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Celt History
(Keltoi) was the name applied by ancient Greek writers, from the 5th century BC on, to a group of peoples who inhabited central and western Europe. The Romans called them Galli, or Gauls. (See European prehistory.) During the 1st millennium BC these peoples, who spoke Indo-European dialects later classified as Celtic languages, spread through much of Europe. From a heartland in central Europe, they settled the area of France (Gaul), penetrated northern Spain, and crossed to the British Isles probably in the 6th and 5th centuries BC. Moving south and south-west, they raided communities on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea in the 4th and 3d centuries BC. By the 1st century BC they were on the defensive, and most of them were gradually subjugated by the Romans advancing from the south, and the Germanic peoples coming down from the north. Thereafter Celtic culture was confined mainly to the "Atlantic fringe"--Ireland, Scotland, and Wales in the British Isles, and Brittany in France.
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HISTORY
The druids, who were the guardians of Celtic lore, did not encode their learning in written form, so few native historical accounts of the Celts exist from the period before the 5th century AD. Earlier accounts of the ancient Celts come from Roman and Greek writers, notably Julius Caesar, Strabo, and Diodorus, who probably based much of their Celtic ethnography on the now-lost writings of the Greek philosopher and historian Posidonius. These records are supplemented and corroborated by early Irish literature, including the epic tales of the Ulster cycle.
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The Archaeological Record
A great deal of information about the ancient Celts has been gathered by archaeologists from the physical remains of their settlements, cult sites, and burial places all across Europe. These remains are classified chronologically as belonging to two successive Iron Age cultures: Hallstatt (8th-5th century BC) and La Tene (5th-1st century BC), but their traditions can be traced back to the Late Bronze Age Urnfield culture of the 2d millennium BC. Elements of this culture go back further to the beginning of the Bronze Age in the Bell-Beaker culture (late 3d millennium BC), at which time the proto-Celts had already established themselves in much of their early historic territory. In the Bronze Age their material culture was very similar to that of the later Italic and Illyrian-speaking peoples, just as the Celtic language was closely related linguistically to Latin and other Italic dialects.
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The Beaker culture is a name given to a group of communities responsible for the spread of copper metallurgy in Europe in the 3d millennium BC. It is named for its most distinctive product, a pottery drinking vessel decorated with zones of linear ornament produced by whipcord impressions made on the clay surface. What was formerly believed to constitute a single culture is now seen to represent at least two separate but broadly contemporary groups. The earlier, distinguished by beakers with all-over cord ornament, originated in Central Europe, probably in the Lower Rhine basin, where the beakers evolved out of local so-called Corded-Ware traditions. It spread to Holland and Britain, where similar cord-ornamented beakers of around 3000 BC have been found.
From Iberia Bell-Beaker culture spread to France, Britain, and ultimately to Germany and the Low Countries. A fusion of traditions resulted in northwest Europe, Beaker people being influenced by the Battle-Axe culture, through which they were introduced to single-grave burial. In Britain the Beaker people are associated with some major ritual monuments, including Avebury in Wiltshire.
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Celtic Expansion
In the 4th century BC the Celts began a series of migrations that increased the size of their territory and brought them into immediate contact with the Greco-Roman world. During the last phases of the Hallstatt Iron Age (6th century BC) they completed a process of experimentation with steel tools and weapons; in the early La Tene period these technical advances combined with an increase in rainfall to improve food production, which in turn led to a considerable increase in population. By about 390 BC the Celts started to push south and east into the Mediterranean lands and eastern Europe. The archaeological record shows them moving farther south in the Iberian peninsula, east into present-day Poland and Ukraine, and taking over Illyrian and Thracian lands in the Balkans. They advanced into northern Italy, founding settlements that became the cities of Milan, Turin, and Bologna. Roman historians tell of an invasion of "Gauls" at this time, formidable fighters who defeated Rome's army at the Allia River and plundered the city. These Cisalpine Celts remained a threat to Rome until their final defeat in 295 BC.
