1. M
AIDEN
C
ASTLE
The hillfort in Dorset is the best preserved of more than 3,000 Iron Age settlements in Britain, but is somewhat misnamed. The man-made hill was never primarily a fort nor was it ever a castle. The ‘maiden’ derives from the early British
mai dun
: great hill.
2. T
ARA
County Meath’s celebrated hill may never have been the court of early Irish epic or the palace of nineteenth-century romance, but it was long a centre of religious ceremony sacred to Medb, considered a goddess in pre-Christian time.
3. T
HE
C
OLIGNY
C
ALENDAR
These bronze first-century
BC
plates contain the oldest writing in any Celtic language. The sixteen columns represent a five-year cycle, complete with calendar festivals and days thought to bring good or ill fortune.
4. H
ALLSTATT
E
XCAVATIONS
The discovery in 1846 of this early Iron Age cemetery in Upper Austria confirmed the existence of assuredly Celtic culture that predated the Romans. This is just one of a series of detailed illustrations that were made of the burials there. ’Hallstatt’ now denotes the style of an epoch of Celtic art.
5.
T
HE
B
OOK OF
D
URROW
This illuminated manuscript of the Gospels was created
c
.660–680: more than a century and a quarter before the better-known
Book of Kells
. The book was found at Durrow, County Offaly, Ireland, and its distinctive artwork, especially the rondels, is a legacy from pre-Christian tradition.
6. T
HE
B
ATTERSEA
S
HIELD
Red glass inlays on copper facing distinguish this shield found in the Thames at Battersea. The shield is of uncertain date (100
BC
–
AD
100?) and its outline identical to those from elsewhere in the Celtic world.
7. T
HE
G
UNDESTRUP
C
AULDRON
Although perhaps constructed in the Balkans (fourth to third centuries
BC
?) and found in Denmark, the silver vessel embraces the richest display of early Celtic iconography that we have. It stands 14 inches tall, lies 25.5 inches in diameter and holds 28.5 gallons.
8. G
UNDESTRUP
D
ETAIL
: C
ERNUNNOS
An antlered divinity is widely known in pre-Roman Celtic Europe, but his name survives from only one inscription. He is seen here in the conventional half-lotus pose with two tores, one around his neck and the other in his hand.
9. G
UNDESTRUP
D
ETAIL
: H
UMAN
S
ACRIFICE OR
R
EBIRTH
This may represent Teutates, one of the three principal divinities of Gaul, who, according to Roman commentary, accepted drowned human victims. But perhaps this scene depicts a dead man about to be regenerated through immersion.
10. G
UNDESTRUP
D
ETAIL
: T
ARANIS
Wheel symbolism, conventionally associated with the sun, predates the Celts at Hallstatt by half a millennium, but continues in Celtic iconography. Taranis, the Gaulish god of thunder, often seen with wheel imagery, may be depicted in this panel.
11. T
HE
G
OD
S
UCELLUS
