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Home , Aidan, Celtic art, Celtic languages, Celtic studies, Insular art, Insular Celtic languages

By Bernard Wailes TOP: Seventh century A.., peoples of and Britain, with places and areas that are mentioned in the text. BOTTOM: The stone now in St. Declan’ Cathedral at Ardmore, , Ireland. Ogham, or Ogam, was a form of cipher writing based on the and preserving the earliest-known form of the . Most Ogham inscriptions are commemorative (e.g., de•fin•ing X son of Y) and occur on stone pillars (as here) or on boulders. They date probably from the fourth to seventh centuries A.D.

who arrived in the fifth century, occupied the southeast. The British (p- speakers; see “”) formed a (kel´tik) series of kingdoms down the western side of Britain and over- seas in . The q-Celtic speaking Irish were established not only in Ireland but also in northwest Britain, a fifth- THE CASE OF THE INSULAR century settlement that eventually expanded to become the kingdom of . (The term Scot was used interchange- ably with Irish for centuries, but was eventually used to describe only the Irish in northern Britain.) North and east of the Scots, the occupied the rest of northern Britain. We know from written evidence that the Picts interacted extensively with their neighbors, but we know little of their n decades past, archaeologists several are spoken to this day. language, for they left no texts. After their incorporation into in search of clues to the ori- Moreover, since the seventh cen- the in the ninth century, they appear to i gin of ethnic groups like the tury A.D. the numerous texts in have adopted the Irish language and consequently disappear Celts tended to equate language, these “insular Celtic” languages from history as a separate entity. We shall return to these culture, and biology. If a site have provided not only copious historical Celts of the early below, but first we contained a “Celtic” type of linguistic evidence but all man- must ask how they came to be in Ireland and Britain at all. brooch or house style, it must ner of information and insight It is almost certain that the Celtic languages originated on have been inhabited by people about the insular Celtic soci- the Continent. From (last centuries .C. and early who spoke a Celtic language and eties, such as histories, laws, A.D.) we have Classical references to the two islands. Ireland was who were the ancestors of present- genealogies, poetry, and drama. called Ierne (the origin of “”), and recorded tribal day people who call themselves This documentation forms the solid names suggest Hellenized renditions of q-Celtic names. A few Celtic. We now know that such equa- foundation for . In turn, of these tribal names also occur in p-Celtic-speaking Britain tions are simplistic: language, material cul- Celtic Studies has been the main source (e.g., ), so it is possible that around the first century ture, and genes are not necessarily connected. for modern notions of Celtic identity and A.D. a few tribes in Ireland may have spoken a p-Celtic The Celts of the islands of Britain and Ireland pro- Celtic ethnicity, but it is essential to remem- language. If so, this language soon disappeared, for the earliest vide the best example of the difficulties of assigning a Celtic ber that such concepts are necessarily more speculative inscriptions in Ireland (Ogham), dating to about the fourth identity to peoples of the past, since these “Insular Celts,”unlike than those dealt with in textual and linguistic studies. century A.D., are all in q-Celtic Irish.

Celtic speakers on the Continent, left extensive written records. Can we apply the term Celtic to archaeological sites and arti- ARDETH ABRAMS AND ELIZABETH HAMILTON The name Britain also stems from a word used by classical :

facts? Although a site may be known historically to have been TOP authors, Pretania (the origin of “”). The few names on ; LANGUAGE AS A KEY TO CELTIC IDENTITY occupied by Celtic speakers, can its material culture be called native British coins of the first century B.C. to the first century A.D. Celtic is a scholarly term used since about 1700 to define a Celtic when some of the artifacts may have been imported or are in p-Celtic. Caesar tells us in 55–54 B.C. that not only did the group of closely related European languages (see “Celtic manufactured locally in imitation of a foreign style? Many of tribes of southeast Britain speak a language similar to Continental

Languages” on 28). In antiquity, Celtic languages were these artifacts may be of types or styles common over a wide BERNARD WAILES Gaulish, but they also had close kin in northern . Thus, it : spoken from the and through central area, manufactured and used by Celtic- and non-Celtic-speak- appears that by the Roman conquest of Britain (beginning A.D. and northern , parts of the Balkans, and into ing peoples. Labeling such objects as Celtic requires caution. 43), Ireland was inhabited mainly by q-Celtic speakers, and BOTTOM (read about the on page 14). But these The earliest solid and contemporary written evidence for the , Britain (apart perhaps from the Picts) by p-Celtic speakers. “Continental Celtic” languages disappeared by the fifth cen- Insular Celts, dating from the seventh century, gives us a fairly Comparative indicates that the Insular Celtic lan- tury A.D. and we know relatively little about them. In Britain clear picture of the distribution of languages and peoples in the guages, as revealed by the earliest written evidence, were not too

and Ireland, however, Celtic languages did survive — indeed, and Ireland. The Anglo-, Germanic speakers OPPOSITE PAGE far removed from the Continental Celtic languages of the time