Celtic tribes invaded Greece in 279 BC, penetrating as far south as Delphi before they were routed and driven back. Others migrated to central Anatolia, where the Seleucid king Antigonus I settled them (275) in an area that became known as Galatia; one of their hill forts, Angora, is today Ankara, the capital of Turkey. Many Celts were employed as mercenaries in the armies of the Hellenistic states. A Celtic shield has been unearthed in Egypt, and a representation of a plaid-wearing Celt in Morocco. The area occupied by the Celts was never in any sense an empire; it was simply the habitat of different politically independent tribes. The expansion had ceased by the 1st century BC, when Roman influence was becoming predominant.
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Pre-Roman Celtic Society
Celtic societies functioned as groups of autonomous units, each under a paramount chief. The people were organised into clans, which were subdivided into lineages (fine), stressing the paternal side of kinship reckoning. They were divided into three social classes: the royal clans, the warrior aristocracy, and the common people. Slaves comprised a small portion of the population. Persistent themes in Celtic culture included rural settlement, hospitality feasting, and fellowship drinking. Pork was a common item of diet, and plaid designs in clothing were favoured. The weapon of choice was the sword. Archaeological finds corroborate classical authors who described the Celts as using chain-mail armour and a machine for reaping grain. Most tribes had one or two palisaded settlements, usually designated by the Latin term oppida (towns).
The druids underwent a training period lasting 20 years. They had priestly duties, but they also bore weapons and had specialities, such as religion, law, astronomy and calendrics, poetry, and music. Writing was known as early as the 3d century BC but was little used except for coinage and commemorative inscriptions. Calendrics exemplifies the learning of the Celts, who had inherited extensive knowledge about solar and lunar movements from their Neolithic predecessors in Atlantic Europe. The bronze Coligny Calendar, found near Lyon, France, was more accurate than the one used by the Romans. Calendars were critical for tracking the main Celtic festivals: February 1, May 1, August 1, and October 31/November 1 (the last of which survive today as Halloween and All Saints' Day).
Celtic deities reflect the common Indo-European pantheon with gods presiding over various functions, such as Taranis for the rain-giving sky, Lug for craftsmanship, and the three Matrones for motherhood (see mythology). The sacred groves of the druids mentioned by the Greek and Roman writers were rural rectangular precincts measuring about 100 m (328 ft) per side, delimited by v-shaped ditches, and often containing deep ritual shafts in which offerings were made. Human sacrifice was practised; the Lindow man, a 2,200-year-old corpse discovered in an English peat bog is thought to have been a sacrificial victim.
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The Celts under Roman Rule
The Roman conquest of Gaul began with the annexation of the areas along the Mediterranean coast (Gallia Narbonensis) in 121 BC. Then, in the Gallic Wars of 58-51 BC, Julius Caesar, after defeating the Gallic chieftain Vercingetorix, extended Roman control over all the Celtic peoples between the Atlantic Ocean and the Rhine. In the 1st century AD the Romans also conquered the Celts in what is now England and Wales. The Celtic peoples of Scotland and Ireland remained independent for several more centuries. Those under Roman rule, especially on the European continent, were strongly influenced by Latin culture, although the Celtic languages continued to be used as a spoken medium down to the end of the Roman period.
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Christian Celtic Civilisation
The free Celts in north Britain and Ireland maintained the old traditions except for the making of pottery. Those in southern Scotland were Brythonic speakers; the Picts or Kruithni lived in north-eastern Scotland, and the Goedels (Gaels) in Ireland. The round wooden houses of the Iron Age continued to be built inside fortified enclosures called raths. Other settlements were established on artificial islands or crannogs constructed in the middle of lakes. The Ogham alphabet, probably derived from Latin script, was developed in Ireland in the 4th century AD. Ireland was Christianised in the 5th century, and Scotland mostly in the 6th century. The free Celts began to encroach on southern Britain after the withdrawal of the Romans. Ulii tribesmen (called Scoti) migrated from Ireland to Scotland, bringing with them their Gaelic language and their name. Other Irish raiders invaded Wales and Cornwall, driving the previous inhabitants across the English Channel to Brittany. Meanwhile England was being subjugated by the Angles, Jutes, and Saxons--Germanic invaders from beyond the North Sea.
Between the 5th and the 8th centuries, Celtic Christianity in the British Isles brought forth a a none reclusive form of monasticism that promoted the growth of markets, craft workshops, manuscript production, stone masonry architecture, and town life behind the stone walls of new settlements. In this context the old Celtic oral poetry and the traditional law codes were recorded in writing by monks who also produced Christian texts such as the Book of Durrow and the Book of Kells.
