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| 0:00 | · | even after 2,000 years a mythical Celtic world still grips the popular |
| 0:06 | · | imagination but I think very few people understand who the Kelts actually were |
| 0:11 | · | or what their legacy truly is |
| 0:18 | · | if you ask most people they'd probably say the Kelts lived in Ireland Scotland and Wales their descendants are the kind |
| 0:24 | · | of people you might spot at traditional Highland Games in Scotland some people |
| 0:30 | · | have no doubts about being a keelt are you a keelt yes simple answer yes |
| 0:37 | · | definitely i just see myself as a Scotsman |
| 0:43 | · | any nation that had a a strong clan set up i mean that I think that's where where you find the Kels clan is a Gaelic |
| 0:51 | · | word for children here in Scotland it means a tribal family you know and I think a Scot and a Kelt are very similar |
| 0:58 | · | things although I think there's Kelts and Wales in Ireland as well isn't there |
| 1:04 | · | i can't speak for the what is a cult but I can speak for there's a lot of pride in Wales that's why we're in the St |
| 1:11 | · | david's Kilt and we're proud of our language you know and uh many many gaval |
| 1:16 | · | about a devotto we're going to look after everything in the future so a cult is someone living on the |
| 1:21 | · | fringes of the British Isles who has red hair wears a tartan kilt and speaks a |
| 1:26 | · | Celtic language like Welsh or Gaelic but then these people also |
| 1:33 | · | believe they're upholding Celtic tradition not a Scottish or a Welsh one but a British one there's not a kilt or |
| 1:40 | · | Cber in sight as these modern-day druids celebrate the autumn equinox |
| 1:47 | · | gamlen i feel that Celtic is a culture that was |
| 1:56 | · | absorbed by the people of this land during the Iron Age and the Druids were |
| 2:02 | · | really part of that culture bounty of the boundless heavens here our Celtic |
| 2:08 | · | heritage is thought to be pagan British and essentially spiritual people see it |
| 2:14 | · | as poetic artistic having an awareness that um |
| 2:20 | · | certain parts of the landscape um held certain spirits certain deities |
| 2:27 | · | the spirits of waterfalls and springs and streams for instance i think this |
| 2:33 | · | really captures people's imagination these modern-day druids believe they are |
| 2:38 | · | connecting with a mystical Celtic past and the pagan spirits of the earth spirits of the west to which our |
| 2:47 | · | ancestors used to sacrifice in the streams the rivers the lakes and in the |
| 2:54 | · | bogs where the water meets the earth hail and welcome hail and welcome |
| 3:01 | · | [Music] [Applause] but hang on before we buy into this idea |
| 3:09 | · | of the Kelts as simply pagan let's not overlook the X factor in Ireland |
| 3:14 | · | possibly the place we most associate with the Kelts there's a whole other Celtic legacy not pagan but |
| 3:22 | · | Christian and if there's one thing that really shouts Celtic it's a priceless treasure locked away in Trinity College |
| 3:29 | · | Dublin so it's very much a Georgian building now the first floor there is called the long room and it houses one |
| 3:35 | · | of the most beautiful and indeed valuable artifacts from the early Christian period it's known as the book of Kels now the book of Kel is basically |
| 3:42 | · | a transcription of the four gospels but it's decorated in a very ornate high Celtic style made by Irish monks in the |
| 3:49 | · | 9th century the book of Kels can still stagger us with its beauty its swirling patterns and |
| 3:56 | · | intricate knotwork define the very look we recognize today as Celtic art |
| 4:02 | · | a style now so familiar that it's a Celtic cliche seen on tea towels and |
| 4:08 | · | jewelry across the world |
| 4:16 | · | [Music] [Applause] |
| 4:23 | · | and here in Ireland there's another cliche that there's a special kind of character that's uniquely Celtic it's |
| 4:29 | · | all about hospitality drinking music and the gift of the |
| 4:35 | · | gab it seems to me that people can claim a Celtic link to confirm all kinds of |
| 4:40 | · | things a passionate national identity a romantic pagan past even a deep |
| 4:47 | · | Christian spirituality but what does any of this have to do with the ancient |
| 4:53 | · | Kelts i want to reveal the true story of the Kelts and discover why their world |
| 4:59 | · | still evokes such passion today my quest starts here in the long |
| 5:06 | · | room in Trinity College Dublin its library walls are stacked with manuscripts and translations of ancient |
| 5:12 | · | Roman and Greek texts they were copied by hand by the same monks who created |
| 5:17 | · | the book of Kels in these books are my first clues to the origins of the ancient Celtic |
| 5:23 | · | world i've just found this book written by the Greek historian Heroditus the so-called father of history and has a |
| 5:30 | · | very interesting passage that river flows from the land of the Keeltoy and the city of Pini through the very midst |
| 5:37 | · | of Europe now the Keeltoy dwell beyond the pillars of Hercules now this is one |
| 5:42 | · | of the very first mentions of the word Kelt in history but Heroditus was also |
| 5:48 | · | called the father of lies because not everything he said was true so I need to go to Europe to look for the |
| 5:53 | · | archaeological evidence of these ancient peoples we call the |
