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'Celtic' Wheel Symbolism

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'Celtic' Wheel Symbolism ‘Celtic’ Wheel Symbolism: The Archaeological & Iconographical Evidence For The Links Between Time, Agriculture, & Religious Ideas In The Celtic World From Later Prehistory To The Roman Period. Kevin Jones 2003 I certify that the work submitted herewith is my own, and that I have duly acknowledged any quotation from the published or unpublished work of other persons Signature Date CONTENTS Introduction 1 Methods of structuring time in ancient societies 11 Archaeological evidence for ideas about time in the Celtic world 22 • The Coligny Calendar 23 • The Jupiter-Giant Columns 34 • Summary of analysis 41 Wheel symbolism 45 • A statistical analysis of wheel symbolism 45 Reinterpreting wheel symbolism 59 Conclusions 68 Concordance table for coins 69 Tables 1-5: 75 Key to wheels 81 Plates 1-2: Wheel symbols 82 Key to coins 84 Plates 3-35: Wheel symbolism in coins 88 Plate 36: Coin-using tribes in Late pre-Roman Iron Age Britain 121 Plate 37: Distribution of Jupiter-Giant columns 122 Plate 38: Distribution of Epona finds 123 Plate 39: Map of Celtic regions and people 124 Bibliography 125 13,886 words, excluding references, captions, tables and titles 1,511 words references, captions, tables and titles INTRODUCTION The wheel is a ubiquitous religious symbol found in both Celtic and Romano-Celtic contexts. It presumably represented a widely understood religious concept that related to the central core of beliefs. However, with no indigenous literate statements of those beliefs, archaeologists are forced to rely upon Classical authors, inscriptions, and iconographical analysis for insights. Although these can provide valuable information, they also present problems. Iconographical interpretation can be enormously subjective, and interpretative errors may result from unconscious and potentially anachronistic cultural preconceptions. Similarly, the works of authors such as Tacitus can be misleading, since they interpreted Celtic beliefs according to their own cultural notions (Germ. 43). The reverse is also true; indigenous religion adopted Roman concepts, but reinterpreted them according to its existing framework (Green 1976, 6- 7, 8-10, 119). To compound matters further, this also altered indigenous religion to some undetermined degree (Derks 1998, 105, 107). There are problems even when Celtic and Roman deities are directly equated. The limited range of Roman deities used might suggest that a limited number of indigenous, multifunctional deities were described by many regional epithets (Webster 1986b, 54; Green 1986a, 32; Derks 1998, 95). However, how do we understand the equation? Some representations are alien to Roman conceptions, suggesting that Classical ideas were not uppermost in the artist’s mind. Presumably the artist’s efforts found favour with the dedicator, suggesting a common symbolic language that had little in common with Roman norms. The typical function of the 2 Roman god, as we understand it1, may not, therefore, accurately indicate the function of the Celtic deity. On the other hand those responsible for name-dualling presumably saw a relationship, although it may be difficult to define without further information. Of course, none of this helps where indigenous deities are described as genius loci, or where they are unconnected to Roman concepts. Matters might be simpler if we understood the relationship between the iconography and religious ideas about time and cosmology. A possible cosmology is suggested by the Old Irish source Cath Maighe Tuired, and this may have a connection with the iconography of the Jupiter-Giant columns. However, making a direct equation between the Irish sources and the iconography is complex, and beyond the scope of the present paper. It is in any case wiser to first establish a robust model derived from the archaeological data before including material from the Celtic sources. It is therefore proposed to analyse the role of time in Celtic and Romano-Celtic religion and its relationship to agricultural fertility. Such a link is suggested by the iconography of the Jupiter-Giant columns. The summit group typically includes the wheel-god, who was frequently identified with the celestial deity Jupiter; celestial phenomena were the basis for structuring time in antiquity. Further, the bases of Jupiter-Giant columns often feature the deities of the days of the week or the four seasons, suggesting a further connection with time. Additionally the wheel-god occasionally has the attributes of Mars; the Romano-Celtic Mars is associated with indigenous religious calendars. The old fertility connections of the Classical Mars are 1 Assuming that we understand Roman deities as the Romans understood them. 3 even more marked in his Romano-Celtic equivalent2, and the religious calendars can be shown to have an agricultural orientation (Green 1976, 30; 1986, 36, 113). There therefore appears to be, at some level, a relationship between the wheel-god, wheel symbolism, agricultural fertility, religion, and concepts of time. Nevertheless, this approach is likely to raise objections. Collis, for