British Museum exhibit provokes controversy over Celtic history
internat...@total.net
of the Fourth International (ICFI): http://www.wsws.org
British Museum exhibit provokes controversy over Celtic history
By Ann Talbot
20 October, 1998
The British Museum is undergoing a major overhaul. As part of
this revamp, it has just opened a set of three new galleries
devoted to late Bronze Age Europe, Celtic Europe and Roman
Britain, a period from roughly 2,500 BC to the fifth century AD.
The new galleries are a permanent exhibition intended to give an
authoritative interpretation of three millennia of history that will
stand for a generation. But one of them has already proved to be
surprisingly controversial. Simon James, a curator of the Museum
and fellow of Durham University, has challenged the validity of the
title Celtic Europe. He writes, "Everyone has heard of the Celts.
Yet more and more archaeologists are concluding that the
Ancient Celts, as usually conceived, never really existed." As a
result, he says, he has received e-mails accusing him of "ethnic
cleansing" and "genocide".
According to James, "the 'Ancient Celts' were not so much
discovered, as gradually invented by generations of scholars." On
the other side there are academics who argue that the Celts are
the ancestors of the modern Irish, Scots, Welsh and Bretons, and
that attempts to deny this are racist. The dispute has become so
bitter and personal that academics writing in learned journals
have even felt called upon to explain the ethnic origins of their
grandmothers. When all this invective is put on one side, what
appears at first sight to be a fairly straightforward two-sided
contest becomes more complex.
Few archaeologists deny the existence of the Celts in the
European Iron Age, the period from roughly the mid-eighth
century BC to the Roman conquest. As late as 1993, James
himself wrote a book entitled, Exploring the World of the Celts.
Taken as a whole, the evidence of their existence is remarkably
good for such an early historical period. Greek and Roman
authors recognised a people whom they called variously the
Keltoi, Galli or Galatians. In the fourth century BC they tell us that
the Celts sacked Rome and sent ambassadors to the court of
Alexander the Great in Babylon. In the third century BC a party of
Celtic warriors sacked Delphi in Greece while three tribes settled
in what is now Turkey. Their descendants were still called
Galatians when St. Paul wrote to them in the first century AD. The
Romans fought the Celts in Northern Italy, Spain and France for
over 300 years. When they were not fighting, the archaeological
record shows that they were trading with one another.
As their territories were conquered Celts were absorbed into
Roman society while remaining conscious of their distinct identity.
The Roman poet Martial was proud of his Celtic ancestry. Julius
Caesar, who defeated Celtic tribes in what is now France, left a
comparatively detailed account of their social and political
organisation. He indicates that there were close cultural links
between Britain and continental Europe. A growing body of
evidence from inscriptions found on the continent confirms this
view. They show that in Spain and Northern Italy languages were
spoken that are related to modern Welsh, Gaelic and Breton.
What is more, some of the gods and religious festivals of pagan
Ireland share the same names as those recorded among Celts
on the continent.
Certainly, there are problems in relating the linguistic,
archaeological and written evidence to one another. As one
would expect at such an early period of European history, large
gaps remain in our knowledge and some questions can never be
answered with any certainty. But to argue about the existence or
non-existence of the Celts is not a genuine historical controversy.
For it to raise such passion suggests that an unstated issue of
considerably more substance lies behind the public dispute.
The argument is not really about whether the Celts existed or not,
but about what history is and the nature of historical facts. It is
about whether history should be scientific or mystical. The
archaeologist Vere Gordon Childe dealt with this question in the
opening chapter of his book Man Makes Himself in 1936.
Writing in the aftermath of World War I and the Great Depression
and with another war looming, Childe recognised that the
optimistic belief in progress so prevalent in the nineteenth century
had faded. A new spirit of mysticism and obscurantism was
influencing society at large and the study of history. He set out to
demonstrate human progress through the prehistoric period, as
an antidote to the fascist ideology which had set archaeologists
searching for the origins of the Nazi super-race and to the
sentimental nostalgia for the pre-industrial past that suffused
much liberal and left-wing thought of the period.
While in his lifetime Childe was attacked by other archaeologist
for his adherence to Marxism, after his death in 1957 he came
under attack from left-wing radicals influenced by structuralism
and the Frankfurt school who, responding to the crimes of
fascism and especially Stalinism, rejected the conception of
historical progress. His attempt to apply the Marxist theory of
social evolution to archaeology was condemned by a united
chorus of left and right, but his contribution to the discipline was
too great to be ignored. His conception of archaeology as an
objective, scientific approach to culture history, essentially
economic and social history, focusing on the study of how people
made a living, their technology and their social organisation,
became the accepted form of archaeology.
What is remarkable about the British Museum exhibition, although
in all the controversy over the Celts it has gone unremarked, is the
extent to which it has moved away from this approach and
returned to an antiquarian, collector's style which pre-dates
Childe. The cases are refulgent with precious metal. It is an
exhibition that dazzles the eye, but leaves the intellect unsatisfied.
By what process all this wealth was acquired and what social
relations allowed some people to accumulate it, the visitor is not
informed.
The interpretation of Iron Age Europe that the British Museum is
offering is a step away from science. Central to this non-scientific
approach is a concentration on ethnicity. The problem with the
exhibition is not just that it elevates the Celts at the expense of the
Tartessians, the Ligurians, the Iberians and all the people of Iron
Age Europe that we cannot name, but that it presents ethnicity as
the most appropriate conceptual basis for the study of history.
Ethnicity is not an appropriate category for historical analysis
because it tells us nothing about the people concerned. It does
not tell us what kind of agriculture, if any, they practised. It does
not tell us what tools and equipment were at their disposal. It does
not tell us how their society was organised. It does not even tell us
what their relations were with other ethnic groups.
Above all, it does not tell us how the ethnic group changed
through time, but instead imposes a timeless quality on the past
that is ahistorical. For example, the Celts of Lugdunensis, modern
Lyon in southern France, worshipped the god Lugh whose
festival, Lugnasad, was on 1 August. The same god was
venerated and the same festival observed in Ireland until the
coming of Christianity in the fifth century AD. But we cannot
assume that the god or the festival held the same significance for
the relatively sophisticated and, even before the Romans came,
increasingly urbanised population of southern France and the
inhabitants of economically backward Ireland where no towns
developed until the early medieval period. Celts they may both
have been, but their worlds were very different.
Compared to some archaeologists the British Museum is only
dipping its toes in the water of ethnic history. Its most vigorous
champions are Vincent and Ruth Megaw from Flinders University
in Australia, who specialise in the study of Celtic art.
Appropriately enough they defended their ethnic approach to
history at an archaeological conference in Slovenia, part of the
former Yugoslavia. There they put forward an arbitrary and
subjective definition of ethnicity, which was internally contradictory
and scientifically invalid.