| 5:59 | · | Kelts the word Kelt was first used by the Greeks 2 and a half thousand years |
| 6:04 | · | ago the people they wrote about didn't live in the British Isles but at the head of the river Danube in Germany |
| 6:13 | · | to uncover the secret history of the Celtic world I'm embarking on an epic 4,000-mi journey i'm traveling in the |
| 6:21 | · | footsteps of the ancient Kelts across the heart of Europe the Kelts had no written language |
| 6:27 | · | so we only know what the Greeks and Romans said about them they said they were primitive and barbaric they were |
| 6:33 | · | head hunters with a passion for heavy drinking and savage religious practices like human sacrifice |
| 6:41 | · | this couldn't be further from today's romantic picture of the Kelts i'm going to have to separate fact from |
| 6:51 | · | fantasy but my journey to find them doesn't start in Wales or Ireland but in |
| 6:56 | · | Germany i have to go back 2 and a half thousand years to a time when the Kelts |
| 7:01 | · | were masters of Europe the Romans described the Kelts as |
| 7:06 | · | warlike and barbaric but it was the Greeks that first wrote about them in the 6th century |
| 7:13 | · | BC they wrote of a people called the Caltoy who lived in a place called Purena on the upper reaches of the river |
| 7:20 | · | Danube i've come here to the heart of Germany |
| 7:26 | · | to a place where archaeologists have spent 20 years uncovering the site of a massive Iron Age hill fort it's called |
| 7:34 | · | the Haneyberg and it was occupied in the 6th century BC the same period as the |
| 7:40 | · | world of classical Greece the Hoyerberg doesn't look like |
| 7:45 | · | the home of a barbarian tribe it's a huge walled settlement this reconstruction is only a fraction of the |
| 7:52 | · | original but it is in exactly the right place to be Purina |
| 7:57 | · | so do you think this is the town that the Greeks mentioned the first Celtic |
| 8:02 | · | town in history yeah I think so that this is uh this town Purina mentioned by |
| 8:08 | · | Herodot and he uh talk about uh town at the in the land of the Kels in the |
| 8:16 | · | region of the upper Denube and I think that this is the Hornborg |
| 8:22 | · | Honeyberg's location isn't the only evidence the unique way these original walls were made shows that the people |
| 8:29 | · | here were in touch with the Greeks The construction of the wall is really a |
| 8:36 | · | Greek wall we don't know if it was the Kelts who built up the the wall or if |
| 8:41 | · | they had Greek craftsmen who did the work and also the the planning and the construction so you're saying that the |
| 8:48 | · | the cults basically copied the Greek way of building here yes they copied or |
| 8:54 | · | maybe they had Greek craftsmen who built up the wall here in this place so it's |
| 9:00 | · | in the right place may have been built by the Greeks so it's it's very good evidence that in fact this is the place |
| 9:08 | · | yeah this is Pyina it was farming that created the wealth |
| 9:14 | · | to import luxury goods from Greece into these early Celtic |
| 9:19 | · | chieftdoms there's no evidence of war at Hoyenberg the massive walls weren't for |
| 9:24 | · | defense they were painted white and would have been visible from miles away they were a status symbol |
| 9:32 | · | so 2 and a half thousand years old and it's still standing yes as more of the site is uncovered |
| 9:39 | · | there is mounting evidence of trade with the Greek world what makes you think that this is the place that Heroditus |
| 9:46 | · | mentions in his book because it's u an important hill for also we have Greek |
| 9:52 | · | findings here we have Greek ceramics and Greek wine emperoras which were imported |
| 9:59 | · | here in this uh at this site here we have Greek ceramics was |
| 10:05 | · | imported directly from Asence classical Greece was a wealthy consumer |
| 10:12 | · | society and the barbarian north was rich in raw materials |
| 10:17 | · | we also have proof for textile production here in the settlement we found a lot of these |
| 10:23 | · | artifacts you see it's in spinning yes in exchange for textiles and |
| 10:30 | · | manufactured items these cults imported luxury goods from Greece and there was nothing more important to them than wine |
| 10:39 | · | then we have jewelry for example a bronze uh bracelet okay and these |
| 10:45 | · | artifacts were fabricated here at the site far from being home to barbarians |
| 10:51 | · | this ancient Celtic town was a hive of industrial activity weaving textiles |
| 10:57 | · | firing ceramics and casting highquality metal work |
| 11:02 | · | so why did they choose this particular location i think it's the situation near the river Danup and the river Danube is |
| 11:10 | · | an important trading line through Europe so the cults were middlemen so that was |
| 11:15 | · | the prehistoric water barn really yes the Dub River yes |
| 11:20 | · | [Music] the word Kelt was first used by the Greeks to describe many of the northern |
| 11:26 | · | barbarian tribes it is unlikely that most of them called themselves that the |
| 11:31 | · | name Kelt was used in the same way as the word Indian was used to describe all the native tribes of North America so |
| 11:39 | · | what kind of people were they to find out I have come to the most spectacular burial of this early Celtic period in |
| 11:47 | · | 1978 a remarkable discovery was made beneath a field a 100 miles to the north |