example, has argued that there was no such thing as Celtic society, and that there were never any Celts in Britain or Ireland (Collis 1985; 1994). Chapman argued that the whole notion of being 'Celtic' is and was a construct imposed by the centre on diverse peripheral cultures that had no sense of a common identity, no political unity and possibly even ethnically diverse origins (Chapman 1992). In short, the Celts were entirely a creation of Roman propaganda and 18th century romantic visions of European ‘noble savages’. One might conclude from these arguments that there is very little chance of finding common religious ground between such cultures, and that such a line of inquiry is therefore futile. This, however, is a counsel of despair. To address Collis’s rather Thatcherite argument first, there were and are Celtic-speaking populations. Populations form societies, and Celtic-speaking societies may, or may not, demonstrate some common features that are not shared with non-Celtic societies. It is not however necessary to assume that either a common ethonym or an overarching Pan-Celtic awareness of a Celtic society are necessary prerequisites for such similarities. 2 I.e cornucopias, ithyphallic statues. 4 The objection of possible ethnic diversity runs the risk of confusing ethnicity and culture. The ethnic origins of individuals may have no relation to their cultural affiliations, their native language or even their own perception of their ethnicity. A substantial number of white Americans are descendants of black Africans (Stuckert 1976, 139; Parra et al 1998); presumably they would consider themselves neither ethnically nor culturally Afro-American. Ethnicity is actually a complex and fluid cultural construct defined by perceived existing differences and similarities, rather than a biological reality (James 1999, 76-77). In any case it would be rash to make dogmatic assertions about ethnicity from, for example, Caesar’s observations. Language, laws and institutions may, in Caesar’s opinion, have separated the Belgae, Celtae and Aquitani (BG 1.1); however, this does not necessarily indicate three ethnic groups. The reported differences in language may simply reflect the differences between P- and Q-Celtic, which at that time may have been little more than differences in dialect (Olmsted 1979, 107-110). Dialectal differences may sound like language differences to an outsider. Similarly the reported differences in laws and institutions could be accounted for by Hellenising and Romanising influences; Caesar in fact makes the observation that the Belgae were furthest from such influences (BG 1.1). The emergence of shared cultural features, including language3, is in any case not precluded by different ethnic origins (Wadell & Conroy 1999, 129-130). Celtosceptic arguments nevertheless seem to assume that Celtic-speaking cultures were discreet entities that did not acculturate, an assumption that is at odds with the evidence. As 3 Language is a large part of culture. 5 the preconquest Romanisation of Britain demonstrates, the shifting patterns of Celtic clientship resulted in culture contact and consequent acculturation over considerable distances (Haselgrove 1982; 1984: Millett 1994, 34). Similarly early Bronze Age Ireland was in contact with southern Europe, the Mediterranean area, and to a lesser extent, with what later became Gaul. In the later Bronze Age, these contacts became largely restricted to northern Europe (Raftery J 1972, 2). La Tène objects reached Ireland as early as the fourth century BC, and there are strong suggestions of on-going contacts with the general area of eastern Gaul and the Rhineland (Raftery J 1972, 5- 6). Analysis of gold objects in the National Museum of Ireland demonstrates that the vast majority of Irish gold objects, from both the pre-Roman and Roman periods, were either manufactured from imported gold, or were imported as manufactured items (Kelly 1976, 46). There is also sufficient evidence to propose some form of contact between parts of Ireland and Iberia during the first millennium BC, such as features of hillfort construction, and the skull of a North African Barbary ape found at Navan Fort (Emain Macha), (Raftery B 1972, 49-50; Raftery B 1989, 141). One can also find evidence that religious ideas also travelled by these routes. Navan Fort was a major ritual site that was in use from the seventh to the first centuries BC; its closest parallels are the sixth century BC enclosures at the Goloring and the Goldberg in Germany (Powell 1958, 172-173; Green 1986a, 20; 1989, 151-152; Raftery B 1989, 141). Irish stone idols suggest continental and British artistic influences, which in turn imply the emergence of a common artistic language for expressing religious ideas appropriately (Rynne 1972, 79-99; Ross 1967, 153, 337-338; Green 1984, 137; Mallory 1989, 24). 6 These were therefore societies that participated, from the Bronze Age onwards, in a network of relationships with other societies (Wells 1995). Bronze Age trade was manipulated by elites and may, like Iron Age trade, have involved kinship links (Pydyn 1999, 17); it also operated over very long distances (Shennan 1982).
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