The Mysterious Stone Statue in Northern Ireland
by Jun Kuzuya
(Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan)
Janus Figure
Do you know the "Boa Island" in Northern Ireland? On this small island, there is a mysterious stone statue. I would like to share info about this statue.
It's called a "Janus Figure." This statue was made 2,000 years ago and has some unique characteristics.
The "Janus Figure" has a big head and two different faces between the front and back. One side represents a male and the other side represents a female. So this statue is seen as a symbol of birth.
And there is one faith about it. Praying to this statue, people become to be blessed with a child!! It's an interesting faith, I think.
But why does it appear like this faith? The origin of faith is from a Roman myth.
In the Roman myth, Janus appears as a god representing gates and an entrance. He has two different faces in the front and back, and they say that he looks at the beginning of all things with two faces. From this, he became the origin of the word "January" as the symbol representing the beginning of the year.
Like that, we can find that Roman myth influences Irish faith. It's a very interesting thing, I think.
I also have an image of Northern Ireland as a dangerous country. But through the research to write the essay about this country, I found a very interesting side of Northern Ireland!!
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