Wicker man since 1986, an effigy of a man has been burned during Burning Man, a week-long annual event currently being held in Black Rock Desert, Nevada. Wicker man A wicker man was a large wicker statue reportedly used by the ancient Druids (priests of Celtic paganism) for sacrifice by burning it in effigy. The main evidence for this practice is one sentence in Julius Caesar's "Commentary on the Gallic war", which modern scholarship has linked to an earlier writer, Poseidonius. Modern archaeological research has not yielded much evidence of human sacrifice among the Celts, and the ancient Greco-Roman sources are now
Nevada State Route 447 highway straddles the Washoe/Pershing County line. The highway enters the Black Rock Desert just before arriving at Empire, a city founded on processing gypsum extracted from the desert. The highway ends north of crossing the Union Pacific Railroad's Feather River Route in Gerlach. Just past where the official designation ends is the turn off for former State Route 34, which is used to access the large playa of the Black Rock Desert and the site of the annual Burning Man Festival. The State highway officially ends here, becoming CR 447 where the roadbed continues as a Washoe county road Before