The Celtic World (Routledge Worlds)

• Chapter Twenty -

Much of the remaining art is thus made of ceramics and metal, which survive, though
it is worth emphasizing that, save in eastern Europe, Celts rarely used silver, though
they did use gold, bronze and iron extensively.

DEFINITIONS OF THE CELTS

In recent years there has been considerable discussion among British archaeologists as
to the applicability of the terms 'Celts' and 'Celtic' to the archaeological remains of
the later prehistoric cultures of much of Europe (Merriman 1987; Megaw and Megaw
1992). Since this is a matter taken up by several other contributors to this volume, it
will suffice to note here that we are employing in this chapter 'Celtic' to describe that
art style which is the tangible evidence for a continuity of cultural tradition during the
last five centuries BC and into the early historic era. This does not of course deny
the strictly historical but vague geographical use by our classical sources of those they
named 'Keltoi', nor the regional variations detectable in the archaeological record
of the later Iron Age. Nevertheless, since art styles can be universally accepted as clear
evidence of self-image or cultural (though not necessarily ethnic) identity, 'Celtic' is
a term which is just as valid as the no less conventional - and arguably equally
inapposite - archaeological labels 'Hallstatt' and 'La Tene' for, respectively, the earlier
and later phases of the European pre-Roman Iron Age. So, for the remainder of this
chapter, readers may assume that 'Celtic art' is synonymous with 'La Tene' art of the
period c. 5 00 BC to AD 100. This is a vast span of time, comparable to that of the whole
development of post-Renaissance Europe, and covering a territory which extends
from the lower reaches of the Rhine (and sometimes even Denmark) to the Po Basin
and from the west coast of Ireland to the mouth of the Danube and into Asia Minor
(Kruta et al. 1991).

PHASES OF EARLY CELTIC ART

Despite more recent attempts to construct alternative systems for classifying early

Celtic art (Duval 1977), especially in Britain and Ireland (De Navarro 1952; Stead

1985), scholars continue basically to employ the phases established more than half

a century ago by the late Paul Jacobsthal (1944). His seminal book Early Celtic

Art, completed and published in Oxford in 1944, still remains the starting-point for

all serious'study of the nature of Celtic art. J acobsthal was by training a classical

archaeologist who had first been attracted to Celtic studies by observing the classical

imports found in graves north of the Alps. In considering the existence of various

'styles' in the material record, he used the term to describe what are often strictly

no more than general artistic tendencies, some of which overlap chronologically.

Thus, Jacobsthal defines his 'Early Style' predominantly by the classically-derived

ornament found on rich burial goods of the fifth and earlier fourth century

'chieftains' graves' in the Rhineland and applies the term also to north-eastern

France and as far east as Bohemia. Style more properly defined is the 'totality of

conventions which make up the art of a particular area at a particular period of time'

while 'the variation of style in a culture or group is often considerable within