From the 9th century on, Viking and Norman incursions began drawing these Celtic communities into the mainstream culture of medieval Christendom. The Celtic languages survived, however, and cultural revivals in the 19th and 20th centuries sparked a rebirth of Celtic literature in Wales, Ireland, and Brittany. Irish is one of the official languages of Ireland; in Wales, the Welsh language has equal status with English, and is spoken by about 20% of the population.
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The Celtic Renaissance
Interest in the Celtic past was awakened in the 18th century by the work of James Macpherson of Scotland, whose translations of Gaelic poetry had a strong influence on the European romantic movement. This interest intensified in the 19th century, especially in Ireland, where the Irish Literary Renaissance was promoted by the founding of the Gaelic League in 1893. Later Irish-language authors include Brendan Behan, Liam O'Flaherty, and Sean O'Faolain.
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Celtic Mythology
The Celts originally inhabited an area in southern Germany and Bohemia. By the end of the 5th century BC they had expanded into the Iberian peninsula; in 390 BC they sacked Rome. In the east they went as far as Anatolia. In the west they migrated to Britain in the 5th century BC and Ireland in the 3d century BC. A great deal may be learned about the Celts from the archaeological materials left behind in the various countries where their culture dominated for several centuries. Most of the written documents of Celtic culture and religion are from Ireland and date from the 12th century AD, when they were written under Christian aegis.
As in the other Indo-European cultures, a clear tripartite structure appears in Celtic societal organisation. The principal divisions are the king, the warriors, and the cattle herders. The religious hierarchy is also tripartite, consisting of the priestly druids, who also served as administrators; the vatis or filidh, experts in magic and divination; and the bards, who are concerned with oral literature and prose poetry. As a culture the Celts display counteracting tendencies: they seem to be autonomous, anarchic, and concerned for local traditions, but a basic unitary character is manifested in their social organisation and mythological histories.
top Lug, In ancient Irish mythology Lug was a major divinity, a member of the In ancient Irish mythology Lug was a major divinity, a member of the Tuatha De Danann, or "People of the Goddess Danu," who, after much fighting, displaced two earlier divine races, the Fir Bolg and the Fomoire. The other leading divinities of the Tuatha were the Dagda and Nuadu, who served as their chief. Like them, Lug was omnicompetent, and the myth that relates how he became a member of the Tuatha underscores this. When asked by the gatekeeper of the royal palace to identify himself, Lug replied that he was, among other things, a warrior, a harper, a poet, a sorcerer, and a carpenter. Hearing this list of accomplishments, Nuadu readily admitted him into the fellowship.
Lug's chief weapons were the spear and the sling, with which he cast a stone into the single eye of the Fomoiran chief Balor Balor, his grandfather, in the second battle of Mag Tuireadh and thus insured the triumph of the Tuatha.
top The Celtic pantheon is difficult to discern. The names of several hundred gods are known, but the majority appear to be local deities. During the Roman period, many Celtic deities were identified with Roman gods. One of the most important, called Lug in Ireland, was identified with Mercury.
top The Irish mythological cycle can be divided into four major divisions. The first is the historical-mythological cycle. Two important texts are part of this cycle: the Leabhar Gahbala (Book of Invasions), a mythological history of Ireland; and the Dinnshenchas (History of Places), a mythological geography of Ireland. The main theme in the historical-mythological cycle concerns the peopling of Ireland and the fortunes of the Tuatha De Danann (People of the Goddess Danann), who were the mythological ancestors of the Irish.
top The second division is the Ulster cycle. These myths are stories of the warriors of King Conchobar. The themes of those of honour and prestige revolve around heroic deeds and the hero Cuchulain (or Cuchulainn). The third division is that of Fenian. The Fenian cycle recounts the exploits of Finn mac Cumhail and his companions and deals with the cult and institution of warriors. The last division deals with the institution and founding of the great and lesser kings of Ireland. The latter two divisions fall most readily into the category of folk tales and will not be discussed here.