| 11:52 | · | of Hoyerberg on the outskirts of a town called |
| 12:01 | · | Hawkdorf this is the Hawkdorf prince i'm now face to face with my first ancient |
| 12:07 | · | Kelt but this is not a warrior's grave the only weapon here is a small iron |
| 12:14 | · | dagger decorated with gold this Celtic prince is laid out in |
| 12:21 | · | luxury on a Greekstyle bronze couch covered with furs and fabrics around his |
| 12:26 | · | neck is a golden torque and on his head he wore a strange conicle hat made of |
| 12:32 | · | birchbark all about him lay the trappings of immense wealth and power a |
| 12:38 | · | four-wheel decorated wagon was laden with feasting and drinking equipment and in one corner stood an |
| 12:45 | · | enormous Greek cauldron that could hold 70 gallons of wine this prince took his |
| 12:51 | · | entertaining very seriously indeed [Music] |
| 13:00 | · | this spectacular array of goods and equipment gives us a unique portrait of |
| 13:05 | · | the life of an ancient Celtic prince |
| 13:10 | · | the deceased chief was laid on on this chariot and was carried into his tomb |
| 13:17 | · | and this iron masterpiece is really unique they were really very very |
| 13:22 | · | elaborate in blacksmith working what can this breathtaking grave tell us |
| 13:27 | · | about the early Celtic world in central Europe well it tells us that he had |
| 13:33 | · | international contacts that he was part of uh these cultures around the |
| 13:38 | · | Mediterranean world that they could exchange ideas that they could exchange |
| 13:44 | · | goods and all you can see here his signs of power as a chief of this tribe uh in |
| 13:53 | · | Hawk so it's really like a a throne except you lie down on it instead of sit |
| 13:58 | · | on a huge bronze throne or a a throne where you lay it on as the Greeks did in |
| 14:04 | · | this time my first cult isn't a head-hunting warrior at all he's a cultured diplomat |
| 14:12 | · | in touch with the most advanced people of the ancient world the Greeks he traded in Greek goods and probably Greek |
| 14:19 | · | ideas too so what was it that made people like the prince rich it was the new iron age it |
| 14:28 | · | was the iron itself they were mining the iron and with the |
| 14:33 | · | iron started a totally new dimension in trading with the Greeks with the Greeks so we |
| 14:40 | · | can really say this is the beginning of the Celtic world in central Europe |
| 14:47 | · | so I found the first Kelts the city of Purina and a Celtic prince but neither |
| 14:52 | · | match classical descriptions of barbaric Kelts nor do they seem to have much in common with our present-day notions of |
| 14:59 | · | Celticness except that the Hawkdolf prince was clearly a bit of a drinker |
| 15:04 | · | archaeology reveals that 50 years after the death of the Hawkdorf prince the old Celtic settlements of central Germany |
| 15:11 | · | suddenly vanished something had changed a new Celtic society was emerging and |
| 15:17 | · | power shifted to the west to find the evidence I have to head to the most famous Celtic site in |
| 15:24 | · | [Music] Europe i'm here on the shores of Lake |
| 15:31 | · | Newhatel in Switzerland today it's a simple holiday resort but more than |
| 15:36 | · | 2,000 years ago it was a site of ritual offering and sacrifice and it was to |
| 15:43 | · | coin the international brand name of the Celtic world a name synonymous with both |
| 15:49 | · | beauty and with violence this is |
| 15:54 | · | [Music] Laten in the fifth century the waterfront at Laten was neither cemetery |
| 16:00 | · | nor settlement it was a sacred religious site for the ancient Kelts water was the |
| 16:08 | · | gateway between this world and the next it was here they offered tribute with |
| 16:14 | · | their most precious [Music] |
| 16:19 | · | possessions in 1857 the Swiss archaeologist stumbled on a huge horde |
| 16:25 | · | of Celtic offerings preserved in the muddy floor of the lake bed now stored |
| 16:30 | · | in this vault it is a snapshot of a new Celtic world at the peak of its power |
| 16:37 | · | this is a pretty big door you must have some treasure in of course it's a treasure of the past |
| 16:44 | · | more than 2 and a half thousand objects were recovered they would make the name Laten forever associated with the Celtic |
| 16:52 | · | world so this is all from Latin yes it's all |
| 16:57 | · | from the site of Latin hundreds of pieces of iron and tools in wood so is |
| 17:05 | · | this a typical Latin shield yes it's typical Latin shield can I hold this yes |
| 17:12 | · | uh take it good in the hand voila it's amazing to think that we can |
| 17:18 | · | actually hold this today what is astonishing for the pieces of |
| 17:24 | · | Latin that they were not broken or destroyed and so the sword's still in it |
| 17:31 | · | and and it looked like as as new the most striking feature of this new |
| 17:36 | · | Celtic culture was the amount of weaponry finally decorated with a distinctive art style but the decoration |
| 17:43 | · | here is very very very fine the decorations all these swirling lines |
| 17:49 | · | coming here is this the typical Latin style yes uh of course this is curving |
| 17:54 | · | lines the finds at Laten mark the beginning of the swirling patterns that we have now come to recognize as |
| 18:01 | · | distinctively Celtic the magical and symbolic reworking of animal plant and |
| 18:06 | · | spiral designs would define the international Celtic look for centuries |