26 VOLUME 45, NUMBER 1 EXPEDITION WWW.MUSEUM.UPENN.EDU/PUBLICATIONS 27 a Cross-decorated slab from the small early monastery at , CELTIC LANGUAGES , Ireland. The shaft of the cross is decorated in La Tène style, though not very skillfully. The inscription on the left The Celtic languages form one group within the Indo- side of the slab reads “dne,” a contraction of Domine (God). European , which originated in the fourth or Probably sixth or seventh century A.D. third millennium B.C. as Proto-Indo-European in the lands just north of the Black Sea. Mallory (see For Further Reading a LA TÈNE ART on page 31) reviews Proto-Indo-European and its numerous derivative Indo-European languages and relates the linguis- In 1859 a remarkable collection of decorated metalwork tic evidence to archaeology. was discovered during drainage work at the site of La Today, only two distinct groups of Indo-European lan- Tène, on the margins of Lake Neuchatel in . guages are known from Ireland and Britain, and there is no Similar metalwork found in cemeteries in northern Italy evidence that either originated there. The Germanic group is had been attributed plausibly to the Celts who, according represented historically by Anglo-Saxon and Norse/Danish, to Roman authors, crossed the around 400 B.C. to set- both of which were introduced in the first millennium A.D., tle in Italy. By 1872 these connections were fully recog- with the migration of Anglo-Saxons from the fifth century, nized, and La Tène art, both north and south of the Alps, and from the late eighth century. It is represented was seen as a material manifestation of the Celts. today by English. The other Indo-European insular language Thereafter, this style has been assumed to indicate the group is Celtic, which, based on linguistic analysis, origi- presence of Celtic-speaking peoples, and indeed, La Tène nated in central Europe around 1000 B.C. and was brought art is often simply called . Although this seems to to the islands during the first millennium B.C. be a reasonable approximation in many archaeological The earliest written evidence for Celtic comes from the contexts, it is not a precise correlation. Continent as well. Inscriptions have been found in three The La Tène style arose during the fifth century B.C. in Continental Celtic languages: Lepontic appears in northern Central Europe as a fusion of elements borrowed from Italy from the sixth century B.C., and Celtiberian (or Hispano- Classical Mediterranean art, preexisting Central European Celtic) and Gaulish inscriptions are known from the third (Hallstatt) motifs, and Scythian art to the east. La Tène century B.C. in and France respectively. Despite the combined and transformed these borrowed elements into existence of these inscriptions, none of these Celtic lan- something entirely original and distinctive, with an empha- areas. But they do seem to serve as approximate archaeological guages developed into full literacy before they were re- sis on abstract, flowing, curvilinear patterns. Animal forms indicators of the presence of Celtic speakers. The most useful placed by Latin as the expanded. In contrast, are deliberately distorted and fantastic rather than naturalis- of these is La Tène art, because it is the most distinctive as well The , County , Ireland. A superb example of the developed into full literacy from La Tène art carved onto a granite boulder. tic. Humans, when they appear at all, are usually restricted as the longest lasting. about the seventh century A.D. Thus, they can be studied in to stylized heads. La Tène art appears mainly on items of personal dress and detail over more than a millennium and form the founda- (first century B.C. into the early centuries A.D.). This suggests that La Tène art spread throughout much of Europe during equipment that likely acted as overt “ethnic indicators” of Celts. tion of Celtic studies today. the next millennium, changing and developing as it did so. B C Celtic languages had entered Ireland and Britain no more than a Insular Celtic languages fall into two subtypes, q- It became established in Britain and Ireland around 300 . ., Although no early-style La Tène art is known from Britain or few centuries earlier. Can the entry of Celtic speakers into Celtic (or Goidelic) and p-Celtic (or Brittonic). The q-Celtic with distinctive Insular variants developing soon after. Most Ireland, by around 300 B.C. later La Tène styles had taken Britain and Ireland be identified archaeologically? This is tricky, languages are Irish, Scots Gaelic, and Manx (spoken on scholars concede, however cautiously, that La Tène–style arti- because, as indicated above, identifying the language of the the ). Scots Gaelic and Manx developed from root in the islands, where further distinctive styles developed. facts are the most likely indicator of immigrant Celtic speakers. maker or the user of an artifact is by no means straightforward. Irish. (Manx disappeared in the 20th century.) The p- With the spread of the Roman Empire, La Tène art was Wealthy aristocrats were almost certainly involved since much of Celtic languages are Welsh, Breton, and Cornish (last largely submerged on the Continent by the growing pop- the art decorates high-status personal items, but to what extent “CELTIC” MATERIAL CULTURE spoken as a native language in in the 18th cen- ularity of . Outside the Roman Empire, how- humbler Celtic speakers migrated into the islands is anyone’s The distribution of the Celts in antiquity across such a wide tury). All three p-Celtic languages developed from British ever, in northern Britain and in Ireland, La Tène art sur- guess. The preexisting population that survived probably simply swath of Europe makes it hardly surprising that there is no pan- spoken in western Britain in the early medieval period. vived to become a major element in the style adopted Celtic speech, as did the Picts after their incorporation Celtic type of pottery, or settlement, or burial rite. Indeed, these Although Breton is spoken today in Brittany on the that crystallized during the seventh century A.D. The well- into Scotland many centuries later. By the time the Romans all vary considerably across the vast area of Celtic settlement. Continent, it is an insular Celtic language introduced by known , for example, is decorated in this arrived, Celtic speakers dominated both Ireland and Britain. There are, however, some items of dress and equipment that do British immigrants in the fifth century A.D. often magnificent style. Both the Celtic languages and Anglo-Saxon began to emerge appear widely across the Celtic areas. These include some fibu- An example of the difference between the two is “son of.” Stead has written a useful handbook on La Tène in into full literacy around the seventh century A.D., largely as a la (brooch) types, some items of arms and armor, torcs (neck In q-Celtic this is the familiar prefix mac- (early form maq- Britain. For Ireland, two similar works outline the art of late result of conversion to . Whatever their native rings), and artifacts decorated in the La Tène art style (see “La or maqq-). In p-Celtic it is map-. This occurs in modern prehistory (Kelly) and the earlier medieval period (). tongues might be, Christian clergy needed to be literate in Tène Art”on page 29). None of these occur in all areas occupied in contracted form, for example apRhys, which The definitive introduction to La Tène art is Megaw and their common language, Latin. Soon, the clerics turned their BERNARD WAILES by Celts, nor at all periods during which Celts occupied those becomes familiar when contracted further to become Price. BERNARD WAILES Megaw. (See For Further Reading on page 31.) attention to writing in the native, vernacular languages. It was