top In the historical-mythological cycle the story of the predecessors of the Irish settlement is told. The first group to come to Ireland is led by a woman, Cesair; the majority of her group is composed of women. This group arrives before the great flood, and all are destroyed in the flood except one, Fintan, who in the form of a salmon, eagle, or hawk witnesses all of the later settlements. Fintan is the patron of the traditional lore and storytelling. The next group is led by Partholan, but he and all of his people die in a plague. A third group is led by Nemed; after suffering many vicissitudes, this group divides into three parts and abandons Ireland. Two of these groups, the Fir Bolg (Bolg Men) and the Tuatha De Danann (People of the Goddess Danann), occupy the subsequent history. The Fir Bolg return to Ireland, which they divide into the five provinces of Ulster, Leinster, Munster,
Connacht, and Meath; they also introduce kingship. When the Tuatha De Danann arrive, warfare ensues over possession of the land. One tradition states that after the First Battle of Mag Tuired, the Fir Bolg and Tuatha De Danann make peace and agree to live together in harmony. This outcome may reflect the classic Indo-European pattern, as analysed by Dumezil.
top The Tuatha are described as demigods; they are beautiful people, possessed with skill in music and the arts. They are always spoken about within a context of fabulous magical powers and wonders, which define the essence of their manifestation. A central theme in the myth of the Tuatha is that of the Second Battle of Mag Tuired. During the First Battle of Mag Tuired the king of the Tuatha, Nuada, is wounded. Because he is now physically blemished, he can no longer serve as king. The kingship is then given to his adopted son, Bres. Bres's father is a king of the Fomoire, a group of people with whom Nemed and his people had fought in previous times. Bres's mother, Eriu, is, however, a Tuatha. The choice of Bres is apparently an attempt to accomplish an alliance between the Tuatha and the Fomoire.
Bres, however, demands severe tribute from the Tuatha and persecutes them in many ways. A champion, Lug, arises from among the Tuatha; Lug is a master of all the arts of magic and warfare. Meanwhile Nuada, the blemished king, is restored to his kingship after he has been equipped with a silver arm. Nuada takes counsel with Lug, Dagda, the great god with the magic cauldron, and others concerning the preparations for warfare with the Fomoire. When the battle finally takes place, the Tuatha who are slain in the fighting are magically restored to life. Lug also uses magic to vanquish Balar "of the baleful eye." The Fomoire are routed. The life of the captured Bres is spared when he promises to advise on the proper times for sowing and reaping. Unlike similar battles in other Indo-European mythologies, the Second Battle of Mag Tuired does not end in a reconciliation and fusion of the two parties. The skills imparted by Bres, however, serve the same function of completing the functions needed in settled society." The Fomoire are routed. The life of the captured Bres is spared when he promises to advise on the proper times for sowing and reaping. Unlike similar battles in other Indo-European mythologies, the Second Battle of Mag Tuired does not end in a reconciliation and fusion of the two parties. The skills imparted by Bres, however, serve the same function of completing the functions needed in settled society.
The Tuatha are themselves later defeated by the Sons of Mil, the immediate ancestors of the Irish people. The Tuatha are said now to live in the underground of Ireland, in the fairy regions, where the fairies are subject to them. An analogous mythological history is related in the Welsh cycle of The Four Branches of the Mabinogi .
top In the Ulster cycle the heroic accomplishments of Cuchulain are related. Cuchulain in some versions is said to be a foster child of Ulster, and in some respects his character is modelled on that of Lug of the historical-mythological cycle. He is described as a small black-browed man, beardless and full of gaiety. When he is in battle a remarkable change comes over him; he increases in size, and his body trembles and whirls about inside of his skin so that his frontal features are turned to the rear. He can draw one of his eyes back into his head, and his hair bristles on end, with a drop of blood on the end of each hair. When he is in a warrior frenzy he attacks anyone in the vicinity, friend and foe alike.
top The central story of the Ulster cycle is the Cattle-raid of Cuailnge (Tain Bo Cuailnge). Queen Medb of Connacht and her vanguard attempt to steal the great bull, Donn Cuailnge, owned by the men of Ulster. She desires this bull so that her possessions will equal those of her husband, King Ailill, who owns a great white-horned bull, Finnbennach. Through the structure of this story the exploits of Cuchulain and his companions, Conall Cernach and Loegaire Buadach, are related. In the warfare against Queen Medb, Cuchulain realizes that he is fighting against supernatural forces that have been organised against him.
top Before the last battle, the Great Carnage of Murthemne, Cuchulain realizes the contradictory workings of his geasa. The geasa is a kind of personal obligation or taboo that cannot be violated by the individual without suffering dire consequences. For example, the sorcerers of Queen Medb are cooking a dog when Cuchulain passes. One of his geasa obligates him to eat the food from any hearth that he passes; another of his geasa makes the meat of dog a forbidden food. When he eats the dog he feels some of his power leave him. In this manner he is depleted of his great powers and eventually is mortally wounded in battle. He is tied upright to a pillar so that he can die while standing.
