Celts/History

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The Celts are a people who have inhabited Europe since the early Iron Age. Whilst they were once the pre-eminent power in Europe conflicts against the Ancient Romans, migrating Germanic tribes and internecine warfare led to a loss of much of their influence. Today Celtic languages are still the primary spoken language along parts of the European Atlantic fringe. Their origin is still currently disputed, genetic evidence suggests the Celts originated in south west France whilst cultural and some historical evidence suggests that the Celts originated in Switzerland or possibly further east.

By 500 BCE all of Europe was "in Celtic hands", yet the Celts were never a single unified power but rather a collection of related tribes and kingdoms which, in the 3rd century BCE, at their greatest spread covered vast swathes of Europe from the Black Sea to the Atlantic Ocean. The Celts populated Europe from the British Isles to the Lower-Danube and even beyond, toward Scythia and Asia Minor. Much of the early accounts of the Celts come from Hellenic sources as the Celts had little written language until the Middle Ages. Ephoros, a Greek chronicler of the 4th century BCE counts the Celts among the world's greatest peoples along with the Scythians, Persians and Libyans. Still, because the greatest contact between the Celts and Greeks was martial much of the early records are of such a nature and also of uncertain neutrality. They gained a reputation for bravery in battle, being daring and self-sacrificing, for valour was to the Celtic mind the greatest glory. Caesar tells us in his work, dealing with the Gallic battles, that he was told by the Celts, that there is nothing of which they were more afraid, than that "the sky would fall upon their heads"! even so, in their pre-Roman heyday, the Celts were not a culturally unsophisticated people: one non-military account of the early Celts is from the Latin writer Avienus who states that the Celts were famous seafarers who built vessels from leather rather than pine.

Gradually, however the dominance of the Celts over Europe was gradually replaced by the rise of Rome and then finished on the continent by the great Germanic migrations that caused Rome's fall. Whilst the Celts in mainland Europe were in catastrophic decline the Insular Celts of the British isles were thriving. The Insular Celts were a major factor in the spread of Christianity in north west Europe during this time. During the Middle Ages the smaller Celtic kingdoms of the British Isles amalgamated into larger kingdoms, such as Rìoghachd na h-Alba which later became the kingdom of Scotland. Much of the history of the Celts at this time is occupied with internal conflict amongst rival Celtic Kingdoms and Clans and external conflict against Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and Normans.

The First Cry: The Hallstatt Culture and the Emergence of the Celts

According to Myles Dillon and Nora Chadwick, the first Celtic settlements appeared in the British Isles in the Early Bronze Age (around 1180 B.C.). They consider England's indigenous population at the end of the Stone Age to be Proto-Celts. Leon E. Stover and Bruce Kraig, English archaeologists, deduce from the prehistoric finds in Wessex and Hungary that the Celts may have been already present in Europe in the third millennium B.C. This date surpassed by far the imaginings of 19th century linguists and ethnographers who believed the Celts to be of Indo-European origin...[7]

As a result of contemporary research, it has become clear that the Celts had very little connections with the (Indo)-European people whom the massive Central Asian wave of migration found here, at the end of the New Stone Age, at the edge of Europe, between the Northern and Southern seas. At that time, Central Europe, beginning from the Northern slopes of the Alps to the Central Mountain region of the Germanic territories, i.e. the Danube-Main-Rhine region, was covered by thick and extensive forests. There could not have been considerable population here.

The Celtic archaeological finds that are considered the earliest are from 1000 B,C, (the Upper-Austrian Hallstatt finds). These form the transition between the Bronze and Iron Age cultures. A Bronze Age Scythian kurgan (burial mound) was also found here. This settlement ceased to exist in the 4th century B.C., probably because of an "earthquake." The direct continuation of this culture is the so- called "La Têne" culture, which may have formed around 450 B.C. This is already a typical Iron Age Celtic settlement. We know from the discoverer of the La Têne civilization, Friedrich Schwab, that he found this ancient settlement - which is now under water - during his excavations at the Neuenburger Lake in Switzerland. This Celtic "village" came to light at a place, near the Eastern shore of the lake, where the water-level was low.

The Scythian influence upon the Celts appears not only in the metal (gold and iron) objects which were unearthed by archaeologists, but in the "kurgan"-style burial custom too. We find a great number of similar raised grave-sites (kunhalmok)[12] all over the British Isles - at Stonehenge or in the region of the famous "crop circles" in Marlborough County with its giant-kurgan - and also in Brittany, Karnag, the famous Celtic "stone-sea" settlement where the "St. Michaels Mount" stands. The name Karnag is derived from the Breton-Celt word for kurgan, which is the same as the Irish CARNAN, little hill, grave[13]. With the appearance of the huge "kunhalom" or kurgans, the first significant gold finds appeared in Central Europe, the earlier ones usually arrived there with commerce. These graves are the same as the kurgans of the equestrian nomads, north of the Caspian and the Black Sea, who became famous for their love of gold and the their skill in metal-working. They were also famous for their animal-husbandry, the taming of the wild horse and the manufacture of wagons that were suitable for transporting their wares. Their society showed a clear structure (which was easy to survey), and strong princes (CEAN = khan) ruled over the tribes.[14]