28 VOLUME 45, NUMBER 1 EXPEDITION WWW.MUSEUM.UPENN.EDU/PUBLICATIONS 29 at this juncture that Ireland and Britain began to make so happens that the monastery of itself supplies objects show close stylistic parallels to in a rather remarkable impact upon the emergence of some enlightening clues about the milieu of that genesis, Pictland, indicating that Pictish craft workers and/or monks medieval European civilization through the establishment for it is unusually well documented. It is situated in also were involved. The Insular formed another compo- of monasteries. , the northernmost Anglo-Saxon kingdom, and nent: This elegant and distinctive variant of late Roman script Known for their learning, the clerics in these monasteries was founded in A.D. 634 by , an Irish cleric from the was developed in Ireland around A.D. 600. Moreover, Insular disseminated knowledge across continental Europe by monastery of in the , at the invitation of Art was often deployed in the decoration of liturgical objects founding (or refounding) monasteries as far afield as north- King . Lindisfarne had both Irish such as chalices and illuminated Gospel books. Considering ern Italy and . Irish churchmen were particularly and Anglo-Saxon monks, and it is clear that their different all these factors, seventh-century “multiethnic” monasteries prominent in this monastic spread, along with the non-Celtic ethnicities were secondary to their primary loyalty to their such as Lindisfarne seem highly likely to have played a major Anglo-Saxon clerics. Archaeologically, this development was monastery and to the . part in the development of Insular Art. marked by the appearance in much of Europe of the Insular The Insular style reflects just this sort of interaction. It is an This Insular style is often misrepresented as “Irish” or style of early . amalgam of Germanic (Anglo-Saxon), late Insular La Tène, “Celtic” or, more aptly if inelegantly, “Hiberno-Saxon.” These The earliest example of Insular Art that can be closely and late Classical motifs and elements. In addition, some ethnic names are misleading since the style does not represent Detail of Dún Ailinne, a simplified plan of the A D dated is the Lindisfarne , produced around . . a one or another of these ethnicities of the . A central excavation area showing the sequence FOR FURTHER READING of Age construction features and the ditch 700 But this book is a well-developed example of the Insular good deal of and Insular art was produced in style whose genesis lies earlier in the seventh century. And it continental monasteries that had been founded by clerics La Tène Art from Ireland or Britain. The monkish artists and scribes, a THE IRISH “ROYAL SITES” though clearly influenced by the Insular style, may well have “ . . .Tara has died . . . great Armagh lives on . . . Stylistic parallels for metalwork suggest that this Kelly, Eamonn P. Early Celtic Art in Ireland. : Country been Germans or other non-Insular peoples. Insular style Cruachain has vanished . . . a fair dignity . . . is . . . sequence dates to the first century B.C. through the first House and the National Museum of Ireland, 1993. is a better term, precisely because it eliminates ethnic Clonmacnoise . . . Ailenn has died . . . great is victorious century A.D., though radiocarbon dates fall more broadly labels altogether. Brigit . . . Emain Macha has melted away . . . Glendalough between the third century B.C. and the fourth century A.D. Megaw, Ruth, and Vincent Megaw. Celtic Art: From Its The example of the Insular Celts shows clearly that assign- is the sanctuary . . . Old cities of the pagans . . . are deserts With no habitations or graves detected, the archaeological Beginnings to the Book of Kells. London: Thames and ing an ethnic label like Celt to the inhabitants of a particular without worship . . . Paganism has been destroyed . . .” evidence indicates that the site was designed and used for Hudson, 1989. archaeological site or the makers and users of a particular set ritual or ceremony. of artifacts decorated in a particular style is problematic at Thus wrote the Irish cleric Oengus around A.D. 800, con- The excavations at Emain Macha reveal remarkably Ryan, Michael. Metal