Celtic Tomb Sheds Light On Iron Age Trade

Diviacus said:
There should have been at least some, perhaps even reaching 1% of the tombs with swords, but I haven't found any example (except one from the Przeworsk culture). So can you provide examples?

As far as texts are concerned, I don't remember so many texts with women fighting with swords, here alsoperhaps reaching 0,1% of the texts mentioning fighting men(I know a few texts indicating women fighting, but I don't remember that these texts were indicating they were fighting with swords)? Can you also provide examples?

However, coming back to the Celtic tomb of Lavau, the only reason why all the articles say it is the tomb of a prince is the presence of a sword, which indicates it's very probably a man.
I was attending a conference by Stéphane Verger about this Celtic tomb last week, and when he said that the DNA tests had not been yet done, somebody asked: "So how do we know it's not a princess?", he answered; "thanks to the sword".
I'm sure he is familiar enough with the Celtic culture and archaeology to be almost certain he is right...:rolleyes:
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I don't have time to educate someone who seems to lack a basic knowledge of Celtic culture, but here's a website that will get you started on the role of women in Celtic culture, including the role of Celtic women rulers and warriors, both historical figures such as Boudicca and Cartimandua, and mythological figures such as Medb and Scatlach.

www.celtlearn.org/pdfs/women.pdf

Many Roman writers referred to women warriors using shields. In describing a battle between Romans and Celts in 102 BC, Plutarch talked about Celtic women charging with swords and axes. While this current grave find is most likely male, one can't just assume that.

I looked up your Stephane Verger and he seems to specialize in Greek and Anatolian archeology, not Continental Celtic. But this has gone too far off topic. This latest find is interesting because it relates to a pivotal period in Celtic prehistory.
 
Diviacus said:
More info on this tomb:

1- First, we must use the word "Celtic" and not "Gaulish". At the beginning of the Vth century, the word Gaulish is not used. We are at the end of the Hallstatt period, and the the Prince buried here is clearly related to the Hallstattian area which is Celtic and not Gaulish.
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this is wrong, the Romans referred to the area in question as Gallia ...................Gallic ............Gaulish...............no Celtica is seen in texts for the period
 
Aberdeen said:
I don't have time to educate someone who seems to lack a basic knowledge of Celtic culture, but here's a website that will get you started on the role of women in Celtic culture, including the role of Celtic women rulers and warriors, both historical figures such as Boudicca and Cartimandua, and mythological figures such as Medb and Scatlach.
Click to expand...
I know these texts. They should represent perhaps 1% of the texts involving men as warriors.
And what about feminine tombs with swords? I'm still interested in your examples, as there should be at least one, but my knowledge is not as good as yours.

Aberdeen said:
I looked up your Stephane Verger and he seems to specialize in Greek and Anatolian archeology, not Continental Celtic. But this has gone too far off topic. This latest find is interesting because it relates to a pivotal period in Celtic prehistory.
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Look at this link, and you will change your mind. Stéphane Verger is one of the best European specialists of the Hallstatt culture, and I've been studying with him for two years, after having studied the Celtic culture for 20 years by myself.

https://www.google.fr/url?sa=t&rct=...DnncLFXNxcp79UpIQ&sig2=kfLtvM8kU1EEMZVEyvt_Yw
 
Sile said:
this is wrong, the Romans referred to the area in question as Gallia ...................Gallic ............Gaulish...............no Celtica is seen in texts for the period
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Not in the Vth century. And you should remember that in the Vth century, the Greek authors used the word "Keltoi"(we don't have any texts from the Romans mentioning Gaulish, or Gallia before the IIIrd century BC).
The Hallstatt culture, or the Hallstattian tombs, are never refered as Gaulish, but as Celtic. As said Aberdeen, it's completely anachronisticto use gaulish for that period.
 
Diviacus said:
Not in the Vth century. And you should remember that in the Vth century, the Greek authors used the word "Keltoi"(we don't have any texts from the Romans mentioning Gaulish, or Gallia before the IIIrd century BC).
The Hallstatt culture, or the Hallstattian tombs, are never refered as Gaulish, but as Celtic. As said Aberdeen, it's completely anachronisticto use gaulish for that period.
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La tene was referred to as Gallic and Hallstatt was referred to as celtic, because Hallstatt sits in ancient illyrian homeland and Illyrians are not gallic

referring everything as celtic is not exacting and is going backwards to the eighties in terms of origins of people........I will not be a part of this .........something you seem to head to
 
Sile said:
La tene was referred to as Gallic and Hallstatt was referred to as celtic, because Hallstatt sits in ancient illyrian homeland and Illyrians are not gallic

referring everything as celtic is not exacting and is going backwards to the eighties in terms of origins of people........I will not be a part of this .........something you seem to head to
Click to expand...
So lest's call this tomb "Celtic" as it is Hallstattian.
 
