Ancient and ArchaeologyÌý permalink
Celt ?
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Message 1.Ìý
Posted by Jay walker (U685047) on Sunday, 23rd July 2006
Two descriptions of Celts I've read recently-- 1st. The small dark Celtic faces and 2nd. The large red-headed Celtic people. Which,if any,do you suppose is accurate, they can't Both be right--or can they ?
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Message 2
Posted by DrkKtn6851746 (U2746042) on Sunday, 23rd July 2006
'Celt' is more of a linguistic & cultural description of identity than a racial one - different bunches of 'Celts' had different physical appearances.
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Message 3
Posted by Artorious (U1941655) on Sunday, 23rd July 2006
Hi Yes,
The Celts had many forms. The Britons(P celts)were short and dark haired. The Picts of Scotland were tall and fair. The Scots of Ireland I think were tall and fair/Red haired. The European Celts were also of a similar mix depending on wether from north or Southern Europe. -
Message 4
Posted by DrkKtn6851746 (U2746042) on Monday, 24th July 2006
<quote>The Britons(P celts)were short and dark haired.</quote>
Something of a generalisation - according to Tacitus, the Silures were dark, while the Britons of the south resembled the Gauls.</quote>
<quote>The Picts of Scotland were tall and fair</quote>
The Caledonians (they weren'e called 'Picts' until the C4th) were described by Tacitus as having 'red hair & large limbs' & were just another bunch of P-Celts. -
Message 5
Posted by Wendol (U4076986) on Monday, 24th July 2006
Boudica is described as being tall and red headed.
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Message 6
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Monday, 24th July 2006
The Scots of Ireland I think were tall and fair/Red haired.
Ìý
Wrong again. The so-called 'typical' red tinge to the product of the Gaelic follicle apparently arrived with Scandinavians, very late in the day. It's apparently what happens genetically when predominantly blonde-headed people mate with predominantly brunette and black-haired people. Using Hollywood as a source for your ethnic studies is short-changing you I'm afraid Artorius! -
Message 7
Posted by DrkKtn6851746 (U2746042) on Monday, 24th July 2006
Nordmann, painful though I find it to support Artorious, Tacitus does suggest that the Caledonians were ginners...
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Message 8
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Monday, 24th July 2006
Too close to Scandinavia for their own good, I imagine. Thank heavens though they were there as a bulwark and buffer zone between us swarthy Hiberni-Scotii and those flaxen-haired Nordic lassies (mind you, having lived in Norway for 4 years I am beginning to wonder where Thorgjurn Rådehjørnsdotterssen et al got their peroxide supplies from? Their modern descendants could well blend effortlessly with the purveyors of fish'n'chips in darkest Gorbals without its use).
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Message 9
Posted by Colquhoun (U3935535) on Monday, 24th July 2006
My old university used to get a lot of Norwegian students, virtually all were blond. Of course I my have just noticed the blonds more than the others
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Message 10
Posted by Artorious (U1941655) on Monday, 24th July 2006
Hi Guys,
Yes, southern Britannia would have had more of a mix of celtic types as the Roman occupation of Gaul would have pushed many refugees into Britain if not whole tribes such as the Belgae etc.
The Pictish or Caledonian celts would have mixed with the darker southern celts in lowland Scotland and also with their more closer neighbours the Irish scots. -
Message 11
Posted by U3153557 (U3153557) on Tuesday, 25th July 2006
'Celts'have no real existence - they are a mythical people invented to be insulted here by Poles, Americans and Nordmen, which is why they mostly don't bother.
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Message 12
Posted by Alaric the Goth (U1826823) on Tuesday, 25th July 2006
I think that the term 'Belgae' is not a name for a single tribe. The culture of the Catuvellauni, for example, was 'Belgic' by the time the Romans invaded in 43AD. The culture of the Brigantes, or probably the Iceni, was not.
Th closest neighbours of the Picts depends upon which 'Picts' you are talking about, but to generalise, I would have said that the people who went on to form the Kingdom of Strathclyde (i.e. Britons) were nearer to the Picts, at least at first, than the rather isolated Dalriadic Scottish heartlands* (Kintyre, Argyll).
(*Heartlands of their colony, of course, rather than their original northern Irish home.) -
Message 13
Posted by DrkKtn6851746 (U2746042) on Tuesday, 25th July 2006
I would have said that the people who went on to form the Kingdom of Strathclyde (i.e. Britons) were nearer to the PictsÌý
Not forgetting the Gododdin of what's now Lothian. -
Message 14
Posted by Anglo-Norman (U1965016) on Tuesday, 25th July 2006
.
Yes, but by an author writing about 100 years later (Dio Cassius). Tacitus, whose father-in-law Agricola was possibly present at her defeat as a staff officer and who was Dio's primary source, doesn't describe her.
Still, Dio Cassius might have been working from a general description of the Icenii. -
Message 15
Posted by Alaric the Goth (U1826823) on Wednesday, 26th July 2006
Thanks, DrkKtn, I hadn’t forgotten the Gododdin, indeed I considered posting again to add them!
