Posted on 09/24/2005 6:50:32 PM PDT by blam
Czech archaeologists excavate Ancient Greek town flattened by Bohemian Celts
[20-09-2005] By Pavla Horakova
Listen 16kb/s ~ 32kb/s For twelve years, Czech archaeologists have been helping their Bulgarian colleagues in the excavations of an Ancient Greek market town in central Bulgaria. The twelve years of work has yielded valuable results, including a hoard of coins, and discovered a surprising connection between the ancient town and the Czech Lands.
PistirosThe river port of Pistiros was founded in the 5th century BC by a local Thracian ruler. From the excavations we know that wine from Greece was imported to the town in large amphoras. Other pottery was found in and around the remnants of houses and also a hoard of treasure was unearthed from one of the ruins. Professor Jan Bouzek was head of the team.
"Well, it was a hoard of some 561 coins. They were buried just before the Celtic invasion which came there in 278 BC. They were put into a locally made jar, just in a hurry, because the Celts were apparently already attacking the city."
Hoard of coinsOver a thousand coins were unearthed on the site, minted in various Greek cities and bearing the portraits of many rulers, including Philip II, who caused considerable damage to Pistiros around the year 345 BC. The city was destroyed by Celtic invaders some fifty years later and never fully recovered.
Interestingly, some of the attackers apparently came from what is now the Czech Republic.
"In the destruction we found several Celtic weapons which were partly burnt and most of them are not well preserved with the exception of one arrowhead.
But we found in the ruins that at the time of the looting of the city they lost one of the typical fibulae (buckles) of the so-called Duchcov type which were especially well-known from a great hoard in Duchcov and which must have been made in this country. Some of the Celts from these parts apparently participated because they were also one of the four tribes which founded the kingdom of Galatia. They were Celts living in the northern part of this country."
Duchcov fibulaeThe fruits of the 12-year Czech-Bulgarian joint research were first presented to the archaeological community last week in Prague at the Third International Congress on Black Sea Antiquities. As Professor Jan Bouzek says the beginnings of Czech-Bulgarian cooperation in archaeology date back to the 19th century.
"Well, the history is much longer. Both my professors who did archaeology epigraphy were working in Bulgaria. And 80 percent of the founders of Bulgarian archaeology were the Czechs. They were the Skorpil family, Professor Vaclav Dobrusky - who was actually the first person who had any knowledge of our site. Vaclav Dobrusky was the founder of the Bulgarian National Archaeological Museum and he discovered the first inscription on the [Pistiros] site. It was long forgotten and only discovered much later by my friend Mieczyslaw Domaradski who was Polish-born but lived and worked in Bulgaria. He really discovered the city much later."
GGG Ping.
Bohemian Celts? Frequented coffee houses, drinking expresso, listening to poetry readings, discussing socialist politics and practicing free love?
Since Caesar didn't see fit to drive the Slavic invaders back out of Bohemia, the invaders moved in and after several centuries the area became known as the Czech Kingdom.
Kind of hard to believe the folks in Wallonia used to conduct raiding parties against Greeks in Bulgaria, but there you have it!
Archaeology bump!
I can barely grasp the motives for war with a) plentiful land and b) travel as the obstacle it was. Was it all out of pride?
Amazing to think one can pick up and leave today, go anywhere in the free world and (usually) be welcomed. Only in the third world and America's urban ghettos does tribalism still rule, a condition purposely maintained by certain liberal elites.
Bongos, coolly snapping fingers....it all comes back to me. I think I was there....in another life, or was it a dream? Woooooow! Cooool maaan!
You beat me to it! They knew the Celts were Bohemian on account of their berets and clove cigarettes.
It begins, in English, "All Gaul is divided into three parts."
You can also find a version in Latin on the net if you want to read it like Caesar wrote it!
BTW, the man made himself look better than he was ~ there are some lies in the book, but most of it is a pretty straight telling of who did what to whom with which.
You Rang? - Maynard was a Bohemian but I don't know about being a Celt.
Sounds like a good name for a band.
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Gotta love the headline
You Celts! You're always going around leveling towns in Czechoslovakia. Oops, I mean the Czech republic.
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