| 18:11 | · | it's astonishing that a society without writing was able to produce such geometrically complex works of |
| 18:20 | · | art but from the lake bed at Latin came other more grizzly finds among the |
| 18:25 | · | swords and shields was found evidence of human sacrifice we have found a series of skulls mhm and |
| 18:33 | · | uh the question are these people dead by an accident or killed by sacrifice |
| 18:42 | · | we have found one with the rope on on the site of Latena in in the 19th |
| 18:47 | · | century so you know that people were sacrificed or at least executed probably |
| 18:52 | · | they have had some problems some problems that's a big problem |
| 18:59 | · | human sacrifice and ritual offerings went handinhand with this new warrior culture i'm now beginning to recognize |
| 19:06 | · | these cults or ghouls as they were called by the Romans they were warrior tribes highly ambitious and mobile and |
| 19:13 | · | Europe was ripe for a takeover archaeology shows that by the 4th |
| 19:18 | · | century BC Latin Celtic culture had spread rapidly from central Europe into |
| 19:24 | · | the Balkans in Italy and westward to Spain and France i want a taste of this warrior |
| 19:31 | · | culture so I've come to meet a group of German archaeologists whose mission it is to bring the Celtic world to life as |
| 19:38 | · | authentically as possible so here's a chain mail thanks |
| 19:45 | · | is the old member of the team the first thing I must do is to dress the part of an authentic Celtic warrior |
| 19:52 | · | and what's the choice chalk or train it let me have a think |
| 19:58 | · | before 300 BC most Celtic warriors preferred to fight naked in battle their |
| 20:04 | · | only defense was body paint a shield and trust in their gods i think I'll go for |
| 20:09 | · | this chamber chamber okay the most important thing a Celtic warrior had to wear was the torque it |
| 20:16 | · | looks brilliant then is the sure sign of a Celtic nobleman |
| 20:22 | · | yeah looks fine it's a bit ostentatious the Romans described the Kelts as |
| 20:28 | · | superstitious and the wearing of the talk may have had a religious significance after centuries of fighting |
| 20:34 | · | war was a cultural thing for the Kelts but it was also an income celtic warriors had such a reputation that they |
| 20:40 | · | were in high demand as mercenaries the main weapon for the Kelts was the |
| 20:46 | · | lance it was a really lethal weapon you see it's quite sharp the most important |
| 20:51 | · | defense weapon for the Kelts is the big shield and how strong would it be against against a spear yeah it's |
| 20:58 | · | um spear doesn't come through |
| 21:03 | · | the weapon for the nobleman is a sword of course see |
| 21:12 | · | Celtic warfare was all about drama and display one of the most terrifying |
| 21:18 | · | sounds on the battlefield was made by the boreheaded war [Music] |
| 21:25 | · | carnics scores of these war trumpets would be sounded to instill fear into the enemy |
| 21:34 | · | bit of psychological warfare there make them all laugh and then kill them |
| 21:41 | · | [Music] that's as good as it gets the Romans |
| 21:48 | · | describe Celtic battle tactics as simple but effective first the enemy was taunted |
| 21:57 | · | imagine 10,000 of cats doing this quite impressive I think yes the bravest warriors would then charge forward |
| 22:04 | · | [Applause] the whole force would then rush the |
| 22:10 | · | enemy trying to make them panic and run and if it didn't work the first time |
| 22:16 | · | they'd simply walk back and start all over |
| 22:22 | · | again we tend to think of the cults as underdogs people who would easily have been pushed aside by superior Roman |
| 22:30 | · | technology but this just wasn't true celtic technology was originally more advanced in many ways than that of |
| 22:36 | · | Greece or Rome the chain mail I'm wearing was a Celtic invention of the 4th century BC and use of iron nails |
| 22:44 | · | would revolutionize Celtic ship building techniques with their swords iron wield |
| 22:50 | · | chariots and metal horseshoes the Kelts led military campaigns against neighboring tribes and even against the |
| 22:57 | · | Greeks and Romans in 390 BC Celtic tribes sacked an |
| 23:04 | · | expanding citystate called Rome [Music] |
| 23:12 | · | the Romans would steal lots of ideas from the Kelts but there was one Celtic practice that really appalled them head |
| 23:19 | · | hunting there we are take this back to England the Romans said that the Kelts kept |
| 23:26 | · | human heads both as trophies and as offerings to their gods a Celtic shrine |
| 23:31 | · | just like this one was found in southern France so this is a a shrine but it seems a bit |
| 23:38 | · | shocking to people today that you have skulls as part of your religion what |
| 23:44 | · | does it mean maybe it was a part of a religion so the Kelts was a head hunters they go in the war and cut their heads |
| 23:49 | · | from the enemies and then they bring it home and they build special houses and they take it inside so it's like |
| 23:57 | · | trophies yeah it's like a trophies and now touch this ring and feel the |
| 24:03 | · | spirit of Celtic way of life thank you the early Kelts were far more than |
| 24:09 | · | simple barbarians they were technically advanced rich and powerful and their |
| 24:15 | · | complex cultures stretched from Spain to Turkey but what I want to find out is |
