Posted on 12/20/2003 9:18:19 AM PST by blam
This site has more information: Parisi details.
I could have lived forever without that information! Now I must die. :)
Henri Hubert, while interesting, can be tough slogging at times. His traditional approach, while a good summary of the thinking of the early part of this century, now seems to be dated. This quote from the Introduction to the reprint of his "The Greatness and Decline of the Celts" is enlightening about his perspective:
"In the 60 years since the death of Hubert our knowledge of the Celts, their language, and the civilization has increased considerably and become more discriminating. The picure of wandering hordes of richly caparisoned warriors which Hubert gives us, while it has not been altogether abandoned, is now seen to be only part of the reality of Celtic civilization...".
I would suggest that even this Intro writer (also a Celtic Scholar) expansive perspective on the Celts is out of date in view of the flurry of Celtic finds and their interpretation since the 1934 book was reprinted in 1987.
Sorry about that! Historic facts can sometimes be a real bitch when it comes to destroying fantasies and fairy tales entrenched in tradition. {ggg}.
You are just trying to distract me while I am trying to kill off my french genes! :)
Digging around I found my 1993 reprint of this book. On a quick skim it reminded me of my earlier impressions. While he does a nice job of encapsulating traditional Celtic theory to that time (1934), every historical or philosophical construct evolves from some very basic premises. His very respectable (but now outdated) premise was that the Celts came from somewhere in central Europe. As a result, his related historical assumptions and conclusions are based around that premise, including his length linguistic analysis. Also his handling of the so called Proto Celts or Pre Celts or Early Celts.
Many recent archeological finds, including one spoken of here earlier and detailed in the New York Times on Christmas day several years ago powerfully suggest the Celts actually originated in Turkey, or Iraq, or north of the Black Sea, or east of the Caspian sea, or from the Caucasus Mountains, or all of the above. The "relocation" of the birthplace of the Celts in one stroke outdates several generations of reluctant authors and their books.
It is dated and I'm having trouble reading it. (I may just quit)
The archaeologic finds of human skeletons with evidence of sacrificial rites is of note.
Looks like the Galatians needed salvation, indeed. Thank God for Paul, thank God for Patrick.
IMHO many professional linguists live in a world quite removed from the history they seek to explain and the archeology which supports the history. Reliance on their constructs tends to obscure or even ignore the realities of history when it doesn't support their constructs. Linguistics is a tiny tail trying to wag a big dog.
Good find! That's the NYT article I mentioned.
If I found them, those coins would have been listed on eBay that evening.
Actually, that would be a very likely spot.
The Celts had been driven out of Macedonia back to the Danube by Alexander the Great and Lysimachus. When they invaded Macedonia again in 279 B.C. the Celts were again defeated by Macedonia.
The following year, King Nicomedes of Bithynia invited the defeated Celts,with their wives and children, into what is now Turkey as mercenaries in his war against Antiochos I. That established the Celts in what is now Turkey.
These Celts numbered 20,000 men, women, and children. They were divided into three tribes, the Tolistobogii, the Tectosages, and the Trocmi and were led by the chieftains Leonorius and Lutorius. These Celts and their descendents became the "Galatians" of Anatolia (Turkey).
As the Helenistic Kings waged war upon each other, they employed these Celtic "barbarian" merceneries and the Celts also engaged in pillaging raids of their own against Hellenistic cities in Anatolia.
Attalos I, King of Pergamum, defeated the Anatolian Celts in two battles between 235 and 225 BC and the victory was commemorated by a monument that included the sculpture "Dying Gaul" which depicted a dying Celtic warrior dressed in nothing but his Celtic neck torque.
In 191 B.C., Rome, as an ally of Pergammon, was at war with the Seleucid King Antiochus III and his Galatian Celtic merceneraies. After the defeat of Antiochus III, the Roman general Manlius Vulso further punished the Galatian Celts by invading their territory and defeating them in two battles. Thousands of Galatian Celts were sold into slavery in the aftermath.
The Galatian lived rather peacefully until King Mithridates IV of Pontus revolted against Rome in 88 B.C. Mithridates invited 60 Galatian chiefs to Pergammon and executed all of them except 3 who escaped. This event consolidated Galatian leadership and drove Galatia to become a protectorate of Rome in 85 B.C.
After that, the Galtians were Romanized and the fate of the Galtians was tied to the fate of Rome.
In Britain, when a find is historically important, it can be classiffied as "Treasure Trove". That means that the Government has the right to the find but it also means the Government has to pay you full market value.
The process is kept fair for the very reason that, if finders are cheated, they will keep their finds secret to sell secretly at market value instead of notifying the Government.
It's a good deal all around. The public gets to see the finds at a museum and the finder gets his money.
Some believe they were the original Egyptians too.
Yes, and it was to these Galatians that Paul wrote his "Letter to the Galatians". Celts. "Gentiles". Israelites from the Northern Tribes I believe, exiled to adjacent Iraq not long before, then "lost".
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