They argued that ethnicity cannot be defined in genetic terms, nor
on the basis of language or culture, but is part of a "landscape of
the mind". They gave the example of an Australian Aboriginal
artist friend of mixed Aboriginal, Irish and German descent, who
sometimes identifies herself by the local Aboriginal group from
which her father came, sometimes by the wider group of South
East Australian Aboriginals, in yet in other contexts simply as an
Australian Aboriginal. Ethnicity, the Megaws claim, is a subjective
category in which the past is remembered selectively and in
which symbols--often of a religious character, as in Bosnia and
Northern Ireland--are used to define identity. To deny someone's
belief in their ethnic identity is inherently racist according to the
Megaws.
True to their ethnic approach, the Megaws identify their
opponents as certain English archaeologists who wish to deny
the existence of the Celts because of the "ethnography of the
archaeology profession" in England. This is where grandmothers
come into the argument. Englishmen, in the Megaws' view,
cannot write history if it involves Celts.
English archaeologists, they explain, are gripped by an
ideological crisis that is bound up with a redefinition of English
identity following the end of the British Empire. Britain has
become a multicultural society and concerns about the effects of
this transformation, which cannot be expressed legally, emerge in
a distorted form in the academic world. At the same time British
sovereignty is under threat internally from devolution and
externally from the European union. For the "English mind" the
Celts have become a symbol of both the threat of internal
disintegration and external control. In this way the Megaws
construct a stereotype of English archaeologists as far right Tory
Europhobes, wrapping themselves in the Union Jack, barely
concealing their hatred of Asians and West Indians behind their
denial of the Celts' existence.
An article based on their Ljubljana paper was published in
Antiquity, one of the leading British archaeological journals. It
succeeded in raising the temperature of the debate and putting
every archaeologist writing about the Celts on the defensive.
Archaeologists now preface their comments with an account of
their own ethnic origins, and assure the reader that they are
sympathetic to progressive causes.
This is a dangerous turn of events. To imply that only those who
are from an ethnic group can write about it is to undermine the
study of history. To imply that only those with a certain political
outlook can write good history is just as damaging. While
interpretations may vary widely, historical facts have a certain
objective validity that can be discerned by anyone who
approaches the subject with honesty and a critical frame of mind.
The Megaws have attacked the principle that history is an
objective study of the past. In this respect many archaeologists
and historians today would agree with them.
Simon James's extraordinary denial of the existence of the Celts
seems to be partially motivated by a desire to oppose this ethnic
approach to history. Yet at the same time he agrees with the
Megaws that history is entirely subjective. He claims that the Celts
are merely a subjective construct created by previous
generations of historians for their own ideological reasons and
are therefore no more real than the mythical tribes of Centaurs
and Amazons that the Greeks believed lived beyond the Black
Sea.
This is a superficial argument that is only given credence
because of a general decline in the quality of intellectual life. The
Hellenistic imagination was indeed fertile. It populated little known
regions with fantastic tribes. The Celts, however, are not among
them. St. Paul never had occasion to write a pastoral letter to the
Amazons or the Centaurs. The Celts are an historical fact. The
idea that because different historians have different
interpretations of history there is no such thing as an historical
fact is a characteristic feature of postmodernism. It reduces
historical study to an exercise in futility that has nothing of any
value to say about human society.
Announcing their new galleries, the British Museum make a point
of the care they had taken to avoid any hint that in prehistory it
was possible to discern a process of human progress through
social evolution. More than anyone it was Childe who attempted
to apply a theory of social evolution to archaeology. By rejecting
this, archaeologists are denying themselves a scientific basis for
their discipline and laying themselves open to attacks like that of
the Megaws.
The vestiges of Childe's approach that survive in the form of an
archaeology based on culture history dealing with questions of
social and economic organisation still produces some of the best
studies. Into this category falls Barry Cunliffe's recent book The
Ancient Celts. While no evolutionist, and no Marxist, Cunliffe
offers a serious study of Celtic society. A reader may accept or
reject aspects of his analysis, but it is always well founded on fact.
The British Museum hope that their interpretation of prehistoric
Europe will establish the orthodoxy for the next generation, but
faced with the bleak and baffling perplexities of postmodernism
many students will be repelled from the subject of history in
disgust. Those who persist and want to make some sense of the
prehistoric past would do well to re-examine Childe.
Readers: The WSWS invites your comments. Please send e-mail to :
edi...@wsws.org
internat...@total.net
internat...@total.net
Adrian Gilbert
>Taken from the World Socialist Web Site of the International Committee
>of the Fourth International (ICFI): http://www.wsws.org
>
>British Museum exhibit provokes controversy over Celtic history
>
>By Ann Talbot
>20 October, 1998
>
>The British Museum is undergoing a major overhaul. As part of
>this revamp, it has just opened a set of three new galleries
>devoted to late Bronze Age Europe, Celtic Europe and Roman
>Britain, a period from roughly 2,500 BC to the fifth century AD.
>
>
>According to James, "the 'Ancient Celts' were not so much
>discovered, as gradually invented by generations of scholars."
I would agree with this statement. Nowhere in the literature of ancient
Britain do you find mention of "Celts" and the idea that the Welsh and Scots
(though possibly the Irish) were directly related to the tribes of Celts
mentioned by Caesar as living in Gaul is simply the result of
over-simplification. The Britons called themselves Cymry, a name possibly
derived from the same root as Cimerii (ancient peoples who invaded Anatolia).
If they were related to any of Caesar's Gauls it was the Belgae. The capital
of Britain was Troia Newydd or "New Troy"- Troy being the "Triangle land" as a
glance at any map of Turkey will reveal. Similarly Caesar describes Britain as
being a triangle. New Troy was called Trinovantum by the Romans but also
Londinium from a corruption of caer Lundein or Caer Ludd-dinas after a King
Ludd who rebuilt the walls of the city shortly before Caesar's invasions.
In Belgic Gaul there were two other Troy towns. One is what we now call
Troyes and the other Trier or Treveres. The people who inhabited this part of
eastern Gaul were Belgae and almost certainly related to the Britons or Cymry.
Other related tribes, according to the ancient histories of Britain, inhabited
parts of the Gallic seaboard, notably Brittany and further south in Gascony.
If you read the histories you will find that the Welsh and Irish never
claimed to be one folk, they were as different from one another as they both
were from the Anglo-Saxons. If you look at the two languages of Welsh and
Irish you will also find that they are so different from one another as to be
almost unrecognisable. Whereas a Breton from Brittany can go to Wales and talk
to people who speak Welsh and be understood, the same cannot be said for an
Irish speaker. You also only have to look at the people to see that they are
different.
Those other famous Celts, the Scots, though partly Irish in origin and
therefore maybe in that sense Celtic, are mainly Scythian in origin. As might
be suspected from geography the major invasions of both Scotland and northern
Ireland in the dark ages were from Scandinavia. Almost certainly this is where
the red hair comes from, not from the so-called Celts.In fact the Scots are
more closely related to the Angles than they are to anyone else, which makes a
nonsense of the anti-English mentality of so many "bravehearts". Scottish and
Irish art are also very Scythian in influence, as is Anglo-Saxon. You have
only to compare this with that of the later Vikings, who were also Scythians,
to see that the idea that northern Europe was blanket-Celtic is not only a
myth, it is a patent falsification of history.