| 24:22 | · | did the Kelts deserve their barbaric reputation or was it Roman propaganda to |
| 24:28 | · | find the evidence i've come to northern France to the battlefields of the |
| 24:33 | · | SO the landscape here is littered with the bones of thousands of unknown warriors from the First World |
| 24:40 | · | War and it was during that conflict that soldiers digging trenches at Reemore |
| 24:46 | · | stumbled upon the remains of a much earlier conflict |
| 24:51 | · | they found the bones of men aged from 15 to 40 years old all bearing the marks of |
| 24:57 | · | violent trauma they had unearthed the Celtic War Memorial on the site of a battle in |
| 25:03 | · | which thousands of warriors had fought and many had died this was no ordinary |
| 25:12 | · | shrine and what it reveals gives us a remarkable insight into the Celtic world's attitude towards war and death |
| 25:20 | · | [Music] we can say that there were hundreds of |
| 25:25 | · | warriors killed more or less 500 died it was a huge battle the battle was fought |
| 25:32 | · | around 280 BC between two waring Celtic tribes |
| 25:37 | · | the defeated warriors were a Britany tribe called Armorans the victorious warriors were |
| 25:43 | · | called Amborn that's to say a Belgian tribe in the 3rd century BC Europe's |
| 25:51 | · | Celtic tribes were jostling for territory despite the culture they shared they were much more likely to be |
| 25:57 | · | fighting each other than cooperating there are hundreds of slain |
| 26:03 | · | warriors here both victors and vanquished but there is something missing there are no heads there's not a |
| 26:10 | · | single skull amongst the thousands of bones is this evidence that what the |
| 26:15 | · | Romans said about beheading was true |
| 26:21 | · | we have in Reebour found some neck vertebrae which show signs of cutting by a knife which is evidence of |
| 26:32 | · | beheading at Reeber no skulls remain because they were all taken back to the victor's villages as trophies and |
| 26:39 | · | memorials what puzzled the archaeologist was not just the beheading but the curious way the bones were scattered on |
| 26:46 | · | the ground a ritual had taken place after the bodies were decapitated |
| 26:53 | · | [Music] they were transported from the battlefield and displayed as a Celtic war trophy above the ground for several |
| 27:02 | · | years the headless bodies of the vanquished were hung with their weapons on wooden frames when they had rotted |
| 27:10 | · | and fallen to the floor the bones were crushed and burnt the bodies of the |
| 27:15 | · | victor's dead were treated differently their bones were neatly stacked together to form an |
| 27:23 | · | [Music] altar and we think that this construction represents a kind of shrine |
| 27:29 | · | built from crisscrossing human bones then the ashes from defeated warriors |
| 27:34 | · | corpses were placed in the center of the altar in order to honor their gods |
| 27:40 | · | it's little wonder the Romans were horrified by such savage practices but to the Kelts it all made perfect sense |
| 27:49 | · | [Music] i think that the Kelts were not savages or barbarians quite the opposite in fact |
| 27:56 | · | in fact Kelts were very religious they treated the remains of their enemy with the same religious |
| 28:03 | · | respect that they treated their own warriors corpses |
| 28:09 | · | the discoveries at Reebon confirm that the cults placed a spiritual value on the human head what the Romans thought |
| 28:15 | · | were savage acts of brutality were actually part of a complex religious |
| 28:22 | · | system archaeology shows that by 200 BC Gaul had stabilized the Celtic tribes |
| 28:29 | · | had put down roots and have begun to build permanent towns |
| 28:35 | · | i've come 300 miles south to Koral this was home to another powerful tribe |
| 28:40 | · | called the Averie excavations here are revealing |
| 28:46 | · | evidence of a highly complex culture a society still obsessed with human |
| 28:52 | · | sacrifice but now becoming entwined with power and politics |
| 28:57 | · | although it looks like we're going to have a party I've actually come to Coral to reenact a sacrificial beheading the |
| 29:04 | · | best the best wine we could find yeah but it won't be a human victim it will be a wine emperor |
| 29:11 | · | so we're doing a bit of experimental archaeology here going back over 2,000 years and I'm going to do my first wine |
| 29:19 | · | sacrifice coral was a meeting place for Celtic tribes in Gaul it was here that |
| 29:25 | · | diplomatic gifts and favors would be exchanged evidence of this lavish hospitality is scattered everywhere |
| 29:33 | · | we've got many many emperor pieces uh each emperor about 20 liters and on the |
| 29:40 | · | whole side we've got thousand of them how did they get all this wine what did |
| 29:45 | · | they exchange for the wine ancient text says one emperor one slave that's quite |
| 29:52 | · | expensive wine isn't it it's very expensive that's human life the Kelts unlike the Romans and Greeks |
| 29:59 | · | drank their wine undiluted greek and Roman traders were |
| 30:07 | · | horrified by this practice that's really barbarians that |
| 30:13 | · | not mix wine with water wine was precious because it |
| 30:18 | · | symbolized a blood sacrifice but how exactly do you sacrifice wine |
| 30:25 | · | we can see that smash with a with a sword with a sword afra were sacrificed |