Craftsmanship in Early Ireland. Dublin: best. This is true not only of the Celts, but of any ethnic label. trasting the formerly prestigious pagan sites of Tara, similar findings while limited work at Tara also indicates a Country House, 1993. Ethnicity is a fluid and frequently self-defined concept. It is Cruachain, Dún Ailinne, and Emain Macha with four of the mainly or wholly ritual use during the . With char- always well to ask, whenever the word Celtic is encountered, most prestigious monasteries of his own day—Armagh, acteristic hilltop locations, large circular or oval external Stead, I. M. Celtic Art in Britain Before the Roman Conquest. just what the user means by the term. Clonmacnoise, St Brigit’s foundation at Kildare, and banks and internal ditches, and “avenues” at at least two Cambridge, MA: Press, 1985. Glendalough. Other medieval Irish texts refer to these four of the three other royal sites, it is clear that these royal Bernard Wailes has been at the University Museum since 1961. pagan cities, usually portraying them as the “royal sites” of sites are an archaeologically defined, as well as a Language Until his retirement in 1999 he was in charge of the European four of the major kingdoms of pre-Christian Ireland — Tara historically defined, type of site. archaeology collections, which were successively in the for Meath, Cruachain for Connacht, Dún Ailinne for Leinster, Although Iron Age ritual sites occur elsewhere in Mallory, J.P. In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Mediterranean Section (under Rodney Young) and the Early and Emain Macha (Navan Fort) for . (The fifth king- Europe, the Irish royal sites are a unique type. Archaeology and . London: Thames and Hudson, 1989. Man Section (under Carleton Coon) before achieving autonomy dom, Munster, had no equivalent site.) Emain Macha and Interestingly, though, the much earlier (Neolithic and Early as the European Archaeology Section. He edited Expedition Dún Ailinne have been extensively excavated, and the ) “ monuments” of Ireland and Britain General from 1978 to 1987 and is delighted to see it better than University Museum had a hand in both, participating are remarkably similar to these royal sites. These ever under its new editor. Wailes is now professor emeritus in briefly at Emain Macha and conducting the excavations at — , though atypical, is the best-known exam- Cunliffe, Barry. Iron Age Communities in Britain. Third edi- anthropology and curator emeritus in the Museum. His Dún Ailinne (cosponsored by the National Monuments ple — have a circular or oval external bank with an inter- tion. London: Routledge, 1991. speciality is Euro- Branch, ). nal ditch, and often contain the foundations of concentric The author in front of Jumba pean archaeology, Dún Ailinne is on a hilltop where about 13 hectares are timber circles. They were ritual monuments. Edwards, Nancy. The Archaeology of Early Medieval Ireland. Mtwane, one of the smaller and he has worked enclosed by an oval bank and ditch. The bank is outside the Thus the royal sites look suspiciously like a deliberate Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990. medieval Swahili sites along mainly in Ireland, Kenya’s coast near Mombasa. ditch, so construction was not designed for defense. An revival of henge construction. Why? It is tempting to notably the excava- eight-meter-wide avenue was constructed to pass through suggest that newly dominant groups built the royal Raftery, Barry. Pagan Celtic Ireland: The Enigma of the Irish tion of Dún Ailinne the entrance and lead toward the summit of the hill. There sites to legitimize themselves by deliberately emulating Iron Age. London: Thames and Hudson, 1994. (see The Irish “Royal we discovered postholes and trenches outlining the founda- the ancient henges built by much earlier inhabitants. Sites” on page 30), in tions for three successive large circular timber structures, These newly dominant people may have been the Thomas, Charles. Celtic Britain. London: Thames and which Penn graduate BERNARD WAILES each of which had been dismantled in turn. “first Irish.” BERNARD WAILES Hudson, 1986. students took part.

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