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ramonmercado Psycho Punk
Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Total posts: 17208 Location: Dublin Gender: Male |
 Posted: 15-10-2011 19:19 Post subject: Celtic Artefact Discoveries & Theories |
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Early Celtic 'Stonehenge' Discovered in Germany's Black Forest
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111011074624.htm
General plan of the early Celtic burial mound with sky constellations. (Credit: Image courtesy of Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum)
ScienceDaily (Oct. 11, 2011) — A huge early Celtic calendar construction has been discovered in the royal tomb of Magdalenenberg, nearby Villingen-Schwenningen in Germany's Black Forest. This discovery was made by researchers at the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum at Mainz in Germany when they evaluated old excavation plans. The order of the burials around the central royal tomb fits exactly with the sky constellations of the Northern hemisphere.
Whereas Stonehenge was oriented towards the sun, the more than 100 meter width burial mound of Magdalenenberg was focused towards the moon. The builders positioned long rows of wooden posts in the burial mound to be able to focus on the Lunar Standstills. These Lunar Standstills happen every 18,6 year and were the 'corner stones' of the Celtic calendar.
The position of the burials at Magdeleneberg represents a constellation pattern which can be seen between Midwinter and Midsummer. With the help of special computer programs, Dr. Allard Mees, researcher at the Römisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseum, could reconstruct the position of the sky constellations in the early Celtic period and following from that those which were visible at Midsummer. This archaeo-astronomic research resulted in a date of Midsummer 618 BC, which makes it the earliest and most complete example of a Celtic calendar focused on the moon.
Julius Caesar reported in his war commentaries about the moon based calendar of the Celtic culture. Following his conquest of Gaul and the destruction of the Gallic culture, these types of calendar were completely forgotten in Europe. With the Romans, a sun based calendar was adopted throughout Europe. The full dimensions of the lost Celtic calendar system have now come to light again in the monumental burial mound of Magdalenenberg.
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, via AlphaGalileo. |
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| ramonmercado Psycho Punk
Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Total posts: 17208 Location: Dublin Gender: Male |
| Posted: 22-03-2012 00:53 Post subject: |
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Another German discovery, this time with beer. Sausage as well no doubt. Ling though? Celtic chavs?
| Quote: | Beer and Bling in Iron Age Europe
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120319163710.htm
Collaborating with the State Monuments Office in Tübingen, Germany, UW-Milwaukee Professor Bettina Arnold has excavated Iron-Age burial mounds in an area of southwest Germany where pre-Roman Celtic people lived. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)
ScienceDaily (Mar. 19, 2012) — If you wanted to get ahead in Iron-Age Central Europe you would use a strategy that still works today -- dress to impress and throw parties with free alcohol.
Pre-Roman Celtic people practiced what archaeologist Bettina Arnold calls "competitive feasting," in which people vying for social and political status tried to outdo one another through power partying.
Artifacts recovered from two 2,600-year-old Celtic burial mounds in southwest Germany, including items for personal adornment and vessels for alcohol, offer a glimpse of how these people lived in a time before written records were kept.
That was the aim of the more than 10-year research project, says Arnold, anthropology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and co-director of a field excavation at the Heuneburg hillfort in German state of Baden-Wurttemberg. The work was partially funded by the National Geographic Society and Arnold collaborated with the State Monuments Office in Tübingen, Germany.
In fact, based on the drinking vessels found in graves near the hillfort settlement and other imported objects, archaeologists have concluded the central European Celts were trading with people from around the Mediterranean.
Braü or mead?
"Beer was the barbarian's beverage, while wine was more for the elite, especially if you lived near a trade route," says Kevin Cullen, an archaeology project associate at Discovery World in Milwaukee and a former graduate student of Arnold's.
Since grapes had not yet been introduced to central Europe, imported grape wine would indicated the most social status. The Celts also made their own honey-based wine, or mead, flavored with herbs and flowers, that would have been more expensive than beer, but less so than grape wine.
They also made a wheat or barley ale without hops that could be mixed with mead or consumed on its own, but that had to be consumed very soon after being made. "Keltenbräu," is an example of such an ale. It would have been a dark, roasted ale with a smoky flavor.
To the upper-class, the quantity of alcohol consumed was as important as the quality. Arnold excavated at least one fully intact cauldron used for serving alcoholic beverages in one of the graves at Heuneburg. But it's hard to top the recovery of nine drinking horns -- including one that held 10 pints -- at a single chieftain's grave in nearby Hochdorf in the 1970s.
Dapper dudes and biker chicks
In addition to their fondness for alcohol, Celtic populations from this period were said by the Greeks and Romans to favor flashy ornament and brightly striped and checked fabrics, says Arnold. The claim has always been difficult to confirm, however, since cloth and leather are perishable.
The Heuneburg mounds yielded evidence of both, even though no bones remain due to acidic soil. But the team of archaeologists were able to reconstruct elements of dress and ornamentation using new technology.
Rather than attempt to excavate fragile metal remains, such as hairpins, jewelry, weapons and clothing fasteners, Arnold and her colleagues encased blocks of earth containing the objects in plaster, then put the sealed bundles through a computerized tomography, or CT, scanner.
"We found fabulous leather belts in some of the high-status women's graves, with thousands of tiny bronze staples attached to the leather that would have taken hours to make," she says. "I call them the Iron-Age Harley-Davidson biker chicks." Images show such fine detail, the archaeologists theorize that some of the items were not just for fashion.
"You could tell whether someone was male, female, a child, married, occupied a certain role in society and much more from what they were wearing."
The pins that secured a veil to a woman's head, for example, also appear to symbolize marital status and perhaps motherhood. Other adornment was gender-specific -- bracelets worn on the left arm were found in men's graves, but bracelets worn on both arms and neck rings were found only in graves of women.
Surprisingly, it was the metal implements in close contact with linen and wool textiles in the graves that provided a chance for their preservation. Bits of fabric clinging to metal allowed the archaeologists to use microscopic inspection to recreate the colors and patterns used.
"When you can actually reconstruct the costume," says Arnold, "all of a sudden these people are 'there' -- in three dimensions. They have faces. They can almost be said to have personalities at that point."
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, via Newswise. |
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