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The Celtic languages
members of the family of Indo-European languages, disappeared from continental Europe in the late 5th century, but they are still spoken by many people in the British Isles and in Brittany. Continental Celtic, or Gaulish, is preserved mainly in brief inscriptions. Insular Celtic is divided into two branches--Goidelic (also called Gaelic), including Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx; and Brythonic (also called British), including Welsh, Cornish, and Breton. Manx and Cornish, once nearly extinct, experienced revivals in the 20th century. Among the phonological differences between Goidelic and Brythonic is the treatment of Indo-European k(w): Irish mac, "son," contrasts with Welsh map. These two branches, sometimes called q-Celtic and p-Celtic, underwent certain changes but with different results. Stress became fixed on the first syllable in Irish and on the penultimate syllable in Welsh. Indo-European final syllables were lost, leading to the disappearance of a case system in Welsh. Many words were further shortened through loss of certain interior vowels. A system of initial consonant mutations developed; for example, Old Irish cenn, "head," becomes a chenn in the phrase "his head."
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Old Irish preserves five cases of the noun, three genders, and three numbers. The verbal system has developed new forms for expressing past action, an s-subjunctive, and an f-future for weak verbs. Dual number, the special number designating two, is lost in Middle Irish (900-1200), along with neuter gender, as in Welsh. The use of pronouns inserted within verbs to serve as verbal objects gives way to the use of independent pronouns in Early Modern Irish (1200-1400). The verbal system is gradually simplified--analytic forms develop; many strong verbs are treated as weak; compound verbs become simple, and verbs conjugated with deponent endings adopt undeponent endings. Taught today in Irish schools, Modern Irish is spoken as a native language mainly on the western and southern coasts of Ireland and in a few inland communities.
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Scottish Gaelic, which diverged significantly from Irish by the 16th century, today has roughly 80,000 speakers, excluding many Gaelic speakers in Nova Scotia, living mainly in the Highlands and Western Islands of Scotland. In the present tense a verbal noun construction replaces the old synthetic present, which itself acquires future meaning as the old future tense disappears. In general, the inflection of both the noun and verb is greatly simplified, as it is in Manx, the traditional language of the Isle of Man, first written down early in the 17th century and differing sharply from Irish in its treatment of intervocalic consonants. Both Manx and Scottish Gaelic have absorbed many Norse loanwords.
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In Welsh, which has some 560,000 speakers in Wales, the verbal system was greatly simplified by the Middle Welsh period (12th to 14th and 15th centuries), although early texts show many features, such as certain verb endings, that may be compared with Old Irish. As in Scottish Gaelic, present-tense forms are used with future-tense meaning. Cornish, the old language of Cornwall, first recorded in the 10th-century Bodmin Gospels, differs phonologically from Welsh in several ways. For example, medial and final t and d become s or z; and the structure of the language is generally closer to that of Breton, four main dialects of which are still widely spoken in Brittany. Breton differs notably from Welsh in its use of the subjunctive as a future and its heavy borrowing of words from French.