The Northumbrian English, at the (mid to late 7th century, would you agree?) height of their power, were also as much neighbours of the Picts as the Scots were. Pictish artwork (the Aberlemno cross, I think) depicts warriors with helmets like the Northumbrian one found in York. This could of course be a depiction of Anglian warriors fighting Picts (possibly at Nechtansmere), or it could be Picts wearing captured helms, or ones ‘legitimately’ obtained, or even the work of a Pictish smith, copying Northumbrian practice. -
Message 16
Posted by priscilla (U1793779) on Wednesday, 26th July 2006
So what were the distant type-origins of the Eastern Islanders ie Orkneys and Shetland?
Regards P. -
Message 17
Posted by DrkKtn6851746 (U2746042) on Wednesday, 26th July 2006
You're welcome, Alaric. Yes, I'd agree about your dating of the high point of Northumbrian power. As to their being neighbours, let's not forget that one of the Pictish kings was Talorgen son of Eanfrith(!)
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Message 18
Posted by iPad (U2181937) on Thursday, 27th July 2006
Celt is derived from the word Keltos (or something) meaning not Greek or Roman, used to describe everyone north of their borders. Its a bit like the modern term "Europian".
Check out National Geographic march 2006 for an excellent artical about them.
Oh and theres also a strong celtic influence in western Spain still.... -
Message 19
Posted by Alaric the Goth (U1826823) on Thursday, 27th July 2006
No, I disagree. I don't think Greeks or Romans used the word 'Keltos', or similar, as a general term to describe everyone outside their borders.
Tacitus recognised the people of Germania as culturally distinct (start of 2nd century AD), and you wouldn't find e.g. the people of North Africa referred to by either Greeks or Romans as 'Celts' (though I found in Peter Beresford Ellis's writings that Celts were to be found as mercenaries for both the Egyptians and Carthaginians).
That Terry Jones (Â鶹ԼÅÄ) series argued that the Romans called everyone non-Roman, including the Greeks and Persians 'Barbarians'. I think it is stetching things a bit far to call e.g. the Greeks that! But Celts and Germans probably were 'barbarians' (and I don't mean in any perjorative sense, though the Romans probably did!).
The Romans wouldn't generally use 'Celt' or similar, of course. They would usually use 'Galli' (Gauls), for Continental Celts; they wouldn't use it for the Brittones or Hiberniae/Scotti (but would recognise the cultural similarities). -
Message 20
Posted by Alaric the Goth (U1826823) on Thursday, 27th July 2006
Apologies: you did say 'north of their borders', so my examples from Africa, and possibly Persia, don't hold! But my point still does.
As to western Spain, do you mean Galithia (sp.?)? I have a friend whose mother is from there. It was settled by some Britons, I believe, at around the time 'Brittany' received many 'refugees' from South West Britain. The local music, etc. is disceranbly 'Celtic', though of course Spanish is spoken and not a Celtic tongue like Breton or Welsh. -
Message 21
Posted by iPad (U2181937) on Thursday, 27th July 2006
Just repeating what I read. I don't have it to hand so only have my heat muddled mind.
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Message 22
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Thursday, 27th July 2006
Modern archaeology has more or less given up on using 'Celt' as a meaningful term, and ancient historians are following suit. Its use is actually a little dangerous in that infers homogenity on a mass of people over a very long time that is just not borne out by the evidence. Its current usage came into fashion at a time when using the term was indeed good shorthand to describe what was then known or assumed about the European inhabitants prior to and during the growth of Rome. That this time coincided with the rise of nationalism in Europe meant that it was inevitably co-opted by such nationalists (Ireland was a case in point) and used as historical evidence itself of a cultural continuity that preceded dominion and had more meaning for the small nations than their dominant owners acknowledged.
While some linkage can be attributed to the disparate cultures that are lumped together under the 'Celtic' banner, intentionally avoiding using the term can lead the historian to draw more meaningful conclusions from the archaeological evidence, and piece together a past that has infinitely more variety and purpose about it than the simplistic and often misleading interpretations that banner allows. -
Message 23
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Thursday, 27th July 2006
By ancient historians above I mean historians who study antiquity, not those who are ancient themselves !!!
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Message 24
Posted by U3153557 (U3153557) on Thursday, 27th July 2006
' It was settled by some Britons, I believe, at around the time 'Brittany' received many 'refugees' from South West Britain. The local music, etc. is disceranbly 'Celtic', though of course Spanish is spoken and not a Celtic tongue like Breton or Welsh. '
I am always amused by the way the German-derived people always claim that any movement of British people is somehow forced. Britanny had been devastated by a peasant rising and needed people, so, presumably, younger sons and so on from the South-west went there. Is that why 'refugees'? What caused the English to 'flee' to Australia. I always wonder. I don't really know what is 'Celtic' about Galician music, but, then, I have never understood what this term could conceivably mean anyway. It comes next to 'codswallop' in bookshops, I think. -
Message 25
Posted by Anglo-Norman (U1965016) on Thursday, 27th July 2006
"By ancient historians above I mean historians who study antiquity, not those who are ancient themselves !!!"
The two aren't always mutually exclusive!
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