I haven't seen the new exhibition in the British Museum yet but from what
you have written I can only believe that it is going to make thisngs worse
rather than better, assuming that is we really would like to know who we are
and where we came from and don't want to be fed politically correct nonsense.
Adrian Gilbert
(co-author of The Holy Kingdom, the Quest for the real King Arthur)
Doug Weller
GMT, so...@enterprise.net said...
[SNIP]
> The Britons called themselves Cymry, a name possibly
> derived from the same root as Cimerii (ancient peoples who invaded Anatolia).
> If they were related to any of Caesar's Gauls it was the Belgae. The capital
> of Britain was Troia Newydd or "New Troy"- Troy being the "Triangle land" as a
> glance at any map of Turkey will reveal. Similarly Caesar describes Britain as
> being a triangle. New Troy was called Trinovantum by the Romans but also
> Londinium from a corruption of caer Lundein or Caer Ludd-dinas after a King
> Ludd who rebuilt the walls of the city shortly before Caesar's invasions.
>
And Romulus and Remus founded Rome. All of this is myth, and no where
near as old as the Romulus and Remus story!
The term 'cymry' is found as early as the 7th century AD, and comes from
the late Latin Combrogi, meaning 'fellow-countrymen'. Do you know of an
earlier use? In fact, if it is 7th century, you could speculate, as does
Ken Dark, that it recalled an identity as independent sub-Roman citizens
of a single British nation derived from Roman Britain.
Doug
--
Doug Weller Moderator, sci.archaeology.moderated
Submissions to:sci-archaeol...@medieval.org
Doug's Archaeology Page: http://www.ramtops.demon.co.uk
Co-owner UK-Schools mailing list: email me for details
sch...@my-dejanews.com
so...@enterprise.net (Adrian Gilbert) wrote:
> In article <36576350...@total.net>, internat...@total.net wrote:
> >of the Fourth International (ICFI): http://www.wsws.org
> >
> >British Museum exhibit provokes controversy over Celtic history
> >
> >By Ann Talbot
> >20 October, 1998
> >
> >The British Museum is undergoing a major overhaul. As part of
> >this revamp, it has just opened a set of three new galleries
> >devoted to late Bronze Age Europe, Celtic Europe and Roman
> >Britain, a period from roughly 2,500 BC to the fifth century AD.
> >
>
> >
> >discovered, as gradually invented by generations of scholars."
>
> Britain do you find mention of "Celts"
That would prove difficult, since there is no literature surviving from
ancient Britain. The natives, whatever thier ethnic identiy, didn't write
anything down until the Romans came along. (Still untranslated oghams not
withstanding)
and the idea that the Welsh and Scots
> (though possibly the Irish) were directly related to the tribes of Celts
> mentioned by Caesar as living in Gaul is simply the result of
> over-simplification.
Comparison of language, dieites, and overall culture seems to imply a
common culture that the Romans & Greeks termed Keltoi or Galatai.
The Britons called themselves Cymry, a name possibly
> derived from the same root as Cimerii (ancient peoples who invaded Anatolia).
The Cimmerians inhabited what is now the Ukraine before invading Anatolia
around 750 bc. The Celts are thought to have originated in the same at
about the same time. The Celts went into Europe, instead of Anatolia
however.
> If they were related to any of Caesar's Gauls it was the Belgae.
Britain was settled by the Celts in two waves, the first one around
500 bc, was from the Low Lands(Belgium & Netherlands). The second
was from the Marne Valley area of France. In other words, some
"Britains" were related to the Belgae, some not.
The capital
> of Britain was Troia Newydd or "New Troy"
? Britain was divided into several kingdoms, so there was no "capital of
Britain" The main Kingdom of the South was that of the Trinovantes & thier
capital was Camulodunum(modern Colchester) at the time of the 2nd Roman
invasion of the Isle. During Caesar's expeditions, there isn't enough info.
There wasn't any city named Troia Newydd in Ancient Britain, that was
made up by English writers in the Middle Ages/Rennisance and on ward.
- Troy being the "Triangle land" as a
> glance at any map of Turkey will reveal.
The modern coastlines of Anatolia aren't the same as it was in Ancient
times, and the city state of Troy certainly didn't control all of Anatolia.
Similarly Caesar describes Britain as
> being a triangle. New Troy was called Trinovantum
There was a tribe called the Trinovantes, but no city. And the capital of
the Trinovantes was Camulodunum, not Troia Newydd.
by the Romans but also
> Londinium
? Londinium wasn't founded until 43 ad by the Romans, prior to then
the main city for trade with mainland Europe in the area was
the Channel port of Rutupiae(Richborough) under the control of
the Cantiaci, until the Romans came along.
from a corruption of caer Lundein or Caer Ludd-dinas after a King
> Ludd who rebuilt the walls of the city shortly before Caesar's invasions.
There wasn't any city there until 43ad & Caesar didn't land or Campaign in
the area.
> If you read the histories you will find that the Welsh and Irish never
> claimed to be one folk, they were as different from one another as they both
> were from the Anglo-Saxons.
What? The Irish & Welsh Annals clearing indicate the relationship between the
people & starting in the 400s ad, people from Ireland settled in Wales(as well
as Cornwall & Devonshire), so even if they weren't related before, they were
from then on...
(snip of rest)
---Oscar Schlaf--
"There's many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher. "
- Flannery O'Connor
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
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Alan M Dunsmuir
<so...@enterprise.net> writes
> Those other famous Celts, the Scots, though partly Irish in origin and
>therefore maybe in that sense Celtic, are mainly Scythian in origin.
Thank you Adrian. That sentence on its own indicates how much time and
consideration we need to give to the rest of your post.
--
Alan M Dunsmuir
alex...@enterprise.net
sch...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
> In article <73c6v9$t6c$1...@news.enterprise.net>,
> so...@enterprise.net (Adrian Gilbert) wrote:
> > Londinium
>
> ? Londinium wasn't founded until 43 ad by the Romans, prior to then
> the main city for trade with mainland Europe in the area was
> the Channel port of Rutupiae(Richborough) under the control of
> the Cantiaci, until the Romans came along.
>
> > from a corruption of caer Lundein or Caer Ludd-dinas after a King
> > Ludd who rebuilt the walls of the city shortly before Caesar's invasions.
>
> There wasn't any city there until 43ad & Caesar didn't land or Campaign in
> the area.
But he did campaign there!
Julius Caesar: The Gallic Wars. Book 5, Chapter 18.