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Among the ancient Celts, the druids were a class of priests and learned men. They formed an important part of every Celtic community in Ireland, Britain, and Gaul, and their leaders often rivalled kings and chiefs in prestige, if not power. They seem to have served as judges as well as priests, and their counsel was eagerly sought by all classes of society. Unfortunately, most knowledge about the druids is derived from Roman sources, for the druids themselves disdained writing and preferred to pass along their tradition orally. They were responsible for educating the sons of chiefs and generally served as the guardians of the sacred tradition. It is known that oak trees and mistletoe played an important part in the druidic rituals (the word druid itself may be related to daur, the Celtic word for oak tree), as did human sacrifice. Sacrificial victims were sometimes burned in large wicker baskets in order to ensure military success or the health of the chief. These acts, as well as the druids' fierce resistance to the spread of Latin culture, led to their suppression by Roman authorities in Britain and Gaul; in Ireland, which never came under Roman rule, druidism survived until AD c.500. Perhaps for this reason pre-Christian Irish mythology is better preserved than that of other ancient Celtic groups. As far as is known, the Celts had no temples BEFORE the Gallo-Roman period; their ceremonies took place in forest sanctuaries. In the Gallo-Roman period temples were erected, and many of them have been discovered by archaeologists in Britain as well as in Gaul. top Earlier scholars frequently associated the druids with Stonehenge, but it is now known that Stonehenge was completed well over a millennium before the first Celts reached the British Isles (between 550-450 BC). 'C. Scott Littleton'
top Lindow man was unearthed in 1984 in a peat bog near Manchester, England. The well-preserved corpse, approximately 2,200 years old, is remarkable because of the method of execution employed on him. Presumably a human sacrifice, he was first bludgeoned and garrotted, then his throat was slit and he was dropped into a pool of water. The complexity of this ritual execution leads some archaeologists to believe that he was an important member of Celtic society, perhaps even a druid (see Celts). In his stomach was found a piece of burnt bannock cake, a traditional last meal for Celtic sacrificial victims. Lack of bodily scars (other than those incurred during the sacrifice) tend to indicate he was from a noble, rather than a warrior, class. Lindow man's death is thought to resemble the deaths of Tollund man and other bodies found in Scandinavian peat bogs. If both Lindow man and the Scandinavian corpses are the remains of Druids, then the Druids' dominance of European culture may have extended geographically farther than previously believed.
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Pre-History
Hallstatt
is the name used to designate the earliest phase of Iron Age culture in Europe, which lasted from the 8th century to the 5th century BC. This culture , associated with the early Celts, was first identified as a result of excavations (beginning in 1846) of ancient remains at Hallstatt, a village south of Bad Ischl in central Austria. The Hallstatt site contained salt mines and a cemetery of more than 2,000 burials, some dating from the late Bronze Age, but most from the early Iron Age. The later discovery of Hallstatt-like artefacts at other sites demonstrated the extent and development of the culture. Hallstatt artefacts are divided into three chronological phases. In Hallstatt I (c.800-630 BC) they follow the forms of the late Bronze Age Urnfield culture. This phase includes swords up to 1 m (3 ft) long made of iron and bronze, with winged chapes and ivory pommels, usually found in rich burials with horse harness and bronze disks. Figurines and pottery engravings such as those of the Sopron group in Hungary show horseback riders (both men and women), the earliest example of equestrianism west of the Eurasian steppe. The burial furnishings of chieftains in eastern Europe often feature four-wheeled wagons. Metal clasps (fibulae) in spiral forms and metal neck rings (torcs) are common. Pottery, like Urnfield forms but now painted red and black, is used to contain cremated remains. Mounds often cover the graves.
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Common in all phases, show improved fortification in the second period. In Hallstatt II (c.630-480 BC) inhumation becomes more common than cremation. Wagon burials move progressively westward, to central Europe in Hallstatt IIa and farther west in Hallstatt IIb. Sites in the British Isles include forts and swords but lack wealth and wagons. In south-west Germany stone statues of the chiefs stood atop the burial mounds. The body of the Hallstatt IIa chief at Hochdorf near Stuttgart wore golden shoes and weapons and lay on a bronze couch. The Hallstatt IIb chieftainess at Vix in France had a wagon plus Greek cups, an Etruscan pitcher, and an enormous bronze wine-mixing crater.
