A “totem” has mysteriously appeared on top of a cliff on the south coast of England. It is currently unknown who built or placed the statue there, but locals want to know about the artist so they can get planning permission before it is hastily removed by the authorities.
The totem recently appeared overnight at a nature reserve in Capel-Le-Ferne on the cliff-top of the North Downs Road between Dover and Folkestone, the Kent Wildlife Trust says. Carved from a single tree trunk, the totem is about 2.4 meters high and has the name Perkūnas engraved on it.
Perkūnas is the god of lightning, thunder and storms, associated with Baltic mythology, especially around present-day Lithuania and Latvia. One of the most powerful gods in the Baltic god pantheon, Perkūnas is often seen as similar to the ancient Greek god Zeus, the Norse god Thor, and the Roman god Jupiter.
While no one has any guesses as to how the Totem got here, it’s clear that it was made by someone quite talented.
“The artist behind this may have spent hours painstakingly carving out the details, and we are keen to keep that in our reserve,” said Ian Rickards, District Manager of the Kent Wildlife Trust. The artwork seems to have been greatly admired by the marchers who took selfies and congratulated us on the installation, but we had no idea how it got there – it’s a ‘Totem’ mystery,” he said.
Locals seem to like this totem quite a bit, but its future is not yet assured. Local authorities have requested the Kent Wildlife Trust to grant retrospective planning permission to keep the statue in place. As part of this process, the Foundation wants to identify the artist who is very hard to find.
“The local council has given us eight weeks to submit the planning permission, and it would be great to keep track of the person behind ‘Perkūnas’ and get a little more detail (the totem),” Rickards said. The planning application will incur a cost to the Foundation, so anyone willing to donate to help fund the process will be gratefully accepted,” he added.
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