(http://classics.mit.edu/Caesar/gallic.html)
Sincerely,
Alex Green
David Berntson
wrote:
>In article <36576350...@total.net>, internat...@total.net wrote:
>>Taken from the World Socialist Web Site of the International Committee
>>of the Fourth International (ICFI): http://www.wsws.org
>>
>>British Museum exhibit provokes controversy over Celtic history
>>
>>By Ann Talbot
>>20 October, 1998
>>
>>The British Museum is undergoing a major overhaul. As part of
>>this revamp, it has just opened a set of three new galleries
>>devoted to late Bronze Age Europe, Celtic Europe and Roman
>>Britain, a period from roughly 2,500 BC to the fifth century AD.
>>
>
>>
>>According to James, "the 'Ancient Celts' were not so much
>>discovered, as gradually invented by generations of scholars."
>
>I would agree with this statement. Nowhere in the literature of ancient
>Britain do you find mention of "Celts" and the idea that the Welsh and Scots
>(though possibly the Irish) were directly related to the tribes of Celts
>mentioned by Caesar as living in Gaul is simply the result of
>over-simplification. The Britons called themselves Cymry, a name possibly
>derived from the same root as Cimerii (ancient peoples who invaded Anatolia).
>If they were related to any of Caesar's Gauls it was the Belgae. The capital
>of Britain was Troia Newydd or "New Troy"- Troy being the "Triangle land" as a
>glance at any map of Turkey will reveal. Similarly Caesar describes Britain as
>being a triangle. New Troy was called Trinovantum by the Romans but also
>Londinium from a corruption of caer Lundein or Caer Ludd-dinas after a King
>Ludd who rebuilt the walls of the city shortly before Caesar's invasions.
> In Belgic Gaul there were two other Troy towns. One is what we now call
>Troyes and the other Trier or Treveres. The people who inhabited this part of
>eastern Gaul were Belgae and almost certainly related to the Britons or Cymry.
>Other related tribes, according to the ancient histories of Britain, inhabited
> parts of the Gallic seaboard, notably Brittany and further south in Gascony.
> If you read the histories you will find that the Welsh and Irish never
>claimed to be one folk, they were as different from one another as they both
>were from the Anglo-Saxons. If you look at the two languages of Welsh and
>Irish you will also find that they are so different from one another as to be
>almost unrecognisable. Whereas a Breton from Brittany can go to Wales and talk
>to people who speak Welsh and be understood, the same cannot be said for an
>Irish speaker. You also only have to look at the people to see that they are
>different.
> Those other famous Celts, the Scots, though partly Irish in origin and
>therefore maybe in that sense Celtic, are mainly Scythian in origin. As might
>be suspected from geography the major invasions of both Scotland and northern
>Ireland in the dark ages were from Scandinavia. Almost certainly this is where
>the red hair comes from, not from the so-called Celts.In fact the Scots are
>more closely related to the Angles than they are to anyone else, which makes a
>nonsense of the anti-English mentality of so many "bravehearts". Scottish and
>Irish art are also very Scythian in influence, as is Anglo-Saxon. You have
>only to compare this with that of the later Vikings, who were also Scythians,
>to see that the idea that northern Europe was blanket-Celtic is not only a
>myth, it is a patent falsification of history.
> I haven't seen the new exhibition in the British Museum yet but from what
>you have written I can only believe that it is going to make thisngs worse
>rather than better, assuming that is we really would like to know who we are
>and where we came from and don't want to be fed politically correct nonsense.
>
>Adrian Gilbert
>(co-author of The Holy Kingdom, the Quest for the real King Arthur)
An alternate view of the enigmatic Scyths is from:
A.T.Fomenko, G.V.Nosovskij
NEW HYPOTHETICAL CHRONOLOGY AND CONCEPT OF THE ENGLISH HISTORY.
BRITISH EMPIRE AS A DIRECT SUCCESSOR OF BYZANTINE-ROMAN EMPIRE.
**********Begin cut, copy, paste*****************
5.11. Who were scots in 10-12 cc.A.D. and were did they live?
Where was Scotland located in 10-12 cc.A.D.?
Scotland = Scot + Land = the Land of Scots. Scots live in
Scotland - this is well-known fact.
But sufficiently less is known that in old English
chronicles the Scots sometimes are called Scithi, i.e., Scyths !
See, for example the manuscript F of Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
([2],p.3, comment 4). Thus, one of possible answers on the
question in the title of present section is as follows:
Scots = Scyths.
In other words, Scotland = the Land of Scyths = Scithi-Land.
Scyths lived in Scythia, which is partially identified with
some regions in modern Russia. Old English chronicles call
Scythia also as Scithia, Sice, Sithia, Barbaria (see [10]). Are
there some "traces" of medieval name Scots (for Scyths) in modern
Russia? Yes! It is known that Scyths are considered partially as
the nation which cultivated the cattle. But before now the
Russian term for "cattle" is SCOT. Our conjecture: the Scots
mentioned in old English chronicles of 10-12th cc.A.D. are
Scyths = Scithi which lived near Byzantine Empire on the
territory (partially) of modern Russia.
It was in 10-12th cc.A.D. Then, after transport of Byzantine
chronicles into modern island Britain, the name of Scyths was
also automatically shifted in modern England. And today we see in
the modern England the Scyth-Land as Scot-Land.
And we see again that the old English chronicle tell us
about the real Byzantine history, because really Scyths of 10-12th
cc.A.D. lived near Byzantine Empire.
Nennius, in the section with title "About Scots when they
captured Hybernia", informs us:
"If somebody wants to know when... Hybernia was uninhabited,
desert, then the most informed among SCOTS told me the following.
When the people of Israel went from Egypt, the Egyptians who
haunted Israelits (according to the Bible), were sank in the Sea.
Among the Egyptians was one noble man from SCYTHIA (! - Auth.)
with many relatives and with many servants. He was expelled
(banished) from his native kingdom and we was in Egypt when
Egyptian army was sank in the Sea... Then the survived Egyptians
decided to expel him from the Egypt because they afraid that he
can captures their country and to establish his power in Egypt"
([8],p.174).
Then, as a result, these Scyths were expelled from Egypt,
and then their fleet conquered the Hybernia. This event is
considered (in Nennius' opinion) as conquest of Hybernia by Scots
([8],p.175). Thus, here we see that Nennius was sure that Scots
were descended from Scyths.
It is possible that here the name Hybernia was in reality
applied to the Hyberia = old name of modern Georgia (or, may be
to the medieval Spain). It is supposed today in historical
science that medieval Hybernia = Ireland.
As we expect (and this is really true), the modern
historical commentary to this fragment from Nennius' chronicle is
very angry:
"Which Scythia is mentioned here? Bede Venerable calls the
Scandinavia as Scythia. The version about "Scyths" origin of
Scots was appeared because of some similarity between words
"Scithia" and "Scottia" "([8],p.272). The commentator here passed
over in silence that sometimes "Scots" were written in old
English chronicles as "Scithi", i.e., "Scyths" and this fact is
well-known to the real experts in the ancient English history.