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About 500 BC many of these sites declined. In the following La Tene period, the main centres that profited from the Mediterranean trade, now mostly with the Etruscans, were located farther north. Richly furnished burials, usually in the form of inhumations under barrows, have been found in the highland areas containing metal ores and salt that extend in a crescent from the Champagne region of France through the Rhineland to Austria and Bohemia. These graves often contained imported Mediterranean items, two-wheeled chariots, and gold and bronze objects of local manufacture. New fashions emerged in weapons and ornaments, including torcs (neck rings), and a new art style using geometric motifs and plant elements derived from classical prototypes appeared; this new tradition is sometimes called Celtic art, because the La Tene culture is identified with the Celts. Few such burials were made after 400 BC. Later burial rites were more uniform; men were buried with their weapons, shield, spear, and sword, and women were buried with their ornaments, especially brooches, bracelets, and torcs. Contact with the Mediterranean region did not cease entirely, however; in the 3d century BC the first gold coins were struck, copying those of Philip II of Macedonia. Imported objects were no longer used as symbols of prestige, and the social nature of the contacts had clearly changed. The La Tene culture reached its final development in the 1st century BC before the Roman conquests, when the sites known to the Romans as oppida (towns) flourished from central France to Hungary. They were fortified sites, mainly on hilltops, although in Germany they were frequently in river valleys. Excavations at Stare Hradisko, Czech Republic, and at Manching, Germany, have shown that these were densely occupied towns, functioning as markets and centres of industrial production for such items as iron, bronze, glass, leather, wood, and pottery. Coins were minted, including small denominations for everyday transactions, and goods were again imported from the Mediterranean--especially wine in amphorae (pottery jars for bulk transport) and Italian bronze jugs. Evidence of political developments suggests that kings gave way to government by council and magistrates. Few of these Iron Age developments affected northern Europe, although some associated objects have been found there, such as the famous silver cauldron from Gundestrup, Denmark. A new form of ritual sacrifice and burial occurred in northern Europe; it is still poorly understood (see Lindow man; Tollund man). In Britain, Hallstatt and La Tene fashions in weapons and ornaments were copied, as was La Tene art in an insular version. In some areas local centres developed from long established hill forts such as Maiden Castle; from about 50 BC in the Southeast, however, new sites such as Colchester appeared. As on the continent, these oppida were local market and industrial centres. Extensive trade with the Romans also took place, with such items as grains, furs, and slaves exchanged for wine and other luxuries.
top Urnfield culture
was a Late Bronze Age culture of Europe distinguished by the rite of cremation burial in cemeteries, the ashes being interred in pottery urns. Ancestors of the Celts, the Urnfielders originated in eastern Europe, where their cemeteries in Hungary and Romania can be traced back to the early 2d millennium BC. By the 14th century BC the Urnfielders had spread across the Rhine, and by 750 BC they had reached southern France. Urnfield sites have also been found in north-eastern Spain, northern Italy, Sicily, and the Lipari Islands. The Urnfielders built hill forts with timber-laced ramparts, and they probably traded with the classical world for wine. They are thought to have developed the sword from the rapiers they encountered through contacts with the east Mediterranean. Urnfield culture ended in the 7th century BC, when it was replaced by the iron-using culture of the Hallstatt Celts.
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CELTIC ART
At the beginning of the La Tene period, the Celts created a distinctive art style characterised by abstract, sinuous, curvilinear designs, most of it in metalwork or ceramics. Stone and wooden sculpture also survives. Human and animal subjects were portrayed. La Tene art grew out of the native geometric themes of the Hallstatt Celts, exemplified by the Strettweg cult wagon. Within two generations the Celts had combined Hallstatt themes with Greek and Etruscan floral motifs and the animals and spirals of neighbouring peoples to create flat engravings in their new style. Relief sculpture became more common in the Waldalgesheim and Plastic styles (4th and 3d centuries BC). Waldalgesheim--named for a site in the Rhineland--features low-relief curvilinear abstract vegetation; the later Plastic style is distinguished by disjunctive proportions, the use of high-relief cast ornament, and by a delight in complex three-dimensional explorations of form, interflowing from abstract to figurative. The Sword style of east-central Europe blends dragons or horses with vegetal designs on scabbards. In the immediate pre-Roman period the focus on the continent shifted to figurative art on coins. At the same time the Insular style emerged in the British Isles. Insular art arranges traditional sinuous Celtic motifs with basketry patterns in designs emphasising overall symmetry divided by subtly balancing asymmetry. This can best be seen on symmetrical objects such as mirrors and shields.
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The art of the Christian period shows the influence of Roman provincial art and Anglo-Saxon designs. Decorated objects are mainly ecclesiastical, including metal reliquaries, communion chalices, stone crosses, and gospel books.
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