Celtic Art & Archaeology
A lot of what we know about Celtic-speaking peoples or the Neolithic and early Medieval residents of places settled by Celtic speaking peoples is from Celtic Art & Archaeology. Their art and artifacts, whether metalwork, massive stone structures, small inscribed stones or monuments, pottery, inscribed tablets, pottery or manuscripts, tell us about the earlier peoples living in lands that were inhabited by Celtic speaking peoples. While it’s true that we do not know what languages the Neolithic peoples who settled the lands that by the Middle ages were Celtic speaking regions in Europe, their artifacts share some common features with the Celtic art and archaeology of the later settlers. The following posts discuss Celtic art and archaeology.
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Celtic Beer
Ogma was a brewer, and so was Goibhniu, the smith god. Brigid too was a brewer, and there are many references to the consumption of beer in medieval Celtic texts. In that context the recent find that six specially constructed ditches previously excavated at Eberdingen-Hochdorf a 2,550-year-old Celtic settlement, were used to make high-quality barley malt, an essential beer ingredient. (You may recall Hochdorf as a principle Celtic site, where among other important finds in the museum is the grave of the Hochdorf prince.) Archaeobotanist Hans-Peter Stika of the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart has published a paper in which he discusses the results of chemical analysis of some of the thousands…
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Replica Carnyx from Tintignac
there were countless trumpeters and horn blowers and since the whole army was shouting its war cries at the same time there was such a confused sound that the noise seemed to come not only from the trumpeters and the soldiers but also from the countryside which was joining in the echo (Polybius 206–126 BCE). In 2004, archaeologists discovered over 500 iron and bronze items in a small 30cm-deep pit in Tintignac, in France’s Corrèze region. These fragments were all that remained of objects intended as sacrificial donations to the cthonic deities, objects that were deliberately destroyed as part of the ritual donation. Some of the fragments, about 40 fragments, were identified as being…
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The World of the Celts. Centers of Power—Treasures of Art
Die Welt der Kelten: Zentren der Macht, Kostbarkeiten der Kunst (“The World of the Celts. Centers of Power—Treasures of Art”) will be at the Landesmuseum Stuttgart through February 17. It’s part of a year-long celebration of the area’s Celtic heritage. In an exhibit that is reminiscent of the joint European “Celtic World” exhibit featured as part of the EU opening ceremonies, the exhibit is described as be the largest exhibition of Celtic artefacts in the last thirty years, including some objects never before exhibited in Germany. This is a joint production from the Archaeological Museum of Baden-Württemberg and the Landesmuseum Wuerttemberg in cooperation with the State Conservation Office in Stuttgart…
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Isle of Lewis Chess Pieces
These 12th century walrus-ivory isle of Lewis chess pieces are currently on exhibit through April 22, 2012 at the Metropolitan’s Cloisters museum in The Game Of Kings. There’s a fairly lengthy but interesting video from the Metropolitan Museum about the Game of Kings exhibit. The Lewis chess pieces were found by a farmer on the Isle of Lewis, the largest of Scotland’s Outer Hebrides, in 1831. The Lewis chess pieces seem to have been buried in a sand dune, possibly in a stone cist, near Uig. We don’t even know exactly when they were found, just that it was before 11 April 1831, the date of the first published record.…
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3,000 Year Old Fermanagh Torc Found in Bog
The Fermanagh torc was found in County Fermanagh, in Fermanagh bog, in 2009 The torc was found by metal detector Ronnie Johnston Corrard, near the Belle Isle estate in county in Fermanagh in 2009. He didn’t recognize it as a 3,000 year old gold ornament at first, and, thinking it was an old car spring, tucked it in the back of a drawer. The Fermanagh torc is quite large, mostly gold, and dates from 1300-1100 B. C. E. The BBC article asserts that it “would probably have been worn around the waist.” I confess to being puzzled by that assertion. Torcs are usually worn around the neck, with some possibly…
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Intact Tomb of a Celtic Noblewoman Found in Heuneberg
Photo by Patrick Seeger dpa/lsw An intact aristocratic tomb of a Hallstatt-era woman was discovered in Heunenberg, Germany in December of 2010. Heuneberg (near Herbertingen in southern Germany) is a known center of Hallstatt and La Tène cultures, generally lumped together as “Celtic.” Excavations in and around the Heuneberg hillfort and the earlier middle Bronze-age (c. 15th to 12th century BCE) site began in the 1800s, and have resulted in a museum. The area is known for several cemetery mounds, many of which have revealed rich grave goods including imported Greek vessels, amber, gold, and a strikingly decorated local style of ornamented pottery, with scored lines and punching decorations carefully…
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More on the Faddan More Psalter
I’ve written before about an 8th century Irish psalter on vellum found in an Irish peat bog near Riverstown in north Co Tipperary, in July of 2006. The psalter, both damaged and preserved by the tannic stew of the bog, Conservators, principally John Gillis, on loan to Ireland’s National Museum from Trinity College Library, have been working diligently to discover the best methods of conserving, preserving, and documenting the psalter for the last four years. In 2011, the psalter will be placed on permanent display in the National Museum of Ireland. In the meantime, you can read the preliminary report here, and some background here. In the process of conserving…
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Iron Men, Natural History Magazine, and Simon James
Via the customary cursory glace at my referrals, I noticed that a new article on the Natural History magazine Web site links to me via the following: At Lisa L. Spangenberg’s Digital Medievalist site you can find a good list of Celtic Web Resources (scroll down). At one of them, Simon James’s Ancient Celts Page, the author, who is an archaeologist at the University of Leicester in England, presents alternative views on this culture. After presenting the conventional wisdom, he gives an alternate history of “Celticness,” which examines the justification for unifying so many tribes under one banner—with particular attention to the British Isles. I very much respect the work…
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Vindolanda Altar to Jupiter Dolichenus
This past July a Roman altar dedicated to Jupiter Dolichenus was discovered in the excavations of the former Roman fort Vindolanda. Vindolanda is near modern Chesterholm, England, just south of Hadrian’s Wall. The altar, weighing roughly 1.5 tons, is carved stone. One side bears a relief image of a jar and a patera, a shallow dish frequently used in religious rituals involving sacrifice. The opposite side depects a male figure in Roman clothing standing on the back of a bull. He bears a thunderbolt in one hand, and a battle axe in the other. A third side bears an inscription in Latin. The text reads: I.O.M. Dolocheno Sulpicius Pu…
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Celtic Wine
The drink of choice among the wealthy is wine brought from Italy or the region of Massalia. It is normally drunk unmixed with water, although sometimes water is added. Athaneus (fl. c. C. E. 200) Deipnosophistae trans. Phillip Freeman. (John T. Koch and John Carey eds. The Celtic Heroic Age. Celtic Studies Publications: Maldon, MA, 1995). There are a number of similar references in Classical sources to the Celts’ fondness for wine. Most references emphasize that the wine was unwatered, and that drunkenness was common. Drunkenness is one of the most common slurs cast at any “barbarians, yet there does seem to be some corroborating evidence regarding Celtic fondness for…