The Celts were already described by Caesar as an "equestrian" people in his De Bello Galileo. Horses played a central part in the lives of the Celts. They were "crazy for horses"; they were willing to give their entire fortune for a good horse from the "East". The Celtic heroes were buried with their beloved horses (see the Bronze Age equestrian burials at Ribemont-sur-Ancre in France). They were able to maintain command even at full gallop, or they stood on the beams of the battle-chariots to fight the enemy with their notorious double edged "Celtic swords" while the horses moved on at full gallop. They chopped off the head of the enemy with one strike, during an attack on horseback, and hung the head onto the bridle. As with all equestrian societies, the soul played an enormous role in their belief system. The cutting off the head of the enemy (where the "door" of the soul is) was not only proof of heroism, but it also meant the ownership over the soul of the fallen enemy, thus preventing its wrath. The military leaders wore a helmet decorated with a bird called SÓLYOM (falcon), because the "sólyom" was the image, the symbol of the (War)-God "who helps in battle." Before the battle they made a "tremendous noise" - writes Livius, the 1st century Roman chronicler, "they strengthened themselves with awful songs and exclamations" (and scared the Romans), "the battle-cries, the battle-songs and the tremendous noise which they created by pounding on their shields had one goal which was the intimidation of the enemy" - concludes the chronicler. It was also a tool of intimidation when they stiffened their hair with a mixture of limestone and "sapo" which had a plant origin[15], and the hair was brushed back (imitating the mane of their horses this way), and their long, hanging, bushy mustache - according to Diodoros - even increased the frightening image. The Celtic men and women both wore their hair in long braids (Irish CIAB, COPF, The Celtic attire was very colorful: the men wore wide pants (BOLAG "sack or bubble-like wide pants") with which - according to the Romans - they wore very brightly-colored shirts with navy-blue or black vest (MAELLAN, mellény), woolen cloak (SEAC, zeke) or a short, tightly fitted coat (CABHAIL, kabát), they hung an ornate bag upon their wide belt (CRIOS) which held their clothing (GUNA, gúnya) together and on their feet they wore short boots or sandals (BROG).

Several proofs testify to the fact that, here in the Carpathian Basin, a "new" people was born. We have to mention that first of all, the "chief-Goddess", DANU (DEA-ANU, meaning Good-Mother (Jó-anya ~ Édes anya in Hungarian), the other name of ANU "ancient Mother", was born here. The Mother Goddess, DANU, was the name giver of the DUNA (Danube), thus changing her earlier name ISTER. The name Ister was bequeathed to us by the Greeks but, supposedly, even this may be of Celtic origin, since in Breton even today STER is the word for "river". The Celtic settlers - who, in my opinion spread from this base in all directions of the compass - settled Europe, and even though they could not take with them their Ancient Mother, DANU, (so write the Irish Chronicles), her name was carried on in the names of their rivers, from the DON River in England and Scotland to the French River DON. They are the sons of "DANU" (the clan 'Danu' of Tuatha Dé Dannan), or the children of the Mother Goddess. The DUNA became the "holy river" of the Druids, because the Ancient Mother DANU lived in it. They called the land, where they were forced to leave the Ancient Mother, or God behind - since God was a mother - ANNWN (pron. ANNUN) in Irish, "Anyahon" in Hungarian. To use another expression, this was "the land of the Woman" - the BANNWN (pron.: BANNÚN), verbatim: NÉNE-/BANYA-HON)[17]. In the name of BANNWN it is easy to recognize the later Latin "Pannónia", the land of the DANU/DUNA, the land of the "Good-Mother" (Jóanya), the later land of the Virgin Mother (Boldogasszony). ANNWN was also the name for the Otherworld.

They also called this land MAGH MAR, "Mező-széles" (wide meadow), which is the land of rivers with sweet and mellow waters, where

"there is a wide variety of the honey-beer and wine" and where "impeccably beautiful people live"; in this land there is no "mine and yours" [...] "the splendid clothing of our hosts is a pleasure to the eye; their faces are resplendent in the shades of the fox-glove" and "even though it is nice to look at the Plains of Fái (the Irish "lowlands"), after having seen Magh Már this seems to be a barren land..."[18]

In Europe there is only one "Broad Meadow" (Magh Már), where, even today, the memory of the "Ancient Mother" is alive and well; Hungary is the land of "Boldogasszony", the Great Madonna - which is unique in Europe!... It is noteworthy that Ireland is also the "Land of the Mother of God": the honor which embraced the Madonna (ANU, DANU) in pagan Ireland and her several forms were partly transferred to the Virgin Mary. In Celtic society there is an oral tradition about the central role of the mother, and one saying from the Hebrides says: "In the heart of God there is the heart of a mother."[19] So it is understandable that the Irish too have a "Motherland".

After the death of Atilla and after the loss of the Carpathian Basin as part of the Hun Empire, the Celts of Pannónia (along with the Scythian-Hun-Székely people) must have remained on the land of the DANU-DUNA, namely in their "Motherland" since, later on, we will find Celts in the Avar army too.[20]

The memory of the Celts remained not only in the "Magyar style swords of European rank" made by Celts in the territory of Hungary, not only in their art in general (deer, griffin and ivy motifs, etc.) but also in the present day Hungarian language and some names of towns too.

A distinctive feature of the Celts was a neck-band, the so called torque (TORC) around their neck (see Ancient Turkish Taryq-mag - to become tight). This was not characteristic of any European people with one exception:

"The Hun leading class could be identified by archaeologists, by these very heavy gold torques, in the graves of men as they wandered from East to West, from Central Asia and from one of the tributaries of the Lena River in Western Siberia, all the way to the Balkans. It is very characteristic that almost one third of these torques and, let us add, the heaviest ones, came to light from the Carpathian and Vienna Basin.[21]

Researcher Lajos Csomor in his book "Őfelsége, a Magyar Szent Korona" states that

"the workmanship of the goldsmiths of Western Europe in the Early Middle Ages was mainly based upon the Celtic goldsmith art of Sumerian and Egyptian origin" (p.57), and adds later, in connection with the Hungarian Holy Crown: "Such pendants were first prepared in Mesopotamia. This technique - in a modified form - reached the Celts. [...] This art arrived - later with the Huns and Magyars - through Urartu and Iran to Bactria, between the 2nd century B.C. and the 2nd century A.D., and it is present among the Huns in the Turanian lowlands - all the way to the 5th century. It is probable that the Avars learned this technique here too, and they use this in their Eastern European settlements and the Carpathian Basin (Darufalva find)"[22]

Old writings are usually tight-lipped concerning the Scythian-Celtic relationships, just as todays history books are, but we now know that - even though this relationship was not always peaceful - it was a lot more intense than we had thought until today; Kinder and Hilgemann, German historians, have the following opinion of this relationship;

"The (Scythian)-Cimmerians, with the adoption of the Taurican[23] (Meotis) cultural elements, had a strong influence upon the Hallstatt Culture and so they become the transmitters of the cultural elements of Asia Minor. The Scythians influenced the later Hallstatt Culture and the La Têne culture. [...] They buried their dead placed upon a wagon in the grave. (This is a Scythian influence)"[24]

The two authors continue about the La Têne (typically Celtic) culture:

"In the surrounding territories, the indigenous population undergoes a strong 'Celticizing process."

