Word Finder - celts

definition

A prehistoric chisel-bladed tool.

The Bretons, who most nearly represent the Celts, and the Basques, who inhabit parts of the western versant of the Pyrenees, have preserved their distinctive languages and customs, and are ethnically the most interesting sections of the nation; the Flemings of French Flanders where Flemish is still spoken are also racially distinct.

On the whole, the historical evidence indicates that in Spain, when it first became known to the Greeks and Romans there existed many separate and variously civilized tribes connected by at least apparent identity of race, and by similarity (but not identity) of language, and sufficiently distinguished by their general characteristics from Phoenicians, Romans and Celts.

They probably represent an old population perhaps connected with some Caucasus stock; in spite of the resemblance of the name Taurisci they are not likely to be Celts.

It has yielded four bronze swords, ten socketed spear-heads, forty celts or axe-heads and sickles, fifty knives, twenty socketed chisels, four hammers and an anvil, sixty rings for the arms and legs, several highly ornate torques or twisted neck rings, and upwards of two hundred hair pins of various sizes up to 16 in.

Beside him are the Celts Josephus Scottus and Dungal, the Lombards Paulinus and Paulus Diaconus, the West Goth Theodulf and many Franks.

The district which later bore the name of Venetia was inhabited, under the Roman Republic, by a variety of tribes - Celts, Veneti, Raeti, &c. Under Augustus, Venetia and Histria formed the tenth region of Augustus, the latter including the Istrian peninsula as far as the river Arsia, i.e.

By the age of Julius Caesar all the inhabitants of Britain, except perhaps some tribes of the far north, were Celts in speech and customs. Politically they were divided into separate and generally warring tribes, each under its own princes.

In art, these tribes possessed a native Late Celtic fashion, descended from far-off Mediterranean antecedents and more directly connected with the La-Tene culture of the continental Celts.

In none of the early records, however, do we get any clear indication that the Teutonic peoples were distinguished from the Celts.

Towards both the south and west the Teutonic peoples seem to have been pressing the Celts for some considerable time, since we are told that the Helvetii had formerly extended as far as the Main, while another important Celtic tribe, the Volcae Tectosages, had occupied a still more remote position, which it is impossible now to identify.

Polybius and the authors who copy him regard the Bastarnae as Galatae; Strabo, having learned of the Romans to distinguish Celts and Germans, first allows a German element; Tacitus expressly declares their German origin but says that the race was degraded by intermarriage with Sarmatians.

Here he maintained himself as a captain of brigands, his lieutenants being two Celts named Crixus and Oenomaus, who like himself had been gladiators.

It is interesting to note how the Celts absorb Roman and still more Greek culture, even imitating foreign coins, and pass on their new arts to their Teutonic neighbors; but in spite of the strong foreign influence the Celtic civilization can in some sort be termed national.

Roman Period (from the 1st century A.D.).The period succeeding to La Tne ought rather to be called Romano-Germanic, the relation of the Teutonic races to the Roman civilization being much the same as that of the Celts to classical culture in the preceding period.

The Achaeans, or Hellenes, as they were later termed, were on this hypothesis one of the fair-haired tribes of upper Europe known to the ancients as Keltoi (Celts), who from time to time have pressed down over the Alps into the southern lands, successively as Achaeans, Gauls, Goths and Franks, and after the conquest of the indigenous small dark race in no long time died out under climatic conditions fatal to their physique and morale.

In Roman times the eastern half of the county formed part of the territory of the Silures, a pre-Celtic race, whose governing class at that time probably consisted of Brythonic Celts.

After the Norman Conquest, England would have subjugated the Celts and held Scotland by a tenure less precarious and disputed than they possessed in the western island.

Her reforms in church matters had apparently made her unpopular with the Celts, but under cover of a mist her body was conveyed to and buried at Dunfermline.

The Celts had continually moved westwards also.

An ill-kept truce of three years ended in October 1346, when David attempted to lead the whole force of his realm, including the levies of John, Lord of the Isles, and of the western Celts in general, against England.

As the Celts marched south the earl of Ross slew Ronald Macdonald, whose inheritance was claimed by John of the Isles.

Under his nominal rule, the Celts of the north and west, in 1385, became troublesome, while Robert's son, the Wolf of Badenoch, who was justiciary, with his own wild sons, rather fanned than extinguished the flames.

Both flanged and socketed celts occurred, the iron being much more numerous than the bronze.

Coming from the valley of the Danube in the 6th century, the Celts or Gauls had little by little occupied central and southern Europe long before they penetrated into the plains of the Sane, the Seine, and the Loire as far as the Spanish border, driving out the former inhabitants of the country.

Vizcaya (Biscay)a tongue which is utterly unlike Celtic or Italian or any Indo-Germanic languagesuggests that the Iberians may have been an older people than the Celts and alien from them in race, though the attempts hitherto made to connect Basque with ancient traces of strange tongues in the Basque lands have not yielded clear results.

On the other hand, numerous placenames show that parts of the Peninsula were once held by Celtic-speaking peoples, and it is, of course, possible that Celts and Iberians may have formed a mixed race in certain regions.

They were got where bronze celts and other remains of a remote antiquity have been found.

The earliest bronze axes are very like stone celts in form.

The High Kings of Tara The Gaels or Celts stayed faithful to the goddess through her sacred marriage to the king.

The majority of these celts are plain, although a number of them show finely incised imagery or even low relief sculpted faces.

There is rarely any suggestion that the Celts might have maintained a culture of any intellectual pretension.

As to the lesser sabbats, there is little evidence for the celebration of any of these by any pagan Celts except possibly midsummer.

The statement of Diodorus Siculus that the mingling of these Iberians with the immigrant Celts gave rise to the Celtiberians is in itself probable.

In England it had not been possible to bring the old British and the young Anglo-Saxon churches into friendly union; but in spite of this the Celts did not abstain from working at the common tasks of Christendom, and the continent has much to thank them for.

The Celts, Scoto-Picts, of Alban, had thus annexed a great English-speaking region, which remained loyal to their dynasty, the more loyal from abhorrence of the Norman conquerors.

In the Alps and the Danube valley some of the Celts had dwelt from the Stone Age; there they had developed the working of copper, discovered bronze (an alloy of copper and tin), and the art of smelting iron (see Hallstatt).

Around AD 61, the Iceni tribe of Celts led by Queen Boudica stormed London, burning it to the ground.

Classical authors have written about tattoos used by the Thracians, Greeks, Romans, ancient Germans, ancient Celts, and ancient Britons.

In ancient times, the Celts used bronze, silver, and gold for their jewelry and added gemstones.

The Celts were known for giving their warriors a burial befitting a prince.

Unfortunately, the Celts didn't leave behind very many clues to help us understand what the symbols in their knot designs might represent.

The Celts created flowing lines and connecting patterns that showed how all things were joined in a circular, ever repeating pattern.

Step back into the world of the ancient Celts, and learn how their beliefs and their jewels are intertwined.

The Celts were a people very in tune with nature.

These beliefs quite naturally led the Celts into jewelry making.

In this manner, the Celts began developing their craft of jewelry design.

Eventually, the Celts came to believe that pendants could be worn as amulets.

The Celts often used images of snakes and dragons in their designs.

When we speak of the Celts we are referring to the people who once inhabited Ireland, Scotland, Cornwall, the Isle of Man, Wales and Brittany, all of whom spoke Celtic languages.

These crosses were a symbol of Christianity for the Celts, who constructed many freestanding high crosses from stone as early as the 7th century.