See [2]. By the way, the replacement of Scythia by Scandinavia
does not help, because (as we have demonstrated above), the old
English chronicles sometimes identified Cansie = Scandinavia and
Russia (Rossie) (see [10]): "Cansie (or Canzie), and I think that
this is Rosie (in another copy of the manuscript - Russie -
Auth.)" (see the discussion above).
If it was really true that in some medieval historical
period the Scithia was called as Scotland (in some historical
chronicles), then the great interest will obtain the following
fact. As we saw, the English chronicles called Russian king
(ruler) Jaroslav the Sage (Wise) as Malescold (Malescoldus)
([10],p.58). Thus, his whole title (if Scythia was Scotland)
should be Scottish (or Scoth) king Malescold (or Malcolm?). But
we know several medieval Scottish kings Malcolms in traditional
Scotland history. May be one of them is Russian king Jaroslav the
Sage who was "transported" into "island Scottish history" as a
result of chronological and geographical shift?
Adrian Gilbert
db...@pionet.net (David Berntson) wrote:
>On Mon, 23 Nov 98 17:45:05 GMT, so...@enterprise.net (Adrian Gilbert)
>wrote:
>
>>In article <36576350...@total.net>, internat...@total.net wrote:
>>>Taken from the World Socialist Web Site of the International Committee
>>>of the Fourth International (ICFI): http://www.wsws.org
>>>
>>>British Museum exhibit provokes controversy over Celtic history
>>>
>>>By Ann Talbot
>>>20 October, 1998
>>>
>>>The British Museum is undergoing a major overhaul. As part of
>>>this revamp, it has just opened a set of three new galleries
>>>devoted to late Bronze Age Europe, Celtic Europe and Roman
>>>Britain, a period from roughly 2,500 BC to the fifth century AD.
>>>
>>
>>>
>>>According to James, "the 'Ancient Celts' were not so much
>>>discovered, as gradually invented by generations of scholars."
>>
the ancient world was concerned, Scythia was a very large area of the world
stretching from southern Russia and the Caspian Sea through to Easterna and
most of Northern Europe. The Scythians were a large family of nations with
various groupings within, including people like the Sarmatians of Hungary and
the Goths of Poland and Scandinavia. The name Scot is derived from the
Latin Scythae. The "y" can be pronounced like a "u" or even "oo". So the
modern pronounciation Scot by many Scots as "Scoot" is not far off the mark.
According to Welsh annals, Britain was invaded on many occassions by people
from Llychlyn, which is the Welsh name for Scandinavia. They crossed the
Llychlynian Sea (North Sea) and came to northen Britain. At first they were
known as "Picts", from the Latin word "Pictum" meaning "painted". This is
because like many Scythians they were tatooed. Later some of these Picts
migrated further to Ireland and intemarried with the people there. These
people, still known as Scots or Scythes, migrated back to Britain in the 6th
Century AD and settled in the West of Scotland. They were one of four distinct
groups of people who then lived in what is now Scotland: A) The native Britons
or Welsh (Cymry); B) Anglo-Saxons (mainly in Southeast), C) Purely Pictish
Scythes, D) Scots from Ireland. These four groups of people merged to form one
nation which we now call the Scots.
The closest relatives of the Pictish-Scots are probably to be found in
Western Sweden (the region called Western Gothland) and in Norway.Curiously,
if you listen to Swedes from Western Gothland speaking English it is with an
accent that is very Scottish. Scots whom I have known and who have settled in
Sweden have less difficulty in speaking Swedish with a good accent than do
English immigrants.
The Goths themselves claim to have originated in the island of Gotland in
the Bltic Sea but they early migrated to Poland and some of them down to the
Black Sea. Lter they invaded the Roman Empire as Ostro-Goths and Visi-Goths.
This is another story but it is interesting that one of the groups of people,
said to be inhabiting Britain before the Roman invasions were the Coranians or
Coritanni. According to the Welsh annals these people, who they regarded as
enemies and who settled mainly around the Humber Estuary, came from Poland. It
seems that they too were Scythians and possibly even Goths. Certainly they
would have been related to the later Anglo-Saxons who came from Southern
Denmark, Frisia and northern Germany. In Anglo-Saxon times, when they referred
to Scythia they generally meant Denmark.
You will notice that in all these migrations there is no mention of anyone
called "Celts". That is because these people lived in Central France and never
crossed the Channel. So-called Celtic Britain is a figment of the Victorian
imagination.
Adrian Gilbert
Co-author of "The Holy Kingdom".
Alan M Dunsmuir
<so...@enterprise.net> writes
a load of absolute bollocks.
--
Alan M Dunsmuir
Irv Horowitz
Adrian Gilbert wrote:
> <snip>
> The Goths themselves claim to have originated in the island of Gotland in
> the Bltic Sea but they early migrated to Poland and some of them down to the
> Black Sea. Lter they invaded the Roman Empire as Ostro-Goths and Visi-Goths.
> This is another story but it is interesting that one of the groups of people,
> said to be inhabiting Britain before the Roman invasions were the Coranians or
> Coritanni. According to the Welsh annals these people, who they regarded as
> enemies and who settled mainly around the Humber Estuary, came from Poland. It
> seems that they too were Scythians and possibly even Goths. Certainly they
> would have been related to the later Anglo-Saxons who came from Southern
> Denmark, Frisia and northern Germany. In Anglo-Saxon times, when they referred
> to Scythia they generally meant Denmark.
<snip>
"Beowulf" doesn't confound Scythia and Denmark. Where do Anglo-Saxon references to
Scythia meaning Denmark occur?
- Irv
Doug Weller
sci.archaeology, but I thought you might be interested in the idea that
you're really Scythian:
In article <73j6js$oa0$1...@news.enterprise.net>, on Thu, 26 Nov 98 09:22:01
GMT, so...@enterprise.net said...
[SNIP]
> >>
> On the question of Scotland and Scythia I would add the following. As far as
> the ancient world was concerned, Scythia was a very large area of the world
> stretching from southern Russia and the Caspian Sea through to Easterna and
> most of Northern Europe. The Scythians were a large family of nations with
> various groupings within, including people like the Sarmatians of Hungary and
> the Goths of Poland and Scandinavia. The name Scot is derived from the
> Latin Scythae.
It's derived from the Late Latin Scottus.
> The "y" can be pronounced like a "u" or even "oo". So the
> modern pronounciation Scot by many Scots as "Scoot" is not far off the mark.
> According to Welsh annals, Britain was invaded on many occassions by people
> from Llychlyn, which is the Welsh name for Scandinavia. They crossed the
> Llychlynian Sea (North Sea) and came to northen Britain. At first they were
> known as "Picts", from the Latin word "Pictum" meaning "painted". This is
> because like many Scythians they were tatooed. Later some of these Picts
> migrated further to Ireland and intemarried with the people there. These
> people, still known as Scots or Scythes, migrated back to Britain in the 6th
> Century AD and settled in the West of Scotland. They were one of four distinct
> groups of people who then lived in what is now Scotland: A) The native Britons
> or Welsh (Cymry); B) Anglo-Saxons (mainly in Southeast), C) Purely Pictish
> Scythes, D) Scots from Ireland. These four groups of people merged to form one
> nation which we now call the Scots.
