill, with trenches 30 centimeters deep and equally wide, the immense silhouette reaches 55 meters in length and 51 meters in width, allowing it to be seen from all the surrounding valleys. The club that the giant holds in his fist reaches, by itself, 37 meters long.
The impressive engraving stands out in a crisp white, due to the chalk found in the soil of the hill of Cerne Abbas.
This drawing holds many mysteries: who made it, when, and what was it supposed to represent? The main debate concerns the date of its creation. A clue could come from an identical hill, Uffington Hill, which features a mighty white horse, 114 meters long and carved more than a meter deep into the soil of the hill. Uffington's horse has been dated to the Bronze Age, around 3,000 years ago. Could it be that the giant is his contemporary?
It would seem that yes according to the technique of realization, but the historical sources pose problem: indeed, the oldest testimony on the existence of the Rude Man of Cerne goes back only until 1694, when the parish of Cerne Abbas financed for three schillings cleaning and restoration of the colossal chalk figure engraving. A recent study carried out in 2008 by a team of archaeologists, however, noted that part of the ancient sculpture had likely disappeared: indeed, the giant had probably worn a cloak or animal skin. This detail has been the origin of several fanciful theories: on the one hand, there are those who see it as proof that the pictogram represents a prehistoric hunter; on the other hand, those who think that this is, in fact, the solution to a rebus engraved more than two centuries ago. It could indeed be that the animal skin worn on the left arm is that of the legendary and invincible Nemean Lion, struck down by Hercules during the first of his twelve labors, which would make the giant of Cerne Abbas a representation of the Greco-Roman hero. If one followed this interpretation, one might see in the pictogram a caricature of Oliver Cromwell, the leader of the 17th century Republican revolution, ironically nicknamed by his critics "the English Hercules". The engraving agent could then have been Baron Denzil Holles, owner of the land and fierce opponent of Cromwell.
Whatever its origin, from the time it was engraved on the hill of Cerne Abbas, the giant who watched over the local community has entered folklore and legends throughout Dorset County. During World War II, his figure was obscured for a brief period. The British did not want to leave the Luftwaffe pilots such a valuable landmark for their bombing missions.
Today, the Cerne Abbas Giant is worshiped by Neopagan sects, and for those unable to bear children, fertility ceremonies are celebrated around the line of his erect penis. It is on the grass which constitutes precisely the genitals of the giant that certain couples, managing to defy the cold of the nights of full moon (and the English laws), mate, confident in its power, very ancient and mysterious blessing.