Christiane Éluere, a French historian, also calls this process "die Keltisierung Europas" in her book "Die Kelten' (1994): The Greeks and the Romans considered all Northern-Europeans to be definitely Celts and Scythians until the first century B.C.[25]

O. E. MEINANDER, a historian from Helsinki, after having established the fact that the settling of the ancient Finns in the Eastern Baltic region - who were the carriers of the typical ceramic culture with "comb-design" - ended by the 3rd millennium B.C., nevertheless states: The arrival of the people of the Linear Band ceramics (the battle-axe culture) (i.e. the Scythians - 2400-1900 B.C.) played a great role in the development of the Finn people even though they are often considered Indo-Germanic[26]. In other words, from the mixture of the ancient Finns and the (ancient) Scythians in the Baltic area, the Finn people and language developed. With this theory, Meinander duly explains the Finn-Magyar "relationship!"

The "battle-axe" (fokos) peoples Indo-Germanic status is refuted by Kinder and Hilgemann, who point out that, even though the people of the Linear Band ceramics (the battle-axe people) were not Indo-Germans they took part in the Indo-Germanizing process of Europe.[27] By today even this role of "Indo-Germanization" is in doubt. Because of certain similar traits between the middle Central European and Kurgan cultures of that age, some historians were led to believe that they could also reconstruct linguistic parallels. This is how the theory arose, according to which the "South Russian" semi-nomads determinedly moved to the West and they started Europe's Indo-Germanization there. The most famous of this school of thought was Marija Gimbutas from the Baltics (Lithuanian by birth), who died in 1994, and who achieved her fame as Professor of Archaeology at the University of Los Angeles; her theory was accepted by many and they also became well known. However, not all researchers agreed with her theory and some even refuted it. Rieckhoff, in his book Faszination Archeologie" (1990, p. 52.) writes the following:

"Many signs point to the fact that, by the end of the New Stone Age, Europe belonged in the Indo-European family of languages, but nothing proves that this was the result of the influx of bellicose nomads who lived in the South-Russian steppes, considering that at that time neither battle-chariots nor equestrian fighters existed. Something very different arrived from the grasslands: economic and technical innovations, which decisively influenced the culture of Central Europe. The kurgan-style burials (Kun-hills) and the cultic and decorative use of gold were surely components of this (culture-) import.[28]

We have more data to prove the Scythian-Magyar connections. Barry Cunliffe, British historian, writes the following:

"North of the Caucasus [...] there is endless grassland, which reaches from China to Europe and provides the necessary conditions for the constant migrations. Huge rivers: the Volga, Don, Dnieper, Bug, Dniester and the Lower Danube cut into this region which, in the South is grassland and tundra in the North. The still nameless equestrian and livestock-raising peoples roamed in this "endlessness". They were called in later historical writings: Cimmerians, Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans, Huns, Magyars, Bulgarians and Mongols. They, too, influenced the culture of Europe, when they crossed the Danube-corridor or, circumventing the Carpathians they arrived in the Northern European flatlands. [...] the people of the Puszta played an important role in the development of European culture.[29]

The equestrian nomadic Celts settled down, after they had arrived in Central Europe. In the hitherto often-quoted book (Auf der Suche nach dem Gold der Kelten), in the chapter about the Celtic origins and their settlement (Die Kelten: Herkunft und Sesshaftwerdung) we receive an explanation about the reasons for their settling down and their circumstances: We can only guess what methods they used to search out a new home for themselves. More than likely, gold played a part in this selection, since to own gold meant the same as taking part in eternity and, therefore, to be in contact with the eternal gold. The precious metals had only a secondary material value. The Celts brought with them from their ancient homeland, the region above the Caspian and Black Seas, not only the worship of gold, but the knowledge of gold-mining and its workmanship too. The incoming nomads must have found immense amounts of gold here three-thousand years ago - as compared with later centuries - because they were the first, who were able to mine the gold regularly (BAIN, bánya, bány-ász, bányászni = to mine, to dig out). After the arrival of the Eastern peoples, the Danube Valley was used as a natural road for traffic. Following the river meant more than just the selection of a natural road since, in the Danube, one can wash gold even today, as in Hungary, for example. The equestrian nomads followed the tracks of the gold.[30] The German research team continues: In the process of selecting a settlement, the advantages of a settled life had to outweigh the disadvantages associated with it, and these had to be the decisive factor. A settled life had its difficulties too. As with all equestrian nomads, for the Celts too, the changing circumstances of keeping horses must have been the greatest worry. Horses were not kept as easily as dogs, because the animals which were used to the endless grasslands needed an acceptable environment. He who takes his horse out of its usual environment and breeds it in a totally changed environment, lacking a natural dry pasture, has to provide pastures and an adequate place to roam. Western Europe, especially the foothills of the Alps, was rich in immense, dense broad-leaf forests, bogs and wet meadows. For this reason the equestrian nomads settled in the elevated places - far from the rivers - because only in this way could they provide their horses with an acceptable environment and protect them from the inflammation of their hooves, which is caused by wet meadows.[31]

So, actually, who were the Celts?