> The closest relatives of the Pictish-Scots are probably to be found in
> Western Sweden (the region called Western Gothland) and in Norway.Curiously,
> if you listen to Swedes from Western Gothland speaking English it is with an
> accent that is very Scottish. Scots whom I have known and who have settled in
> Sweden have less difficulty in speaking Swedish with a good accent than do
> English immigrants.
> The Goths themselves claim to have originated in the island of Gotland in
> the Bltic Sea but they early migrated to Poland and some of them down to the
> Black Sea. Lter they invaded the Roman Empire as Ostro-Goths and Visi-Goths.
> This is another story but it is interesting that one of the groups of people,
> said to be inhabiting Britain before the Roman invasions were the Coranians or
> Coritanni. According to the Welsh annals these people, who they regarded as
> enemies and who settled mainly around the Humber Estuary, came from Poland. It
> seems that they too were Scythians and possibly even Goths. Certainly they
> would have been related to the later Anglo-Saxons who came from Southern
> Denmark, Frisia and northern Germany. In Anglo-Saxon times, when they referred
> to Scythia they generally meant Denmark.
> You will notice that in all these migrations there is no mention of anyone
> called "Celts". That is because these people lived in Central France and never
> crossed the Channel. So-called Celtic Britain is a figment of the Victorian
> imagination.
We should in any case be talking about Celtic culture and Celtic speaking
peoples. Pictish is almost certainly Celtic (although a few linguists
have claimed a pre-IndoEuropean element. I can't find my Cambridge
Encyclopedia of Language, but wasn't Scythian an Iranian language?
Ed
Sorry to dispel your allusions But The name Scot is derived from the
Scotti who were Irish invaders/settlers to Caledonia(Argylle). there
name most likely a deriverative of Queen Scota Mother of the Gaels
who settled Ireland when the flood of Gaels came from Northern Spain.
diOn Thu, 26 Nov 1998 19:55:49 -0000, dwe...@ramtops.demon.co.uk
David Berntson
wrote:
>In article <365ba603...@news.newsguy.com>,
> db...@pionet.net (David Berntson) wrote:
>>On Mon, 23 Nov 98 17:45:05 GMT, so...@enterprise.net (Adrian Gilbert)
>>wrote:
>>
>>>In article <36576350...@total.net>, internat...@total.net wrote:
>>>>Taken from the World Socialist Web Site of the International Committee
>>>>of the Fourth International (ICFI): http://www.wsws.org
>>>>
>>>>British Museum exhibit provokes controversy over Celtic history
>>>>
>>>>By Ann Talbot
>>>>20 October, 1998
>>>>
>>>>The British Museum is undergoing a major overhaul. As part of
>>>>this revamp, it has just opened a set of three new galleries
>>>>devoted to late Bronze Age Europe, Celtic Europe and Roman
>>>>Britain, a period from roughly 2,500 BC to the fifth century AD.
>>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>According to James, "the 'Ancient Celts' were not so much
>>>>discovered, as gradually invented by generations of scholars."
>>>
>On the question of Scotland and Scythia I would add the following. As far as
>the ancient world was concerned, Scythia was a very large area of the world
>stretching from southern Russia and the Caspian Sea through to Easterna and
>most of Northern Europe. The Scythians were a large family of nations with
>various groupings within, including people like the Sarmatians of Hungary and
>the Goths of Poland and Scandinavia. The name Scot is derived from the
>Latin Scythae. The "y" can be pronounced like a "u" or even "oo". So the
>modern pronounciation Scot by many Scots as "Scoot" is not far off the mark.
>According to Welsh annals, Britain was invaded on many occassions by people
>from Llychlyn, which is the Welsh name for Scandinavia. They crossed the
>Llychlynian Sea (North Sea) and came to northen Britain. At first they were
>known as "Picts", from the Latin word "Pictum" meaning "painted". This is
>because like many Scythians they were tatooed. Later some of these Picts
>migrated further to Ireland and intemarried with the people there. These
>people, still known as Scots or Scythes, migrated back to Britain in the 6th
>Century AD and settled in the West of Scotland. They were one of four distinct
>groups of people who then lived in what is now Scotland: A) The native Britons
>or Welsh (Cymry); B) Anglo-Saxons (mainly in Southeast), C) Purely Pictish
>Scythes, D) Scots from Ireland. These four groups of people merged to form one
>nation which we now call the Scots.
> The closest relatives of the Pictish-Scots are probably to be found in
>Western Sweden (the region called Western Gothland) and in Norway.Curiously,
>if you listen to Swedes from Western Gothland speaking English it is with an
>accent that is very Scottish. Scots whom I have known and who have settled in
>Sweden have less difficulty in speaking Swedish with a good accent than do
>English immigrants.
The Picts were written into the history of the British Isles by
accident. But the Picts are not just imaginary people. The Picts of
the British Isles are a mirror image of the Egyptians which were known
as Copts, Gipts (Egyptians). The Egyptians migrated to the north
(Scythia=Russia), and blended with the Scyths. In British Isles
history, the Picts migrated from the south and blended with the Scots.
The real history of the Byzantine Empire is mirrored in the history of
the British Isles, although names have been slightly altered and
chronologies don't match, but sequence of events matches quite well.
***********Begin Cut| Copy| Paste************
From Fomenko | URL:
http://univ2.omsk.su/foreign/fom/england.txt
4) The original (preimage) of Pictish (Picts, Pict = PCT) in
Byzantine Empire is quite clear. It is well-known that the
ancient name of Egypt was Copt (= CPT) or Gipt. Thus, we obtain
the immediate answer:
Picts - are Copts or Gipts (i.e., Egyptians).
By the way, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is quite right when
speaking that Picts came (in Britain - Auth.) from the country
which is in the South with respect to Scithia. Really, Egypt is
in the South with respect to the Scythia.
AND:
Picts came from the south from Scythia with warships, not
many, and landed at first in northern Ireland, and there asked
the Scots if they mights dwell there... And the Picts asked the
Scots for wives... A part of Scots went from Ireland into
Britain" ([2],p.3).
Is there any contradiction between these facts and our
identification of old English events with events of crusades
epoch of 10-12th cc. A.D. in Byzantine empire? No
contradiction! Moreover, here we see certain confirmation of our
conjecture.
(My apologies to A.T.Fomenko and G.V.Nosovskij, if I have
misrepresented or misunderstood their views.)
Dave Berntson
> The Goths themselves claim to have originated in the island of Gotland in
>the Bltic Sea but they early migrated to Poland and some of them down to the
>Black Sea. Lter they invaded the Roman Empire as Ostro-Goths and Visi-Goths.
