Celtic Europe

Leather shoe from the Kilbwerk salt mine, near Hallstatt, Austria; 7th-5th century B.C. 🇦🇹 https://t.me/CelticEurope

The Arrabalde treasure hoard: Over 5 kg of silver and gold jewelry, including characteristic La Tène style torques, discovered in a Hispano-Celtic (Asturian) settlement near Arrabalde, in Zamora province, Spain; 1st century B.C. 🇪🇸 https://t.me/CelticEurope

Hebridean sheep near Leachkin (just outside Inverness), Scotland; photo by Eirian Evans. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 https://t.me/CelticEurope

Statue of the Gallic leader Ambiorix, in Tongeren, Belgium. 🇧🇪 Ambiorix is remembered as one of two leaders of the Celtic Eburones, who put up a tenacious resistance to the Roman legions of Gaius Julius Caesar. The Eburones (Gaulish: “People of the Yew Tree”)…

Cattle in Aberdeenshire. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 In Pictish Scotland, land was reckoned according to capacity rather than size. The standard unit of measurement was the dabhach or davoch (from Gaelic damh, meaning ‘an ox’): One dabhach was usually thought of as the amount of land necessary to sustain 60 heads of cattle. Later on, attempts were made to reckon the dabhach through new, English units of measure, equating it to four ‘ploughgates’ (a.k.a. ‘carucates’) or twenty-four ‘oxgangs’. In the western Highlands and Islands, the dabhach became conflated with Norse systems of land measurement, becoming known also as an ‘ounceland’ (Gaelic: Tìr Unga), and reckoned as the amount of land from which one ounce of silver was paid as rent. Each dabhach or tìr unga was equivalent to either eighteen or twenty ‘pennylands’. https://t.me/CelticEurope

Isle of Skye from outer space. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 The isle Skye is first recorded in Ptolemy’s Map of the world with the name Scetis. The later Ravenna Cosmography renders the name Scitis, while the various Irish chronicles call it Scíth. The word is undoubtedly Celtic, meaning “wing”, which matches the modern interpretation of the name An t-Eilean Sgitheanach (“The Winged Isle”). The name Skye is thus both Celtic and very ancient; it had that name in remote pre-Roman antiquity. Other than it’s name and existence, no history is recorded from Skye prior to the missionary voyages of Columba. Adomnan’s biography of the saint records the very first native of the island, a chieftain named ‘Artbranan’ (the name appears to mean “Exalted Wee Raven”), who was said to have welcomed Columba and his party upon arrival at the coast and to have been baptized on the spot. This is Skye’s first ever recorded historical event. Prior to that, we only have archaeology, which indicates that Skye was part of the broader world of Pictish Scotland. Massive stone towers or ‘brochs’ on the island link it culturally to the northwest (i.e. Orkney, Shetland, Caithness, Sutherland and the Outer Hebrides) during the two or three centuries B.C. / AD. From the early Christian period, three Pictish symbol stones found on the island (+ two on neighboring Raasay) also evidence a strong link to Pictland, as do the Pictish names of a handful of Skye natives recorded by the Annals of Ulster, such as Talorc, Gartnait, and Cano. https://t.me/CelticEurope

Carrowmore (Irish: An Cheathrú Mhór; “The Great Quarter”) Megalithic Cemetery, in county Sligo, Ireland. 🇮🇪 There were formerly 55 megalithic tombs at Carrowmore, of which now only 30 survive. These formed part of a wide ritual landscape centered at the nearby…

Carrowmore (Irish: An Cheathrú Mhór; “The Great Quarter”) Megalithic Cemetery, in county Sligo, Ireland. 🇮🇪 There were formerly 55 megalithic tombs at Carrowmore, of which now only 30 survive. These formed part of a wide ritual landscape centered at the nearby hill of Knocknarea with its large cairn / passage tomb, Miosgán Meadhbha, (“[Queen] Meadhbh’s Heap”) at the top. Radiocarbon dates from materials found within and among the tombs indicate that they were mostly built in a time spanning from around 3,750 to 2,900 B.C. Most burials were cremations, though there were some inhumations and DNA has been recovered. These samples evidenced a people closely related to contemporary Iberians, whose ultimate point of origin traced all the way back to Anatolia. One sample from a man buried at Listoghil showed him to be a close relative of others sampled from Newgrange, Carrowkeel and Millin Bay. Later Irish folklore associated the site with the (in)famous Queen Medb from the Ulster Cycle and even records burials taking place there during Christian times: King Eóghan Bél of Connacht, for example, was said to have initially been buried atop Knocknarea, after having been killed at the Battle of Sligo by the Northern Uí Néill in AD 542. https://t.me/CelticEurope

Suessetania: forgotten Gallic colony in Iberia. 🇪🇸 Photos: (1) Berdún, in Huesca province, Aragón. (2) River Gállego, Aragón. In pre-Roman times, the northeast part of Aragón —together with some adjacent parts of Navarre— was inhabited by an Iberian people…