| 30:33 | · | so they didn't just take the cork out no no that's a substitute for human sacrifice because when you the capital |
| 30:40 | · | the empra the wines comes out like blood like animal or human blood |
| 30:48 | · | at special feasts the floor of the sanctuary at Cororon was strewn with decapitated amphori scattered around |
| 30:54 | · | sunken pools of wine as serious drinkers the cults brought hospitality to new |
| 31:00 | · | levels of endurance but Koron wasn't just for parties it had a serious |
| 31:05 | · | function as a place of diplomacy and politics here they even minted their own |
| 31:10 | · | currency a wine emperor hasn't been sacrificed on this site for over 2,000 years until now |
| 31:19 | · | right here mhm |
| 31:30 | · | have a glass of wine in the Celtic world nothing is quite what it seems head |
| 31:36 | · | hunting and sacrifice weren't simply evidence of Celtic brutality they were part of a complex religious |
| 31:43 | · | world for the Averie tribe a blood sacrifice would soon become all too real |
| 31:49 | · | when they chose to oppose the Roman invasion in 58 |
| 31:54 | · | BC from the ranks of the Averie tribe would come the Celtic world's most tragic leader Versing Gety the Gaul |
| 32:05 | · | at the start of the 1st century BC Gaul was becoming increasingly romanized |
| 32:11 | · | centuries of trading had introduced a way of life not so different from the Roman just how sophisticated had Celtic |
| 32:18 | · | society become to find out I've come north to Bibbra surrounded by its formidable |
| 32:26 | · | ramparts Bibbra was the capital of the Adwi they were one of the most powerful |
| 32:31 | · | tribes in Gaul well Richard we've just entered Bibbra just passing through one of the 15 gates |
| 32:39 | · | of this very important town of the first century BC bibbra's 5 km defensive wall was a |
| 32:46 | · | huge engineering achievement but it was more for show than practical defense |
| 32:52 | · | so what does this tell us about the Kelts this it tells sever different things giving the scale of this of this |
| 32:59 | · | fortification just 5 kilometers 15 gates it's huge it shows that there was high |
| 33:05 | · | level of organization so that means there in this there was an authority with enough power to force hundreds of |
| 33:12 | · | thousands of people to build that vibbra was one of the largest and most complex |
| 33:17 | · | settlements in Northern Europe it had an urban population of thousands and was to all intents and purposes a large town |
| 33:27 | · | just a small selection of the recent discoveries at Brack just to to give you an idea of the range so you see the the |
| 33:35 | · | face of a ball like the one you can see in a car it actually it's probably a small size car oh it's a pouring wine |
| 33:43 | · | wine wine from This is a brooch a bronze brooch it was used by the women just to |
| 33:50 | · | fix their dress mhm the humble safety pin yes another piece completely |
| 33:56 | · | different pieces of potry and the style of decoration is very typical for this |
| 34:01 | · | region i think it's typical for the Adoui who had the capital here so it's the Adunion style so you're saying the |
| 34:08 | · | pattern is like a tribal form of identity typically yes each tribe in in |
| 34:14 | · | central Gaul had painted potry but on with a different style we can picture Gaul as a mosaic of |
| 34:20 | · | tribes fast developing into fledgling states so what does Bibbra tell us about the |
| 34:27 | · | Celtic world very simply that Bibbra was a proper town so that means these iron |
| 34:32 | · | age societies are turned just to create to become an urban civilization and to |
| 34:37 | · | create proper towns with thousands of inhabitants with quarters with public activity with residential quarters and |
| 34:43 | · | so on i would say that the the goss a civilization which was as complex as the Roman one at the same time the Adwi were |
| 34:51 | · | a powerful tribe but a showdown with the expanding Roman Empire was becoming inevitable |
| 34:58 | · | so Vinc how far up are we uh 820 m over |
| 35:04 | · | sea level can imagine that Rome is just somewhere you know in the fog in the |
| 35:09 | · | distance not so distant from here how much the Gauls shared a common |
| 35:15 | · | Celtic identity would be tested by a Roman invasion it was in bibra that Versenetics was proclaimed head of a |
| 35:22 | · | loose confederation of tribes in an attempt to unite against Julius Caesar's |
| 35:29 | · | legions the Gauls would not face the Roman army in open battle instead they |
| 35:34 | · | adopted hitandun tactics after 6 years of skirmishing versing |
| 35:40 | · | made the mistake of regrouping his forces at the hill fort at Elisia it was here Caesar would finally confront these |
| 35:47 | · | Celtic tribes in 52 BC |
| 35:53 | · | today all that's left of Alicia are the ruins of the later Roman town yet the |
| 35:58 | · | site still reveals something of what the victor felt about the vanquished |
| 36:03 | · | this is a bronze figure made by the Romans and discovered here at Delicia in |
| 36:08 | · | 1907 it's a dying kelp made of bronze and I think images like this show the |
| 36:14 | · | power not only of the Romans over the Kelts but the Kelts over the Roman |
| 36:20 | · | imagination this is an image of a noble savage despised at one level and admired |
| 36:28 | · | on another allesia is the the place of a turning point of the European history on this |