>This is another story but it is interesting that one of the groups of people,
>said to be inhabiting Britain before the Roman invasions were the Coranians or
>Coritanni. According to the Welsh annals these people, who they regarded as
>enemies and who settled mainly around the Humber Estuary, came from Poland. It
>seems that they too were Scythians and possibly even Goths. Certainly they
>would have been related to the later Anglo-Saxons who came from Southern
>Denmark, Frisia and northern Germany. In Anglo-Saxon times, when they referred
>to Scythia they generally meant Denmark.
> You will notice that in all these migrations there is no mention of anyone
>called "Celts". That is because these people lived in Central France and never
>crossed the Channel. So-called Celtic Britain is a figment of the Victorian
>imagination.
>
mrsingerejohansson
Ed <m...@myhouse.com> skrev i inlägg <365ff665.6332144@news>...
>
> Sorry to dispel your allusions But The name Scot is derived from the
> Scotti who were Irish invaders/settlers to Caledonia(Argylle). there
> name most likely a deriverative of Queen Scota Mother of the Gaels
> who settled Ireland when the flood of Gaels came from Northern Spain.
>
<snip>
Try to read about the Greutungi and their "Camrade" first, than You have a
better understanding about what happened to Nial as being one of the Nine
Hostages way back....
Inger E Johansson BA History
<mrs.inger....@swipnet.se>
Miguel Aguirre
>
> Folks in soc.culture.nordic and soc.culture.scottish, followups are set to
> sci.archaeology, but I thought you might be interested in the idea that
> you're really Scythian:
>
I wonder if it is possible to re-dorect the discussion to a point that I
consider interesting: to what extent are the celts a 'construction' of
our modern times.
There is a tendency to call
Celtic any west European Indo-European we do not know how to call.
Sometimes it appears that everybody that was Indoeuropean in western
europe was
Celtic. If we define Celtic as the people that lost the P, -a
definition as good as any other- then the Lusitanian were not Celtic.
The inscription of Cabeco das Fraguas said "Oilam trebopala indi porcom
laebo" . This is translated normally as a dedication to a god trebopala
with offering including a pig 'porcom', the indi is assumed a copulative
particle related to the 'and' of English. The whole inscription text
appears to describe something very similar to the sus-ovis-tauro
offering of the Romans.
Old Indo-European Spain has plenty of P here and there: Pallantia,
Pisuerga, Paramus
Cantabrian and Asturian are even more archaic than Lusitanian. They
appear already pushed towards the mountains by later more advanced
Indo-Europeans, but are still considered Indo-European themselves by
most authors. Strabon left very significative lines on the backwardness
of both groups.
BTW if we define Celts as 'the people that developed from Halstat' does
it makes sense to speak of pre-Hallstat Celts? Can we put a linguistic
tag to the Urnenfelden movement? what about the even older Lausitz
culture?
Indeed Spain provides a possible confirmation of the thesis of Gimbutas
that the arrival of the Indo-Europeans to Europe was in several layers
widely separated on time. We see in Spain the latest arrived -true Celts
by any definition- of Celtiberia and Galicia, the older Lusitani and
Vaccei were at both edges of this areas but still living in 'attractive'
areas and both including P on their vocabulary. In the north mountain
chain the least civilised Asturian and Cantabrian .
Is there perhaps a reluctance by Celtists to acknowledge that the oldest
Indo-Europeans on Celtic lands were not Celtic? I guess this could be
considered even politically inconvenient because Celtic identity is very
powerful still today
--
Astearterarte arteak artean
Brian M. Scott
>Sorry to dispel your allusions But The name Scot is derived from the
>Scotti who were Irish invaders/settlers to Caledonia(Argylle). there
>name most likely a deriverative of Queen Scota Mother of the Gaels
>who settled Ireland when the flood of Gaels came from Northern Spain.
Doug Weller had written:
>>It's derived from the Late Latin Scottus.
Doug appears to be correct. The OED2 gives this etymology and then
adds:
The source of the late Latin word is obscure. There is no
evidence that it represents the native name of any
Gaelic-speaking people (the Irish Scot, an Irishman, pl.
Scuit, appears to be a learned word from Latin), nor does it
exist in Welsh, though Welshmen in writing Latin have from
the earliest times used Scoti as the rendering of Gwyddel
(Gaels). It may possibly be an adoption of a name bestowed at
an early period by Britons or Gauls on a Gaelic people (cf.
the Gaulish personal names Scottos, Scottios); Sir J. Rhys has
suggested that it may have meant 'tattooed', cogn. w. Welsh
ysgwthr a cutting, carving, or sculpturing; other conjectures
have also been offered.
Some of these other conjectures may be found in Alexander Macbain's
Etymological Dictionary of Scottish-Gaelic, recently republished by
Hippocrene Books.
Brian M. Scott
Doug Weller
04:32:00 GMT, db...@pionet.net said...
>
> The Picts were written into the history of the British Isles by
> accident. But the Picts are not just imaginary people. The Picts of
> the British Isles are a mirror image of the Egyptians which were known
> as Copts, Gipts (Egyptians). The Egyptians migrated to the north
> (Scythia=Russia), and blended with the Scyths. In British Isles
> history, the Picts migrated from the south and blended with the Scots.
> The real history of the Byzantine Empire is mirrored in the history of
> the British Isles, although names have been slightly altered and
> chronologies don't match, but sequence of events matches quite well.
>
>
rest of this. How can anyone believe this nonsense about the Byzantine
Empire? Shall we just ignore all the archaeological and historical
evidence for the Plantagenets?
Doug Weller
miguel....@wxs.nl said...
> Doug Weller wrote:
> >
> > Folks in soc.culture.nordic and soc.culture.scottish, followups are set to
> > sci.archaeology, but I thought you might be interested in the idea that
> > you're really Scythian:
> >
>
>
> I wonder if it is possible to re-dorect the discussion to a point that I
> consider interesting: to what extent are the celts a 'construction' of
> our modern times.
>
Sorry, my finger slipped before I retitled the thread. I cancelled this
immediately, but that is never fast enough!
[SNIP]
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
wrote:
>***********Begin Cut| Copy| Paste************
>From Fomenko | URL:
> http://univ2.omsk.su/foreign/fom/england.txt
>
> 4) The original (preimage) of Pictish (Picts, Pict = PCT) in
>Byzantine Empire is quite clear. It is well-known that the
>ancient name of Egypt was Copt (= CPT) or Gipt. Thus, we obtain
>the immediate answer:
> Picts - are Copts or Gipts (i.e., Egyptians).
See? Much better. This stuff *is* comical.
(A vse-taki predpochitaju Monti Paiton).
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
m...@wxs.nl
Amsterdam
Doug Weller
GMT, m...@wxs.nl said...
> >From Fomenko | URL:
> > http://univ2.omsk.su/foreign/fom/england.txt
> >
> > 4) The original (preimage) of Pictish (Picts, Pict = PCT) in
> >Byzantine Empire is quite clear. It is well-known that the
> >ancient name of Egypt was Copt (= CPT) or Gipt. Thus, we obtain
> >the immediate answer:
> > Picts - are Copts or Gipts (i.e., Egyptians).