They were an equestrian people of Central Asian (Scythian) descent, who settled down after they arrived in Europe. The Celts are characterized by medium high stature, stocky body-structure, round heads, oval faces with pronounced cheek bones, braided brown hair and long, hanging, thick and rich mustaches. Early sources place Celts in western Europe and also occupying land near the headwaters of the Danube River. Their home territories have often been traced to central and eastern France, extending across southern Germany and into the Czech Republic. In 279BC the Celts were known to have looted Delphi, the sacred Greek site. Strabo (Geographer) recorded a meeting between the Celts and Alexander the Great in 335BC in the Balkans. Classical writers had recorded a large-scale migration of Celts soon after 400BC, this migration took the Celts from central Europe into Northern Italy and Eastern Europe.

"The musical world of the Irish and the Moldavian Magyars is similar, not only in its spirit and intensity, but also in its pentatonic structure, division, and type. A jig?[32], the oldest of the male dances strongly resembles its eastern counterpart, where men and women dance in a circle and the twirling, intermixed with sudden stops, can still be found among the non-city dwellers" - writes the Magyar Nemzet in its 1998 November 5 issue with the title: Tiszán innen Dublin túl (This side of the Tisza, beyond Dublin) (Irish and Moldavian Csángó folk music in the Fonó) [This is an adaptation of the title of a Hungarian song entitled: Tiszán innen Dunán túl, meaning: This side of the River Tisza, beyond the river Danube. The fonó is a place where women get together to spin and tell stories, sing, etc at the same time. The translator]

As for the Celtic (Breton) folk attire and musical roots, which are still living, even the Bretons themselves look toward Turan. The Breton folk art, folk customs, traditions, their "stick-dances" and equestrian parades are very close to their Hungarian counterparts.

Today, the Irish are Western Europe's greatest horse breeders. The young Breton man, reaching adulthood, receives a horse as a present, so that he may take his beloved (BAB, baba, young woman, lover), BABAM, my lover, (babám) in his saddle to the church wedding (MIONN - girls headdress, ancient Irish NAS-adh = wedding, nász).

The ancient Celtic writing was the runic script. One of the most beautiful examples of this runic writing can be found on the bronze plate in the Saragossa region of Spain. The Irish carved their runic letters onto sticks, of which Gyula Sebestyén already wrote in his series "Rovás és rovásírás" in the "Ethnographia" magazine (1903-1904):

"Among the older Irish, the indigenous population read their prayers not from rosaries but from runic-sticks"

The inscriptions on the giant stones in Scotland, Ireland and Northern England are written with OGHAM-writing (see Ancient Irish OG to carve, to incise) ~ ék-írás / writing in Hungarian ('AKOM-bákorn' shapeless, childish signs). This type of writing is etched into stone or cut into wood with straight, line-like signs which were used only to commemorate different ceremonial events.[33].

Tribes

Belgae

Well known and described by Caesar, as the "bravest of the gauls" as they were an old alliances of peoples with strong connections with the germanic world and gallic world, they were probably ancient treves peoples from the east of the Rhine, who settled in 500-600 bc from frisa to the north of gauls. "Belgae" is an ancient term meaning "men of the alliance" or more simply, "allied". The fact is that most of the ancient belgians were probably of germanic origin, but with a celtic and especially gallic acculturation, once settled for centuries. They were settled in western britain at an undetermined time, probably one or two centuries before Ceasar campaign, as coins and evidence of a local belgian strong aristocracy in 300 bc.

With a mixed origin, germanic and celtic, and using gallic armours, helmets, weapons, the belgians were naturally gifted for conquest. In 300 bc, their tactics shadowed those of the neighbouring Gauls. They relied on a heavy infantry made of spearmen accustomed to form a phalanx, sustained by thousands of light levied spearmen, and surrounded by skilled sworsmen and skirmishers. Slingers, archers, and long-range skirmishers were of course, always posted on the front. But the Bellovaci army was characterised by more chariots than cavalry on their wings. Chariots were even the most current way of fighning of the Bellovaci nobility. The main reason was an old practice related with flat plains of these nothern lands. However, the Remi people furnished an excellent and reputed cavalry as a client, and the usual cavalry was made of light and nervous horses fightning in the Germanic fashion, intermixed with infantrymen. The lasts were in charge to sustain the cavalrymen by running through and using spears to dismount enemies in the melee.

After their conquest of Britain, the Belovaci soon subdued or chased local tribes, like the Siluri. At the time of the gallic wars, the Siluri and other neighbour tribesmen has adopted the trousers and many elites used modern helmets. The war chariot, unknown in britain, became then the characteristic way of fightning of the locals, with a guerrilla-tactic by small groups of men, as described Caesar.

Elsewhere ....

Massilia

http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/Barbarians/Essays/interaction.html

""Celtic" and Mediterranean Interaction "Hellenization" is the process by which non-Greek peoples were made more or less Greek, acculturated if not assimilated into Greek culture. Hellenizein, mastery of the Greek language, comprised but one of several tools in this process, if perhaps the most important (Momigliano 1975, 7 ff.) -- a barbaros who speaks Greek is a contradiction in terms. Greek colonies were established throughout the Mediterranean from the early Geometric into the Classical era; the Hellenistic kingdoms formed after the conquests of Alexander the Great carried Greek culture even further into barbarian lands. Greeks abroad did not go native; instead, they brought what they could of Greekness with them and became, if anything, more emphatically and self-consciously Greek. They built cities, introducing urban structures and ideas into lands often innocent of them. Those cities contained civic centers, agoras, sports facilities, theaters, temples, fortifications, and Greek houses -- structures and institutions that helped perpetuate Greek culture abroad, and not incidentally, Hellenize the locals.