| 36:36 | · | place in the autumn precisely of 52 BC the Roman armies of Julius Caesar |
| 36:42 | · | defeated the ghouls it is a compliment to the Gauls that |
| 36:47 | · | Caesar chose to lay siege to Alicia rather than face them in open battle he |
| 36:53 | · | began by building 15 miles of ditches |
| 36:59 | · | so Bentoics was trapped on this side which was a hilltop with tens of thousands of his uh of his troops with |
| 37:06 | · | him and the Roman troops completely uh made a circle fortification all around |
| 37:14 | · | the hill on the edge of the the hills just behind |
| 37:19 | · | us versing called for reinforcements but Caesar built a second line of defense to |
| 37:25 | · | guard against a Celtic counterattack [Music] |
| 37:32 | · | so we are dealing with 15 miles of ditches with something like 23 Roman |
| 37:39 | · | forts with tens of thousands of Roman soldiers everywhere watching the singing |
| 37:45 | · | of his troops the showdown finally came when up to a quarter of a million Gauls rallied to aid their tribal |
| 37:53 | · | cousins but the Celtic temperament was broken by Roman discipline and versex |
| 37:59 | · | would be starved to submission in Alisia the Romans had to wait till these |
| 38:05 | · | people were starving and they had run out of water and food and at the time they just surrendered and gave bingtoics |
| 38:12 | · | to the to the Roman general after centuries of tribal independence |
| 38:19 | · | Versing Gets had tried to unite the Gauls against a common enemy but it was too little too late |
| 38:27 | · | [Music] was this a tragic day for the Cubs |
| 38:32 | · | uh it was definitely a tragic day uh for all the tribes which were involved in in |
| 38:38 | · | this battle if we consider that these people were all killed it was it was certainly |
| 38:44 | · | a very important day for all these people and if there had been a different |
| 38:49 | · | outcome do you think we'd have a different Europe today i think it's very clear from a modern |
| 38:54 | · | point of view that history would have turned to a completely different story uh if this battle hadn't taken place if |
| 39:01 | · | the Gauls had won who knows what a Celtic Europe would have looked like |
| 39:06 | · | 2,000 years on the romantic myth of what might have been still has a powerful hold over the French |
| 39:14 | · | nation military monuments are nothing unusual but this statue is different |
| 39:19 | · | because Versing lost it's here because it's become a symbol of the French |
| 39:25 | · | nation and the first person to articulate this idea about Versing was |
| 39:30 | · | the very man who defeated him Julius Caesar he said that if all the Gouish tribes could unite they could defy the |
| 39:37 | · | universe quite a thought especially if you're a [Music] |
| 39:43 | · | Frenchman the expanding Roman Empire had crushed the Kelts in continental Europe |
| 39:48 | · | within a few generations all traces of their language art and culture had |
| 39:54 | · | disappeared or had they today in Ireland and Scotland many |
| 39:59 | · | people are convinced that they're the descendants of this race of ancient Kelts the last remnants of an ethnic |
| 40:05 | · | group pushed to the margins of Europe as the Romans advanced but does the |
| 40:10 | · | evidence support this my first problem is the Romans never called the people of |
| 40:16 | · | Britain Kelts although they did say that the ancient Britons spoke a similar language to the Kelts of Gaul perhaps |
| 40:23 | · | the answer is in the most recognizable feature of Celtic culture its distinctive art style could migrants to |
| 40:31 | · | Britain have brought their art with [Music] them the first clue is in the most |
| 40:38 | · | unlikely place Batisy just by the power station |
| 40:45 | · | in 1857 a remarkable treasure was dredged up from the river tempames a |
| 40:50 | · | beautifully decorated bronze shield and just down river at Waterloo another |
| 40:55 | · | object was discovered an extraordinary horned helmet |
| 41:01 | · | because both were found in water and their exotic decoration was similar to the Celtic objects uncovered that same |
| 41:08 | · | year at Laten in Switzerland victorian archaeologists quickly put two and two |
| 41:14 | · | together they deduced that Celtic tribes must have migrated to Britain from Europe bringing their art with |
| 41:22 | · | them well here Richard is the baty shield and I'm holding the Waterloo helmet um these objects are you know |
| 41:30 | · | renowned throughout the world for being classic chaotic objects so it's a really stunning piece of work |
| 41:36 | · | isn't it it's a stunning piece of work it's also an incredibly complicated piece of work |
| 41:43 | · | what was it about this type of art that was so important it becomes an international language associated with |
| 41:50 | · | people of prestige which spread across the whole of Europe amongst the elites |
| 41:55 | · | these amazing objects look the business but they aren't quite what they seem we |
| 42:01 | · | call this a helmet we call this a shield but neither of these would ever have been used in battle um the shield is a |
| 42:08 | · | essentially a showpiece it's a decorative object and this isn't really a helmet um it's probably a piece of |
| 42:15 | · | ceremonial headgear and the point about this is that it's held on your head like a party hat makes me feel like going to |
| 42:22 | · | a party beyond any doubt these objects are |