Sile said:
no, the tomb is on the LaTene side and not the hallstatt side
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A Hallstattian tomb means a tomb from the Hallstatt period which ends in the middle of the Vth century. The tomb is probably from the 1st half of the Vth century, so is Hallstattian, as are Vix or Heuneburg.
La Tene side doesn't mlean anything.

 
Diviacus said:
There should have been at least some, perhaps even reaching 1% of the tombs with swords, but I haven't found any example (except one from the Przeworsk culture). So can you provide examples?

As far as texts are concerned, I don't remember so many texts with women fighting with swords, here alsoperhaps reaching 0,1% of the texts mentioning fighting men(I know a few texts indicating women fighting, but I don't remember that these texts were indicating they were fighting with swords)? Can you also provide examples?

However, coming back to the Celtic tomb of Lavau, the only reason why all the articles say it is the tomb of a prince is the presence of a sword, which indicates it's very probably a man.
I was attending a conference by Stéphane Verger about this Celtic tomb last week, and when he said that the DNA tests had not been yet done, somebody asked: "So how do we know it's not a princess?", he answered; "thanks to the sword".
I'm sure he is familiar enough with the Celtic culture and archaeology to be almost certain he is right...:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

it's a pity I've not the link at hand just now but I red a Survey speaking about females considered at first as males based upon statureand frontal partly rugginess, and reconsidered because their pelvis –allas I don't remember if the first impression was strengthened byweapons presence. I think it was in Germany ancient tombs... Sorry
a
 
to SILE
the distinction celtic-gallic seems irrelevant for specialists, at linguistic level at least - have you something to precise us?
 
MOESAN said:
to SILE
the distinction celtic-gallic seems irrelevant for specialists, at linguistic level at least - have you something to precise us?
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they do seperate Celtic into
Gaelic
Noric
gallic
Galatian
celti-iberian
belgae
and many more......................the term celtic is misleading and is a term from the eighties.
 
Sile said:
they do seperate Celtic into
Gaelic
Noric
gallic
Galatian
celti-iberian
belgae
and many more......................the term celtic is misleading and is a term from the eighties.
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The first recorded use of the term "Celtae" to refer to the various Celtic speaking tribes was by the Greek geographer Heataeus of Miletus in 517 BC. The modern use of the term "Celt" came into vogue among ethnographers about 300 years ago.
 
Sile said:
they do seperate Celtic into
Gaelic
Noric
gallic
Galatian
celti-iberian
belgae
and many more......................the term celtic is misleading and is a term from the eighties.
Click to expand...

OK if you want to split hairs
Celtic had two means: 1- the language of Gauls named Galli or Celti according to Latins and Greeks if I remember well - 2 as you say, a "bag" term for very close branches of I-E (what became Gaelic, Brittonic, Gaulish (not a so sure term because there were maybe gaeliclike dialects even in Gallia), Celtiberic, Lepontic, surely too Belgic and ...? to discover!
Galatian is a term employed for Eastern Celts (after Iron I think): greek term too - no true linguistic distinctive value, I think -
HERE I was speaking about the difference tou seem putting between Gallic (La Tène for you?) and the language of Hallstatt people (unkown to us today, for I know):
and as said by Diviacus there is no big difference of territories between celtic (sorry for the term) Hallstatt and La T7ne: only differences of way to settle in the territory
 
and differences of period too, of course!
 
MOESAN said:
...and as said by Diviacus there is no big difference of territories between celtic (sorry for the term) Hallstatt and La T7ne: only differences of way to settle in the territory
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As you said in your later post, the difference between "Hallstatt" and "La Tene" is a question of period.
The territories are only the results of the artefacts that have been found, corresponding to one or the other period. The usual maps where we can see a "La Tene area" and a "Hallstatt area" show only the areas where the density of findings is high.

For instance, we can look at the following map, showing the wheel cart graves from the VIIIth to the Vth century BC.
We can see that there are 3 wheel carts graves of the VIth century in Western "present France", ( so Hallstattian graves), very far from the Hallstattian core.




Brown : wheel cart graves from the VIIIth and VIIth centuries
Yellow : whell carts from the VIth century
Green : whell carts from the Vth century
 
thanks for this map -
for the little I red, the center of gravity changed between the 2 periods, but yes, some places knew the 2 cultural successive aspects, without big changes in population composition (what is not NO change as I already wrote - but even in the same provinces or small regions, a change appeared in settlements and social hyerarchy between the 2 periods, showing a narrower "fork" or differences in La Tène, less manifestations of "shameless richess" (I've not the personal knowledge to evaluate the accuracy of specialists here, I 'm obliged to believe them - maybe a first introgression of small dominant groups pulling behind them the previous elites before being demographically assimilated by number -
I red something by Peake (very old work) about different types of swords of these period with very great variance in Hungary and more specific regional groups in North 'DK), South (Italy) or West Europe (Celts?) - but I have no more this book at hand - could it have helped us for the present question, I don't know?
 