Massalia and surrounding tribes. After Cunliffe 1988, fig. 16

The only major Greek colony in the "Celtic" lands was Massalia (Marseille) near the mouth of the Rhône, established ca. 600 BCE by Phocaeans from Asia Minor who had been threatened or displaced by the Persians. The territory around Massalia was inhabited by the historically shadowy Ligurians; the "Celtic" name of the local tribe (Segobrigii) is suggestive, and Massalia was certainly surrounded by "Celts" during the historical La Tène period. By the third or second century BCE, the local "Celts" used the Greek alphabet in Gallic inscriptions. Strabo describes Massalia in the first century BCE as a school for barbarians (IV.1.5), clearly a practical one in that the contracts with neighboring "Celts" were written in Greek (IV.1.5). Historians do not, however, recount the process by which this degree of Hellenization was achieved, nor how early it began. Massalia's self-representation in the Treasury at Delphi and in its own architecture emphasize its Greek and then Roman nature; relations with the locals were apparently both profitable and often hostile. The sources describe "a city which had decided to remain unchanged in its archaic Hellenic shape" (Momigliano 1975, 56). Little information about its non-Greek neighbors is forthcoming. We can assume that the presence of Massalia nearby piqued "Celtic" curiosity. Just as exposure to Italian luxuries must have played a part in enticing the "Celts" into invading Italy , no doubt Massaliote wealth sparked "Celtic" acquisitiveness, leading to fourth-century incursions. Pottery-making in the Massaliote manner and, significantly, the drinking and cultivation of wine became quite prevalent among the inhabitants of the Rhône basin (Dietler 1990). It is probable that local economies evolved in response to the Greek traders in their midst, capitalizing on their control of the inland waterways and roads, and finding a ready market for raw materials and slaves. None of this indicates any true mingling with Greeks before the Roman period; instead, the Hellenization we find in the immediate area surrounding Massalia appears to have been limited to facilitation of the amount of contact required for economic gain and little more.

Massalia is not the only, or even the principal, point of contact by which the "Celts" could be Hellenized. "Celts" served as mercenary soldiers throughout the Mediterranean, including stints both with and against Greeks. They were extremely mobile, invading Italy as far as Rome in the early fourth century; Greece to Delphi in the third; and settling in Hellenistic Anatolia. "Celtic" mercenaries in Ptolemaic Egypt wrote inscriptions in Greek (Momigliano 1975, 53) . Finally, a variety of Greek and Italian objects found its way into "Celtic" Europe by many different roads, probably involving contact with Greek traders at some point. The "Celts" had ample opportunity to observe the Greeks; they showed themselves receptive to Greek wine and to learning the Greek language when expedient. It remains to question how much active "Hellenization" can be said to have taken place in the late Hallstatt and early La Tène periods and what effect that may have had on "Celtic" art.

The conclusions reached in this study parallel, on an art-historical level, the results of recent anthropological discussions and the interpretation of archaeological contexts. Challenging the Hellenization model, I argue that imports from the Mediterranean and adaptation of Mediterranean elements do not in fact prove "Celtic" emulation of Greek culture; nor do they represent "Celtic" self-definition as "barbarian" vis-à-vis the Mediterranean higher cultures [I.]. Models postulating any kind of dependency on luxury goods imported from the south are without archaeological foundation.

This is not to say that world-systems or center-periphery models cannot explain the dynamics within "Celtic" localities; together with peer-polity interregional interaction theory, these anthropological reconstructions may provide our only path toward understanding developments within the "Celtic" lands, in the absence of written records. My contention is that the centers are to be sought within the "Celtic" area itself, and the dynamics must be comprehended first within the local system, then within interregional "Celtic" networks, and finally within the contiguous systems of Northern Italy and Eastern Europe [II.].

Study of "Celtic" art has been informed by the diffusionist bias underlying the Hellenization model [III.]. It has consisted to a great extent in the search for Greek elements and interpretation claiming emulation of Greek cultural elements together with visual styles and motifs. These studies fail to show how the specific images and their associated ideas would have been transported into the "Celtic" lands. There is discontinuity between the chronology of "Celtic" art and the history of interaction between "Celts" and the Mediterranean. The transmission of orientalizing elements via the Greeks rather than directly from the East or through Italy is not convincingly argued. The imported objects were used within the context of local practices, just as "Celtic" objects were used; unsurprisingly, the artistic importations were also entirely subsumed into the local visual system. Examination of the archaeological contexts of the the Mediterranean imports found in "Celtic" tombs reveals "Celtization" of the objects rather than "Hellenization" of the culture.

I. "Celts" and the Mediterranean The seventh, sixth and fifth centuries B.C.E. saw the development and full flowering of the Greek city state; Greek Orientalizing, Archaic and Classical art; and the writing of Greek poetry, history and philosophy. Naturally, with Greek authors as our primary sources, our modern view of this period is strongly Helleno-, particularly Athenocentric. The classical authors are largely silent about their northern neighbors, the early "Celts" -- surviving literary reports were written at great temporal and spatial removes, and are far from objective.