>
>
>
no vowels!
Brian M. Scott
wrote:
[snip]
> 4) The original (preimage) of Pictish (Picts, Pict = PCT) in
>Byzantine Empire is quite clear. It is well-known that the
>ancient name of Egypt was Copt (= CPT) or Gipt. Thus, we obtain
>the immediate answer:
> Picts - are Copts or Gipts (i.e., Egyptians).
[snip]
This outdoes even Adrian's nonsense. All we need to make the party
complete is Marx c/o PAF!
Brian M. Scott
alex...@enterprise.net
miguel....@wxs.nl wrote:
>1)
>How it is possible to define the celts? are they the people that produce
>Halstat culture, so Celtic lands are the lands where there are Halstat
>culture?
>
This would not be popular with nationalists, but has the merit of being
largely verifiable. Since the attribution of an artefact to a culture is
subjective, definition of a culture by a specific set of reference sites is
more rigorous. The weakness of this would be if the reference sites contain
a mixture of cultures.
>2)
>Are the celts the people that spoke a familly of languages that are
>called Celtic by linguists? How do we reconstruct the extension of those
>areas at different points in the past? To what extent the archeological
>and linguistic label fit each other?
>
A people can change their language in two generations (for example the Manx
after 1850). The artefacts they create should change more slowly (for
example Bulgarians living in Romania in this century). Are the Jews one
culture (by faith), two cultures (Hebrew and Ge'ez) or three cultures
(Sephardic, Ashkenazi and Falasha)?
>3)
>Is celt any western european speaking a indoeuropean language that we do
>not know how to call? I think that often this 'wrong' label has been
>used without realising it by many people
>
I think we agree that this definition is wrong. Subject peoples often adopt
the language of their conquerors (as the English did in part after the
Norman Conquest).
>4)
>How the modern concept of 'celts' was invented? to what extent
>archeology has been conditioned by the 'atractive and misterious' image
>that the celts have always had?
>
Lots of over-excited attribution here. Fraser's Golden Bough may not have
helped. We need a thorough overhaul of attributions according to a
verifiable yardstick.
>5)
>To what extend is the archeology contaminated by modern nationalism?
>Celts are a part of the national heritage of some nations like the
>scotish and irish but also the british at large.
>
We see this tendency in many places including Egypt. Where a dominant
culture co-exists with other (older) cultures (as for example the English
and the Welsh, or the French and the Bretons) these attributions are highly
political.
>6)
>What we can say about non indoeuropean or indoeuropean but non celts
>substratum in the west of europe?
>
Since IndoEuropean is intrusive in Western Europe, we must ask what was
there before. The Basques have kept their language (just) but is that what
defines them as a culture?
Sincerely,
Alex Green
Ars artis est celare artem.
Jan Böhme
>
> I can't find my Cambridge
> Encyclopedia of Language, but wasn't Scythian an Iranian language?
Yes, it was.
--
Jan Böhme
jthund...@my-dejanews.com
dwe...@ramtops.demon.co.uk (Doug Weller) wrote:
> Folks in soc.culture.nordic and soc.culture.scottish, followups are set to
> sci.archaeology, but I thought you might be interested in the idea that
> you're really Scythian:
>
> GMT, so...@enterprise.net said...
> [SNIP]
>
> > >>
> > On the question of Scotland and Scythia I would add the following. As far as
> > the ancient world was concerned, Scythia was a very large area of the world
> > stretching from southern Russia and the Caspian Sea through to Easterna and
> > most of Northern Europe. The Scythians were a large family of nations with
> > various groupings within, including people like the Sarmatians of Hungary and
> > Latin Scythae.
>
> > the Coranians or Coritanni. ... they too were Scythians and possibly even Goths.
> > In Anglo-Saxon times, when they referred
> > to Scythia they generally meant Denmark.
> > You will notice that in all these migrations there is no mention of anyone
> > called "Celts". That is because these people lived in Central France and never
> > crossed the Channel. So-called Celtic Britain is a figment of the Victorian
> > imagination.
>
> We should in any case be talking about Celtic culture and Celtic speaking
> peoples. Pictish is almost certainly Celtic (although a few linguists
> have claimed a pre-IndoEuropean element. I can't find my Cambridge
> Encyclopedia of Language, but wasn't Scythian an Iranian language?
>
> Doug
Hey Doug - - - long time no fuss ....
With my -=Scythian WebRing=- going, it's hard for me to pass this one up.
Sure, the Scythians of classical times spoke an Iranian language close to
Farsi. But I don't do ancient languages much, it's a study too time-consuming
for my tastes.
I posit a close connection between the Scythians and the Celts on the
basis of mortuary practices common to both, on the same basis, and
using many of the same markers, that I earlier used to identify the
Scythians as a relict proto-Indo-European culture. Burial customs are
a very conservative cultural trait in general. Particularly, unique types
of burial customs may be taken to indicate the survival of some religious
complex, or even a specific religion. I used the style of brazier common
to the proto-Indo-Europeans and Scythian burials, as historically
documented in Herodotus, to infer that the proto-Indo-Europeans and
the much later Scythians also shared the substance-mediated marijuana
worship which used that brazier as a ritual object. I don't have evidence
of a Celtic connection with that particular artifact, but hemp was certainly
cultivated in early Britain as elsewhere in Europe and Asia, in many cases
predating cereal agriculture. It's silly to say they didn't inhale.
Saying the British Isles had no Celts is quibbling. Romans aren't very
reliable sources about other people's history and customs, in the first
place. Doug is perfectly correct to use the term in the broader context
in which it is generally understood. The word Yankees may have first
meant New Yorkers, but now is understood to refer to inhabitants of
New England in distinction to New Yorkers, so today New Yorkers are
not Yankees. Of course, here in the South we use the term in a broader
sense to refer to the enemy North, including Ohio, Pennsylvania and
Indiana, and inhabitants of other polar regions. Thus the term Scythians
refers to the Pazorik of the Altai, but not exclusively those people.
Ancient peoples could see broad generalities of culture as well as we,
and quite properly used inclusive labels for peoples who belonged
together.
The observation that the Celts and the Scythians had a lot in common
is astute, even excluding languages. It is meaningful in relation to
religious preferences, which can be discerned in broad patterns of
artifact associations, though specific type artifacts such as the
marijuana smoking brazier are a rare bonanza. However, I think we
have not been looking early enough to establish a definitive connection.
The fact that some people were called Celts after a certain time, and
other people were called Scythians after a certain time, doesn't mean
these people didn't have ancestors, ideological as well as genetic and
linguistic. What we can say for sure is that these ancestors knew each
other. That seems a modest enough statement, though not without
significance.
Being too exclusive in our categories risks arbitrary exclusion of
related material, which can lead to excluding meaning. In the end,
meaning is what the quest for knowledge is all about.
Religiously,
Johnny Thunderbird
Ode to the Scythians
http://www.geocities.com/~jthunderbird/scythian.html