MOESAN said:
thanks for this map -
for the little I red, the center of gravity changed between the 2 periods, but yes, some places knew the 2 cultural successive aspects, without big changes in population composition (what is not NO change as I already wrote - but even in the same provinces or small regions, a change appeared in settlements and social hyerarchy between the 2 periods, showing a narrower "fork" or differences in La Tène, less manifestations of "shameless richess" (I've not the personal knowledge to evaluate the accuracy of specialists here, I 'm obliged to believe them - maybe a first introgression of small dominant groups pulling behind them the previous elites before being demographically assimilated by number -
I red something by Peake (very old work) about different types of swords of these period with very great variance in Hungary and more specific regional groups in North 'DK), South (Italy) or West Europe (Celts?) - but I have no more this book at hand - could it have helped us for the present question, I don't know?
Click to expand...

I found some papers about warrior women buried with swords :
according to Mike Adamson, the females envolved in war or social power/leadership were rare but real - present among Celts (it's only a report, Ithink) and among Sauro-Sarmatians and Saka (Eastern Steppes), but absent in Scythians society - accroding to him the females could have taken part in the open society life (and war) through the horse use -
Sophie Bergerbrant speaking about Scandinavia / North Germany Lünerburg, wrote long phrases about sex and gender (as Adamson) and spoke about female tombs there, but (I didn't read all the paper, it requires soud-bicarbonate to digere), but according to her, the swords in female tombs were under the form of the distant half of a broken sword blade, only...
I say: the most of the time (99%) the swords tombs are males tombs, but in this case (this thread) we CANNOT exclude a female's tomb -
THE MORE IMPORTANT : TO WAIT THE DNA RESULTS
wait and see
 
Sile said:
La tene was referred to as Gallic and Hallstatt was referred to as celtic, because Hallstatt sits in ancient illyrian homeland and Illyrians are not gallic

referring everything as celtic is not exacting and is going backwards to the eighties in terms of origins of people........I will not be a part of this .........something you seem to head to
Click to expand...

you're an idiot.

Gallic is Celtic if for no other reason Old Gaullish is a well proven Celtic language (P-Celtic)

plus the Greeks and Romans all referred to both,the Halstatt and La Tene peoples/cultures as Celtae which is where the word came from

al modern day (2015)historians, archeologists etc...... refer to and call both the Halstatt and La Tene cultres as Celtic,and I think they would know more than you, no offense


when you get a Phd on the subject let us know.
 
MOESAN said:
I found some papers about warrior women buried with swords :
according to Mike Adamson, the females envolved in war or social power/leadership were rare but real - present among Celts (it's only a report, Ithink) and among Sauro-Sarmatians and Saka (Eastern Steppes), but absent in Scythians society - accroding to him the females could have taken part in the open society life (and war) through the horse use -
Sophie Bergerbrant speaking about Scandinavia / North Germany Lünerburg, wrote long phrases about sex and gender (as Adamson) and spoke about female tombs there, but (I didn't read all the paper, it requires soud-bicarbonate to digere), but according to her, the swords in female tombs were under the form of the distant half of a broken sword blade, only...
I say: the most of the time (99%) the swords tombs are males tombs, but in this case (this thread) we CANNOT exclude a female's tomb -
THE MORE IMPORTANT : TO WAIT THE DNA RESULTS
wait and see
Click to expand...
As far as I know, no Celtic female tomb has been attested with a sword (Mike Adamson doesn't provide any example). Obviously we may found one in the future, but it's unlikely. With the thousands of graves excavated, if we haven't found one, it means that the female ritual was not to put a sword in a female tomb (the fact that women may have used a sword is not equivalent to the fact that they have been buried with a sword). We could say the same with the razor : they have been only found in men's tombs (which cannot exclude that we may find one, but it's unlikely).
So the probability that the dead of Lavau would be a man is certainly > 99,9%, which is not only "most of the time".
 
UltraViolence said:
you're an idiot.

Gallic is Celtic if for no other reason Old Gaullish is a well proven Celtic language (P-Celtic)

plus the Greeks and Romans all referred to both,the Halstatt and La Tene peoples/cultures as Celtae which is where the word came from

al modern day (2015)historians, archeologists etc...... refer to and call both the Halstatt and La Tene cultres as Celtic,and I think they would know more than you, no offense


when you get a Phd on the subject let us know.
Click to expand...

The alps where not full of gallic people when Celts formed la Tene in the west and Halstatt in the east of the lower northern alps. La Tene was on the Helvetica side and halstatt was in Noricum, the illyric side , named after the Nori people who once celtinized became known as Norici
 
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