| 42:27 | · | masterpieces of Celtic art but archaeologists today are less convinced |
| 42:32 | · | by the Victorian idea that they came to Britain with Celtic migrants from the continent in fact some people seem to |
| 42:40 | · | have a bit of a problem with the C-word do you think these objects were made by people who were Kelts um they're made by |
| 42:47 | · | people we would call Kelts today whether or not they would understand the word Kelt is a different matter um certainly |
| 42:53 | · | they've got Celtic art on them but what's I think important to recognize is that these are very British objects the |
| 43:00 | · | style of Celtic art the style of the decoration it shares something with other parts of Europe but it's also at |
| 43:05 | · | the same time distinctly British the helmet and shield are Celtic |
| 43:12 | · | in style but they weren't brought by migrating Kelts in fact some of the finest examples of what we call Celtic |
| 43:19 | · | art today were not imported they were all made in Britain |
| 43:26 | · | this is the Snetteram Great Torque and is one of the most astonishing pieces of |
| 43:32 | · | prehistoric metal work anywhere from Europe these objects prove that the art style |
| 43:37 | · | of the continental Kelts was well known in Britain and adapted to local tastes |
| 43:43 | · | what the objects don't prove is that either they themselves or the people that made and used them had arrived from |
| 43:50 | · | mainland Europe the art alone simply isn't proof that Celtic tribes moved here to |
| 43:56 | · | establish that I need a different kind of evidence in Yorkshire there may be |
| 44:02 | · | just what I'm looking for at a place called Wet Wang in 1984 in a gravel pit a digger |
| 44:10 | · | uncovered the first of a series of intriguing finds that hint at the presence of Celtic immigrants people |
| 44:17 | · | buried with chariots this is the valley in the WS |
| 44:22 | · | which has produced more chariots than virtually anywhere else because out of |
| 44:28 | · | the something like 15 chariot burials that have been uncovered over the last 200 years all but two of them have been |
| 44:35 | · | found on the Yorkshire walls that's strange isn't it very strange |
| 44:42 | · | burying your dead with a chariot is practically unknown in Britain but it was an old tradition among some Celtic |
| 44:48 | · | tribes in Europe just like the four-w wheeled wagon burial in Hawkdorf Germany |
| 44:57 | · | this is the site here yeah this is where it it happened |
| 45:04 | · | 13 chariots have been discovered in this Yorkshire valley alone in 1984 three |
| 45:09 | · | were found in a row at this end there was a a young |
| 45:14 | · | bloke with his chariot and his sword and a shield in the middle the |
| 45:21 | · | woman and then beyond her the second man now the woman's grave was the best |
| 45:27 | · | preserved she was lying on one side they looked like somebody had fallen off a |
| 45:33 | · | bicycle and just decayed so we often think about Buddaca as |
| 45:40 | · | riding around in a in a chariot and we think about war was that what the chariots were for or were they for other |
| 45:46 | · | things as well you could have used them for anything you like and when there wasn't a war on you presumably wouldn't have left it in the shed buried along |
| 45:53 | · | with this woman and her chariot was a collection of extraordinary personal items a mirror horse harnesses and all |
| 46:00 | · | her finery decorated in the familiar Celtic style like the Batisy Shield her |
| 46:06 | · | grave goods were all made in Britain as was the chariot itself now using the |
| 46:12 | · | fragments of evidence the Wet Wang chariot has been brought back to life so |
| 46:18 | · | it's nice to see it isn't it in its full glory like it would have been it's wonderful yes see in the grave you can |
| 46:24 | · | see the the this the rectangular shape where this has been but that's all it's |
| 46:30 | · | like a sort of ghost of the chariot chariots like this were widespread in Britain they were used for war and |
| 46:37 | · | transport but chariot burials were unique is this proof that a warrior |
| 46:42 | · | tribe of Celtic settlers came over from Europe bringing their foreign traditions |
| 46:47 | · | with them it does suggest that the ideas have come across from the continent |
| 46:52 | · | because we know that many of the parallels here are also to be found in parts of central and western Europe |
| 46:59 | · | steady steady the most intriguing clue is that the Romans called this local tribe Paresi and a European tribe also |
| 47:06 | · | called Paresi would give Paris its name both tribes buried their dead with chariots were they the same people i |
| 47:14 | · | think there must have been some kind of connection what it actually was whether the people had come here from or any of them had come here from the continent |
| 47:20 | · | but would you say they're Kelts i wouldn't say they were Kelts i think this I don't tend to use the term |
| 47:26 | · | so-called Kelts if you want to |
| 47:32 | · | both the Wetwang chariots and the treasures dredged up from the tempames prove that Britons had connections with |
| 47:38 | · | continental Kelts some may have settled in southern England and Yorkshire but |
| 47:43 | · | there isn't evidence in England to prove that celts came in sufficient numbers to drive out the local population |
| 47:53 | · | [Music] |
| 48:13 | · | i know [Music] |
