Lesson Notes
Key Questions
How do we know the Celts?
Where the Celts an homogenous group?
What was their material culture?
What were their languages?
Who were the Celts?
Reading: Ethnic and Cultural Identity from the University of Texas
The Celts were an Indo-European group, that is, related linguistically to the Greeks, the Germanic peoples, certain Italic groups and peoples of the Indian sub-continent. They arose in central Europe at the beginning of the first millennium B.C. and were an iron using and horse rearing peoples. By the end of the first millennium B.C. their cultural group had spread up and down the Danube and Rhine, taking in Gaul, Ireland and Britain, across central Europe, into northern Italy and northern Spain. Their roaming across Europe led some of the Celtic tribes to sack Rome in 390 B.C. (creating a fear of the northern barbarians that was to haunt Romans for hundreds of years to come), and in 279B.C. another Celtic tribe sacked the Greek sanctuary at Delphi, going on to found a Celtic kingdom in Asia-Minor, Galatia (The people to whom St. Paul was to address some of his epistles). Celtic peoples were apparently fierce warriors, with a taste for head hunting and going into battle naked, though armour of varying types are not uncommon artifacts (e.g. the famous Witham Shield in the British Museum).
The Celts are defined archaeologically by the type-sites of Hallstat (Austria) and La Tene (Switzerland), the former being taken to relate to an earlier phase of cultural development. Hallstat, an ancient salt mining area, was excavated from 1876 onwards by the Viennese Academy of Sciences and provided the first classification of the prehistoric Celts. In 1858, the waters of Lake Neuchatel in Switzerland sunk to a low level, revealing a large prehistoric settlement with a huge number of surviving artifacts The nearby town of La Tene gave its name to the second phase of Celtic cultural development (N.B. These phases overlap through time, and according to geographical area).
Source: http://celts.etrusia.co.uk/who.php
Frank Delaney, "The Celts" (Grafton, London 1989: Chapter 1)
- Introduction & overview of topic
- Assessments and outcomes
- Quiz.... is this Celtic?
- Material Culture
- External Texts
- Terminology
- The time period
Key Questions
How do we know the Celts?
Where the Celts an homogenous group?
What was their material culture?
What were their languages?
Who were the Celts?
Reading: Ethnic and Cultural Identity from the University of Texas
The Celts were an Indo-European group, that is, related linguistically to the Greeks, the Germanic peoples, certain Italic groups and peoples of the Indian sub-continent. They arose in central Europe at the beginning of the first millennium B.C. and were an iron using and horse rearing peoples. By the end of the first millennium B.C. their cultural group had spread up and down the Danube and Rhine, taking in Gaul, Ireland and Britain, across central Europe, into northern Italy and northern Spain. Their roaming across Europe led some of the Celtic tribes to sack Rome in 390 B.C. (creating a fear of the northern barbarians that was to haunt Romans for hundreds of years to come), and in 279B.C. another Celtic tribe sacked the Greek sanctuary at Delphi, going on to found a Celtic kingdom in Asia-Minor, Galatia (The people to whom St. Paul was to address some of his epistles). Celtic peoples were apparently fierce warriors, with a taste for head hunting and going into battle naked, though armour of varying types are not uncommon artifacts (e.g. the famous Witham Shield in the British Museum).
The Celts are defined archaeologically by the type-sites of Hallstat (Austria) and La Tene (Switzerland), the former being taken to relate to an earlier phase of cultural development. Hallstat, an ancient salt mining area, was excavated from 1876 onwards by the Viennese Academy of Sciences and provided the first classification of the prehistoric Celts. In 1858, the waters of Lake Neuchatel in Switzerland sunk to a low level, revealing a large prehistoric settlement with a huge number of surviving artifacts The nearby town of La Tene gave its name to the second phase of Celtic cultural development (N.B. These phases overlap through time, and according to geographical area).
Source: http://celts.etrusia.co.uk/who.php
Frank Delaney, "The Celts" (Grafton, London 1989: Chapter 1)