Model representing circulation of Mediterranean imports. After Wells 1980, fig. 4.3

The Hellenization model derives to a great extent from the diffusionist historical philosophies of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and may be viewed as a direct descendant of Renaissance thought on the classical Mediterranean. Our history and our ideology of history grew out of familiarity with ancient Greek and Latin texts. Little wonder, then, that our slant on the period during which the ancient Greeks flourished is determined by how they saw themselves and others:

this is the idea that Greek culture was so inherently superior and attractive that 'barbarians' would naturally wish to emulate it whenever they had the privilege of being exposed ot it (Dietler 1995, 93)

To the Greeks, the "Celts" could be objects of ridicule (in comedy), of fear (as invaders), of exploitation (as mercenaries), and even of aesthetic appreciation (in art), but they were always and irreducibly barbarians. Post-Renaissance historians have adopted this view unquestioningly; of course, by modern standards, the lack of urban and state structures, and practices such as trophy decapitation of enemies, clearly mark the "Celts" as "barbarian ." Explanatory models have incorporated this judgment, often explicitly. A crucial element in a diffusionist model is the self-assessment of the acculturated group as inferior to the culture to be emulated; this is the motivation behind the acceptance and incorporation of "influence" from the higher culture. Pauli cautiously formulates the relationship thus:

It is particularly in the peripheral areas of higher-developed cultures that interchanges take place, which were not limited solely to material exchanges of goods and superficial assumption of ways of living. When the Greeks, and also Etruscans, saw the peoples of the North as barbarians, as strange cultures with curious customs and incomprehensible language, the latter, on the other hand, correspondingly felt a newly-awakened consciousness of otherness, an important basis for the formation of their "we"-group identity. (note 1 ; Pauli 1980, 22)

Insofar as this model suggests the crystallization of "Celtic" identity on the borders where interaction with other peoples took place, it is in accord with the theories of ethnic and cultural identity formulated by Barth and others. However, Barth's model is entirely free of the key element in the diffusionist model represented here by Pauli, namely that the "Celts" see themselves as "other" to the Greeks, as "barbarian" and thus in need of Hellenization.

We have reliance on a one-sided literary record to thank for this value judgment. For example, Diodoros is shocked at the exorbitant price "Celts" of his day would pay for a jar or even a cup of wine, attributing it to monumental lust for wine on the part of the barbarians (V.26.3; see Drinking). The record does not preserve the corresponding "Celtic" trader's shock that the Massaliotes would sell wine, an eminently marketable commodity, in exchange for such insignificant goods as servants or slaves (Champion 1989, 14). Diodoros's assessment is incredulous because it sees the situation from only the Massaliote trader's point of view, to whom wine was cheap and slaves expensive. It does not take into account the high prices the "Celts" undoubtedly demanded for the exotic wine; nor does it consider how cheaply the "Celts" held human life in general, reputedly being willing to submit to execution themselves in exchange for riches consisting of silver, gold and wine (Poseidonios, in Athenaeus IV.154.c). A complex situation is rendered almost a caricature, and thus it enters our historical reconstructions.

The diffusionist model goes further than the ancient sources in seeing the inhabitants of Iron Age Europe as an undifferentiated mass. To judge that the "Celts" saw themselves as "other" to the Greeks presupposes that they were not "other" to each other -- that the different groups shared a cohesiveness that united them vis-à-vis the Massaliote foreigners -- an assumption that is quite unfounded.

When we read that the "Celts" took on Greek "ways of life," it is important to remember that this idea is based on the presence of a few Mediterranean vessels in "Celtic" tombs. The interpretation of goods found in funerary contexts presents specific challenges that differ from that of goods in settlement, hoard, deposit or scattered contexts. Briefly, "Celtic" burial practices are quite different from those of the Greeks; they show no evidence of adoption (or even awareness) of Greek "ways of death." The "Celtic" funerary assemblages are placed within specially-built chamber tombs under tumuli; they clearly refer to death and the afterlife. It is highly questionable that they can tell us a great deal about activities practiced by the living. For example, the groups of vessels found in the burials have led to a pervasive assumption that the "Celts" imitated Greek drinking practices in the form of the symposion. There is, however, no archaeological or literary evidence that the "Celtic" Trinkfest took on any of the characteristics of the Greek symposion. Thus, imitation of the Symposion can be ruled out as a motive for the importation of Greek vessels. Similarly, the presence of wagons in "Celtic" tombs has been tied to the depictions of the ekphora on Greek Geometric vases -- a connection that lacks all chronological and causal coherence. Considering that the Greeks never buried wagons with their dead, emulation of that practice is an unlikely motive for the inclusion of wagons in "Celtic" tombs.

Underlying these models is the assumption that importation of Greek objects, motifs and styles was closely accompanied by the importation of Greek ideas. For an imported object to function as a carrier of meaning, ideas and cultural values, however, the receiving culture must associate and understand both the place of origin and the ideas being transmitted. We have no evidence that the ancient "Celts" so associated the Western Greek (South Italian) or Etruscan places of manufacture of nearly all imported luxury vessels with the archaic and classical Greek civilization (Dehn and Frey 1979). Furthermore, we have no way of knowing what "Greek" meant to the early "Celts." Lacking evidence that the "Celts" considered their imports Greek, or that they considered Greekness to be anything particularly special, we have little basis for the idea that the imports in question were carriers of ideas and institutions, providing Greek impetus for cultural and artistic change in Europe.

The diffusionist model is still clung to by those who "still believe that the sole historical function of the barbarians in the West and to the North was to wait passively for Hellenization and Romanization -- and presumably be glad of both when they finally came" (Ridgway 1992, 546-50). The German-language literature is still dominated by the psychological and socio-cultural argument of dependence and emulation, while the English-language prehistorians prefer to postulate an economic basis for "Celtic" acculturation.

II. Economic Interaction Models Explanations of culture change generally take one of two stances. The evolutionary camp sees change as an internal development, while the diffusionists see change as a result of interaction with external groups. Diffusionist thought goes by many different names; my focus here is on the specific core-periphery models used to explain change in Iron Age Europe.

All such models are based on the designation of the Mediterranean as central, Europe as peripheral; "it has become common to speak of 'hellenization' or 'romanization,' as if such processes were natural, and Greece and Rome were naturally to be thought of as centres" (Champion 1989, 15).

Interregional interaction theory is currently an active field of anthropological inquiry (Schortman and Urban 1992); among the many approaches the core-periphery (or center-periphery) model has been particularly influential and long-lived (Champion 1989, 2 ff.).