“Galatian” guard (in red) of king Herod I the Great of Judea (reigned 37-2 B.C.), escorting two envoys from Hatra (located in modern Iraq); art by Raffaele Ruggeri. Jewish historian Flavius Josephus recorded in his Antiquities of the Jews that king Herod I the Great had received a detachment of 400 “Galatian” soldiers from Octavian (the future Roman emperor Augustus Caesar) as a gift, at some point after 30 B.C. These had been part of the royal guard of the recently defeated and deceased queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt. It’s unclear if the Galatians in question were of Anatolian origin, or drawn from the Gallic community that existed in Alexandria to provide mercenaries for the Ptolemaic Dynasty (most likely), or if they’d been hired from somewhere in Europe. The Celts were incorporated into Herod’s 2,000 man strong personal guard. The other contingents were also of foreign origin, consisting mainly of Thracians and Germans. https://t.me/CelticEurope

La Tène style bronze brooch; 2nd century B.C. From a private collection in North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany. 🇩🇪 https://t.me/CelticEurope

Clach Ard Pictish stone, near Tote on the Isle of Skye in Scotland; 7th century AD. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 https://t.me/CelticEurope

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🫡 Celtic Europe - channel link: https://t.me/CelticEurope

Segunda Batalla de Albelda; año 859 d.C. 🇪🇸⚔️☪️ Una de las más celebradas refriegas de la reconquista fue la segunda batalla de Albelda (o de Monte Laturce), que ocurrió cerca de Albelda de Iregua, en La Rioja. Una fortaleza había sido construida ahí por…

Scotland: View over Scone and Perthshire. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Celtic Europe - channel link: https://t.me/CelticEurope

Suessetania: forgotten Gallic colony in Iberia. 🇪🇸 Photos: (1) Berdún, in Huesca province, Aragón. (2) River Gállego, Aragón. In pre-Roman times, the northeast part of Aragón —together with some adjacent parts of Navarre— was inhabited by an Iberian people known as the Suessetani. Strangely, many place-names in the same area reflect Gaulish etymologies, rather than belonging to the original Iberian or Vasco-Aquitanian languages. Examples include Berdún (Gaulish: Viridunum; “Fortress of Men”), Navardún (“Fortress in the Navarre Region”), Segia (“Victory”), and the river Gállego (formerly rendered in Latin as Gallicus; “Gallic”). Ancient maps and accounts also record places such as Forum Gallorum (Latin: “Gallic Market”) and Corbio (from Gaulish Corbios, meaning “field”), now the city of Sangüesa in Navarre. The latter placename, Corbio, is particularly telling, as taken together with the tribal name Suessetani, would seem to link them to the Gallo-Belgic Suessiones tribe who inhabited the Marne region of France. One city inhabited by these people was also named Corbio, and still bears a form of the original: Corbeil. The names Suessetani and Suessiones are themselves etymologically related to the Sanskrit svasti, meaning “well-being”; same root that gives us the word swastika. Thus, the linguistic evidence seems to suggest that the Suessetani came from a group of Belgic settlers who’d broken off from their original tribe in the Marne region, settling among and assimilating with the native Iberians of the region. Celtic Europe - channel link: https://t.me/CelticEurope

Gallic invasion of Macedon; 279 B.C. 🇷🇸🇲🇰🇬🇷 Pictured: Macedonian gold stater minted during the reign of king Ptolemy Ceraunus of Macedon, bearing the mame of his predecessor, Lysimachus. In the year 279 B.C. a large Gallic army showed up at the border of the Kingdom of Macedonia under the leadership of a chieftain named Bolgius. Macedonia was then ruled by king Ptolemy Ceraunus (Greek: Keraunos; “thunderbolt”), a son of one of Alexander the Great’s generals who’d become king of Egypt: Ptolemy I Soter. Ceraunus had been expelled from Egypt during a dynastic struggle and gone to the court of king Lysimachus of Macedon. From there he fled other dynastic intrigues and went to another of Alexander’s successors: Seleucus I Nicator. Shortly after Seleucus defeated and killed Lysimachus at the 281 B.C. Battle of Corupedium, Keraunos murdered Seleucus and proclaimed himself king of Macedon. Two years later, he found himself at war with the Gauls who’d settled in the north, in what’s today Serbia. It’s unclear why the Celts chose to attack Macedon, however, large amounts of Macedonian gold coinage —much of it debased with silver— found by archaeologists in Serbia might be evidence that they had been receiving tribute from Macedon ever since the time of Alexander, with whom an embassy of theirs had once met. The Celts demanded large amounts of gold from Ceraunus, perhaps indicative that the debased coinage was a cause for their attack. Ceraunus arrogantly rebuffed, not only the Gallic ambassadors, but also an offer of 20,000 soldiers made by the Illyrian Dardanians for the defense of Macedon. With a powerful army that included large numbers of Indian war elephants, Ptolemy confidently confronted the Celts in open battle. The result was surprising: Ceraunus was captured and executed, and the Gauls hoisted his head up on a spear. The Macedonian army was routed —elephants and all— with heavy losses. The Gauls evidently also took heavy casualties, as Bolgius chose to retreat out of Macedonia upon being confronted by a new army led by the Macedonian general Sosthenes. He was bolstered by another Celtic contingent that had been conquering nearby Paionia, led by the chieftains Brennus and Acichorius. Their combined forces invaded again and defeated Sosthenes in a second battle, leaving Greece wide open for them to launch a devastating raid that culminated in the sack of Delphi. Celtic Europe - channel link: https://t.me/CelticEurope