Italy owes wine legacy to Celts, history buffs say

Reuters via Wash. Post ^ | April 21, 2006 | Svetlana Kovalyova

[Pharmboy]

ROBBIO, Italy (Reuters) - Wine conjures up the image of cultured drinkers sipping their way delicately through a full-bodied vintage.

But for two history buffs with a passion for the tipple, northern Italy has the barbarians to thank for its long wine-making tradition.

Luca Sormani, from Como, and Fulvio Pescarolo, from the tiny town of Robbio near Milan, have traced the region's wine culture all the way back to its Celtic roots and have started making it according to ancient methods.

Celtic tribes from farther north -- known to the Romans as "Barbari" -- conquered northern parts of Italy about 2,500 years ago, settled there and started draining marshes, cultivating land and growing vines.

"There is a bit of the barbarian in us," said Pescarolo, 51, who is the ninth generation of farmers from the rice-growing western part of Lombardy. "We feel we are part of this nature."

Interest in all things Celtic -- from music to mystical rites -- took off in northern Italy in the mid 1990s, fanned by the Northern League party which rose to prominence with demands for independence for the north.

Sormani and Pescarolo said their interest in Celtic culture had nothing to with politics and that, instead of the symbols and rites, they studied what was close to their hearts -- a blend of agriculture and wine-growing.

NO HELMETS WITH HORNS

"It's not that we want to put on helmets with horns. It's not about mythology or cults," said Sormani, 40, who has a doctorate in agriculture.

"We feel we are part of a tradition which dates back to the times of Celts."

Standing in a vineyard on a man-made hill in the middle of table-flat rice fields in western Lombardy, Sormani recalled how he spent years studying the history of the

[blam]

"I think, they figured the Celts were involved in these mummy cases when they found that the wrapping was of tartan cloth!"

Yup. Some of their patterns are still in use to this day. Also, techniques, weave and etc.

[muawiyah]

Having read about Aeneas in the great Roman Epic, the Aeneid, may I suggest again that Italians, through their Roman forebears, claimed descent from refugees from Troy.

Aeneas was claimed to be King Priam's cousin.

And yes, I know some Italians claim no Roman heritage. They are not real Italians!

[Prost1]

"Remember, the Italians claim descent from refugees from the Trojan War."

Wrong location. A better guess is Antarctica. There are known rivers under the ice. The coastline was free of ice and maps made 1,000's years ago. See Charles Hapgood "Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings".

Since anthropologists cannot investigate Antarctica, then man could not come from there. That is the thinking. However, since it is reported Antarctica was free of ice withing recorded memory, then Antarctica is possibly the homeland South America, Australia, SE Asia, India....

Possibly, but not probably, the Atlantis of old...

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

I read somewhere that the Spanish word for beer(cerveza) is Celtic in origin.

[muawiyah]

But Aeneas still claimed to be Priam's cousin, and he lived in Anatolia.

There is no Anatolia in Antarctica ~ although they do share the letters A, n, t and i.

[muawiyah]

Everybody's word for beer predates the existence of any Indo-European language.

[blam]

"See Charles Hapgood "Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings"."

Thanks. I have the book and read all that.

I'm sticking with Sundaland until more compelling evidence for another location is found.

[Prost1]

The Etruscans are the people about whom you are speaking...

The story and lineage may be borrowed from them.

From Wikipedia..."On the one hand the Etruscans were said in legend to have come from Anatolia, either Lydia or Troy, where they would have been urbane and international. On the other, they came from an indigenous people of Italy practicing the relatively unsophisticated and rural Villanovan culture. The poet Virgil said in the Aeneid that Trojans fled to the Italian peninsula. If they called themselves Rasenna, there is no obvious connection between that name and Etrusci or Tyrrheni. These origins are mysterious, being apparently contradictory."

from
http://www.factmonster.com/ce6/society/A0825674.html
"Italic languages, subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages that may be divided into two groups. The first group consists of the ancient Italic languages and dialects that were once spoken in Italy. The most important of these were Latin, Faliscan, Oscan, and Umbrian; Latin was the only one to survive antiquity (see Latin language). From Latin are derived the Romance languages, which in turn comprise the second (or medieval and modern) group of the Italic subfamily; they include Catalan, Sardinian, French, Italian, Portuguese, Occitan, Rhaeto-Romanic, Romanian, and Spanish."

[Prost1]

"There is no Anatolia in Antarctica ~ although they do share the letters A, n, t and i."

Never said there was. I'm certainly not that silly.

[blam]

"Remember, the Italians claim descent from refugees from the Trojan War."

Professor Stephen Oppenheimer says his DNA studies show that about 50% of Europeans can trace their DNA to one man in the Indus Valley and his descendants made their way to Europe through the Middle East.
The other (about) 50% can trace their DNA to a son of the same man who made their way to Europe a thousand years later through Russia.

[Prost1]

Having been to college on more than one occasion (I did not learn to avoid it the 1st time around), I will wait until the is much greater data available.

After all, I do not know that this fellow does not subscribe to the ALGore global warming climatology group either.

[blam]

"I do not know that this fellow does not subscribe to the ALGore global warming climatology group either."

The sea levels were higher somewhere between 4,000-6,000BC than they are today. I've read one guy specualte that this surge of salt water could have melted the glaciers and coastal ice around antarctica and someone may have mapped the coast after the sea level dropped again and before the ice built up around the coast again.(?)

[Polybius]

Remember, the Italians claim descent from refugees from the Trojan War.

Actually, only the Romans did.

Prior to the Social War (also called the Italian War or the Marsic War) an "Italian" would have been considered a citizen of one of the non-Roman city states on the Italian peninsula allied to Rome.

Denarius of the Marsian Confederation, during the Social War (89 BC). The legend "Italia" is in Oscan.

As for northern Italy, Cisalpine Gaul was a Celtic area prior to and after the Roman conquest (thus its name) and modern day northern Italians would therefore have no problem acknowledging their direct Celtic ancestors.

[muawiyah]

The trick is that children in a mixed language community tend to grow up speaking their mother's tongue. So, the founders of Rome (who ended up conquering all of Italy) carried off the Sabine women.

Do we really know what the Romans spoke before their children learned the Sabine language (Italic wasn't it?)

[muawiyah]

And, of course, Gallo, the most important one.

[muawiyah]

And, of course, AFTER the Social War, everybody in Italy who wasn't a slave was a Roman citizen.

I think they pretty much adopted as many Roman "beliefs" and traditions as they could.

[Prost1]

"The sea levels were higher somewhere between 4,000-6,000BC than they are today. I've read one guy speculate that this surge of salt water could have melted the glaciers and coastal ice around Antarctica and someone may have mapped the coast after the sea level dropped again and before the ice built up around the coast again.(?)"

I find this thinking difficult to agree to. Europe was beginning to come out of the last ICE AGE. Most of the northern hemisphere was covered with ICE. All that Ice had to come from somewhere. I would suspect the oceans and Antarctica.

It is even proposed that the Mediterranean was much shallower and the Gate of Hercules was actually a land bridge. More islands in the Middle Sea, easier travel and commerce...Phoenicians...
Early Iber (Hebrew) traders - gave their name to Iberia...

Just some random thoughts...

[ZULU]

I do.

[Salamander]

That has *got* to be seriously frosting some rumps over there....;D

[Salamander]

Back when they were running teasers for that show, they slowly let more sand blow away to reveal his face.

At one point [all alone in the living room, save for 4 dogs] I squealed to no one, "Oh my God! He's a Celt!".

Weeks later they aired the show and when they got into the fabric forensics and such and it just blew me away.