In 1974 and the following decade, Immanuel Wallerstein formulated "world-systems analysis," a new method of explaining change within the world economy through analysis of the interactions between core, semi-peripheral and peripheral areas (Wallerstein 1974). Although Wallerstein explicitly stated that his model was only applicable to capitalist economies since the sixteenth century, his model was soon applied to pre-capitalist contexts as well. Schneider, among others, observed that Wallerstein's model underestimated the importance of luxury or prestige-goods exchanges (1977). With some adjustments, variations on the world-systems approach continue to be used in analyses of prehistoric and pre-capitalist economies (Chase-Dunn and Hall 1991, 5 ff.)

Mauss's groundbreaking 1954 Essai sur le don formulated the various aspects of the exchange of gifts within systems of reciprocity and obligation. Applied to Iron Age Europe, the model is used to explain the presence of spectacular Mediterranean imports like the Vix krater as "cadeaux diplomatiques" used to cement relationships between the local élite and their Mediterranean counterparts, or as gifts from foreign merchants who sought access to raw materials and slaves in the control of the local "princes" (e.g., Winter and Bankoff, 162 ff.). Once in the hands of the "Celtic" chieftain or "prince," they served the non-commercial function of "status-markers" within the higher strata of the local society.

Frankenstein and Rowlands based their model of culture change in Iron Age Europe on the anthropological concept of a prestige-goods economy. Their influential 1978 article considers the Hallstatt "paramount chiefs" to be entirely dependent on the importation of Greek luxury goods, for redistribution within their local economies. The imports brought about the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a very few members of the local élite who controlled both the trading contacts with the Mediterranean and the means of the accumulation of raw materials and surplus for trade. As a result, militarization and a highly stratified society with ever more exclusive dependence on the ostentatious display of imported status markers led to instability -- "Late Hallstatt society was so fascinated by the south that it got into a blind alley at the end of which self-destruction was waiting" (note 2; Pauli 1985, 35). When around 500 BCE, sea-going trade in the western Mediterranean was severely restricted by increased Carthaginian activity, the princely Hallstatt culture collapsed "like a house of cards" (Cunliffe 1988, 32).

Aspects of these models have recently been called into question. Renfrew suggested that "the simple assertion of the operation of a 'world-system' is sometimes little more than a reiteration of the old diffusionist model, ill-concealed in a new jargon which has replaced 'focal centre' or hearth (foyer de civilisation) with the new 'core,' and 'barbarian fringe' with 'periphery'" (1986, viii). With regard to Iron Age Europe, it is particularly the "picture of a Hallstatt system effectively controlled from outside, heavily dependent on the vagaries of Greek trade" that has been vigorously refuted in recent years (Arafat and Morgan 1994, 122). Analysis of the imported objects, their find contexts and the degree of acculturation to be observed in local archaeological sites led Dietler to question "Mediterranean interests or presence in west-central Europe" (1991, 136). Finally, the archaeological record reveals no drastic break but rather continuity at many sites from the Hallstatt into the early La Tène period, undercutting arguments based on chronological parallels between Greece and Europe.

A very promising new approach was formulated in 1986 by Renfrew and Cherry. Their peer polity interaction model examines the relationships between autonomous nearby socio-political units. By narrowing the focus to clusters of neighboring communities, it reveals structures and dynamics, not always of a competitive nature, within a cultural area. Champion and Champion apply the model to point out homogeneity in the material culture, warfare, settlement patterns and burial forms within the late Hallstatt zone; however, their consideration of the Mediterranean imports leads again to a dependency and house-of-cards conclusion (1986, 59-62).

At the current state of Iron Age European studies, workshops, let alone hands, economic centers, political structures and centers all have yet to be isolated and defined. Explaining regional trade and other interactions will be considerably eased once we can point out with confidence which objects were locally made, which were brought in from elsewhere,

III. Diffusionism and "Celtic" Art The study of "Celtic" art has been profoundly affected by the dominance of diffusionist thought in the history of the field. From the beginning, early and mid-nineteenth-century discoveries of what we now call "Celtic" finds were variously considered Roman, Teutonic, British, Germanic, Helvetian, Italic, Gallic, or "Celtic" . "During the Second Empire the finds were attributed, according to the whim of the moment, to the Gauls or to the Romans" (Favret, quoted in de Navarro 1936, 302).

As late as the 1880s , Ludwig Lindenschmidt, prolific publisher of the Antiquities of Our Pagan Prehistory (Die Altertümer unserer heidnischen Vorzeit), was "still imprisoned by the shackles of a conviction that no barbarians were capable of producing masterpieces of craftsmanship, and so ascribed to the Etruscans the material now recognized as La Tène Celtic metalwork" (Megaw and Megaw 1989, 13).

Lindenschmidt was an exception; increasingly, nineteenth-century archaeologists and prehistorians came to recognize the distinctive qualities of the "Celtic" finds. Acknowledgement that the "Celtic" works were locally produced did not, however, lead to appreciation of their style. Instead, the focus shifted from trying to attribute all finds to the Mediterranean to discovering Mediterranean influence in the European works. Excavations that unearthed imported vessels from the Etruria and Greece played a large role in this quest. Déchelette's monumental 1927 Manuel d'Archéologie Préhistorique attributed sixth-century advances in barbarian Europe to the increasingly profound exertion of the "fecund influence of the great currents of the southern civilisation" (note 3; 1927, III:2). Early La Tène art he termed "half-barbarian," since it would have remained stuck in monotonous repetition of geometric motifs had it not been for the impetus of Greek influence. As it was, the remarkable progress in La Tène style was fueled by "imitation of certain motifs of archaic Greek ornament" (note 4; 1927, III:3).

