Cruel
„The wives are interrogated like slaves. If found guilty they are put to death after every sort of cruel torment…“
„At properly conducted funerals the slaves and clients who have been dear to him were burnt along with him“ J. Caesar
Clonycavan Man, Co. Meath
What is the Iron Age?
Period of the Celts
Age of Iron
The period between the Bronze Age and the Medieval period
The period between 800 BC and 1st c BC/AD
Prehistory divided up into chronological phases, associated with increasingly advanced technology i.e. evolution in skill, complexity of process and quality/durability of product
(Danish archaeologists, Thomsen and Worsaee: 3 Age system).
Iron Age – Defining characteristics:
New material Iron
Coincides with:
Change in society structures
Religious beliefs
Social organisation
Material culture:
New artefact types
New artstyle
New materials
The new material Iron
Hallstatt, Austria
La Tène, Lake Neuchâtel, Switzerland
Why do we call these people “the Celts”?
Greek periplus (from peripleo – I sail) 6thc BC
fragments survived in poem of the 4th century, where the Celts are mentioned as to be present in a country “which they have taken from the Ligurians ” i.e. Northern Italy or Southern France
Herodotus (450BC): “the first historian”:
“The Istros (the Danube) which comes from the Celts and the City of Pyrene, flows through Europe “
Sources of Danube are in the Western Hallstatt area, i.e. Eastern France,
Southwest Germany and Northern Switzerland. Pyrene might be Heuneburg or Hohenasperg.
How do they know?
Increased contact contact between Greek, Romans and Celts in the 4th c BC
Celtic mercenaries described from 4th c BC in hellenic forces
Reports of mass movements and raids into Po Valley from North of the Alps. 390 BC: Sennones with Brennos to Clusium over Appenin; Celtic settlement in Northern Italy (gallia cisalpina)
Raids into Balkan, Greece and Asia Minor
387/86 Battle at the Allia
279BC Raid on Delphi