Before Jacobsthal's groundbreaking study of Early Celtic Art, there was no doubt of the primacy and superiority of Greek art: "Celtic art was generally viewed from a classical standpoint and regarded as a degenerative derivative of southern art" ( de Navarro 1936, 319). Jacobsthal's exhaustive knowledge of Greek ornament and his discerning eye enabled him to discriminate what was original and un-Greek about "Celtic" art, and to trace indigenous stylistic developments within the framework well established in Déchelette. Despite his appreciation of "Celtic" creativity, however, Jacobsthal, steeped as he was in the classical tradition, lamented that the "Celts" were not more strongly influenced by Greek imports: "they did not decide for Greek humanity, for gay and friendly imagery: instead they chose the weird magical symbols of the East" (1944/1969, 162). His verdict on "Celtic" art expresses the deep ambivalence of the classical archaeologist confronted with an art contemporary with but alien to the familiar classical repertoire, and resistant to conventional Western interpretation:

their art also is full of contrasts. It is attractive and repellent; it is far from primitiveness and simplicity, is refined in thought and technique; elaborate and clever; full of paradoxes, restless, puzzlingly ambiguous; rational and irrational; dark and uncanny -- far from the lovable humanity and the transparence of Greek art. Yet, it is a real style, the first great contribution by the barbarians to European arts (1944/1969, 163).

Jacobsthal's recognition of the place of early Iron Age "Celtic" art in Western art history has been little heeded. Subsequent surveys have treated it, if at all, as a blip on the radar screen of the linear progression of the classical tradition; as one of several barbarian aberrations (e.g., Honour and Fleming 1991, 136-137) or as paving the way for later, more significant Christian-era developments (note 5). Fortunately, such perceptive and enthusiastic scholars as the Megaws have recently devoted entire volumes and lengthy studies specifically to the arts of Iron Age Europe, fanning the flames of the current wave of Celtomania, but still largely disregarded by classical art historians. The dominant model continues to be that of a "Kulturgefälle" between the "Hochkulturen" of the Mediterranean and the barbarians of Europe. This model is perpetuated, neither as a modern construct borrowed from ancient Mediterranean authors and cemented by centuries of classical orientation in the Western ideology of history, nor as a value judgment based on subjective criteria, but as an actual fact of history with both descriptive and explanatory force.

It is not surprising, then, that "Celtic" art histories almost uniformly begin with the dying Gaul, a Roman copy of a Greek original of third-century BCE Pergamon. The life-size figure was part of a political monument celebrating victory over the barbarian foe. The compelling quality of this gorgeous image seduces the viewer into forgetting that it is not a very objective portrayal, and tells us less about the "Celts" than how the Greeks, and by extension we, see them.

This Hellenocentric history has left its mark on the study of "Celtic" art in three major forms:

1. A great deal of effort and ink is still devoted to the search for Greek elements in "Celtic" art. Striking examples of this trend include the interpretation of the fortification wall at the Heuneburg, which "must" have been constructed with the collaboration of a Greek architect; and the Hirschlanden warrior, who is "unthinkable" without, and may allegedly have been cut from, a Greek kouros. The burial of wagons in "Celtic" tombs has been "explained" as an imitation of the Greek Ekphora, thus attributing an entire class of vehicles to Greek influence.

What Boardman calls "the assimilation of classical debris" (1994, 306) is frequently observed on "Celtic" bronze flagons. Indeed, the very shape is credited to Etruscan prototypes, themselves derivative of Greek vessels. The figural motifs of heads or beasts are traced back to the handle attachments of Greek and Etruscan vessels. Although Lenerz-de Wilde and others have shown that the principles of composition underlying the non-figural motifs are based on compass-drawn geometries entirely different from Greek floral anthemia, the former are still often considered to be direct descendants of the latter (see 3.).

2. A primary focus of much writing about "Celtic" art is the determination of the exact paths of influence, particularly the ideologically charged issue of whether orientalizing elements were assimilated directly from the east or via the process of Hellenization. The discussions of the nine drinking horns found in the Hochdorf burial, for example, have not focused on the obvious questions: why are there nine? are they in the tomb for use in the afterlife, and if so, by whom? what role did they play in banquets amongst the living? Instead, several exhaustive treatments have addressed the interpretation of the material in light of the traditional question of derivation: did the "Celts" derive their drinking horns directly from the Near East or Eurasia, or was the practice adopted in emulation of the Greeks? (see the "Celtic" Trinkfest).

The same is true of interpretations of motifs in "Celtic" art. Since Jacobsthal, "Celtic" art history has resembled a tug-of-war between those advocating eastern sources and those who see only Mediterranean influence. The third source, indigenous tastes and traditions, has received rather less attention.

Frey and Schwappach 1980; 339 drawing captioned "Frieze of a Caeretan Hydria"

3. Examinations into the diffusion of Greek culture into Europe are based on the practice of comparing drawings of Greek ornament with drawings of "Celtic" motifs. Juxtapositions of superficially familiar forms are strongly persuasive, creating the impression of a direct line of descent. Lotus-palmette friezes of Caeretan hydriai of about 525 BCE are considered the direct antecedents of "Celtic" openwork patterns, notably the gold foil cup from Schwarzenbach and the Eigenbilsen drinking horn foil of ca. 400 BCE. When we compare the actual pieces, or at least color photographs of the objects, rather than line drawing, of course, we note the colors and materials, the subsidiary placement of the ornament on the hydria, and the sculptural quality of the foil. The gold openwork pattern consists of fully-formed and unmistakably "Celtic" elements. There are no intermediate pieces showing a process of reduction and transformation. As Jacobsthal observed in 1944, "again and again we hit on the same enigma: Early Celtic art has no genesis" (1944/69, 158). In other words, there is no period of apprenticeship, of imitation, assimilation and gradual separation into a distinct style."

References

• Amugueddfa Cymru, Who Were the Celts?
• Timaru-Kast, S; Celts and Magyars
• Witt CM, Barbarians on the Greek Periphery? Origin of Celtic Art (1997) University of Virginia