Hallstatt

"Mankind can do without gold, but not without salt"  - Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator (c. 485 – 585 AD)

The Celts first appear in print in Greek texts as among the inhabitants of the lands North of the Alps during the Iron Age, roughly the last 600 to 800 years BC.

The first recognizably Celtic archaeological site was found at Lake Hallstatt in the Salzkammergut Mountains, near Salzburg, Austria. As the names of the mountains and town imply, there were large deposits of salt there, which had been mined since ancient times. ("Hall" is a cognate of Sal/Salz, etc., i.e., Salt.) The Hallstatt Period, c. 750 - c. 450 BC, is named after the site and finds from this region. Though later finds of this culture were of equal or better quality, but the Hallstatt finds being among the earliest recorded and recognized, have stamped the name on the public imagination.

In 1734 AD, the well-preserved body of an Iron Age salt miner was found, preserved by the salt that had collapsed upon and killed him. Unfortunately, the local cleric declared the find Satanic and had it buried in unhallowed ground at a cross-roads. The location is lost. (Score yet another one for superstition over science.)

In 1846 AD, Johann Georg Ramsauer, then a surveyor of the mines, excavated and recorded 93 inhumation graves in an Iron Age cemetery there. Weapons, tools, jewelry, and grave-goods of a high degree of workmanship were found. (Over 2000 have since been excavated.) 

 In 1876, a team from the Academy of Sciences in Vienna performed a large-scale investigation of the local salt mine and the approximately 2,500 grave sites there, many with elaborate timber-framed burial chambers, and some high-status burials were richly clothed and jeweled in gold, amber, and other precious materials, with food for the journey to the next world, as well as weapons.  Excavations also show bronze used extensively for weapons, jewelry and vessels.

Bones of young women were common, as well as those of children, suggesting perhaps that many women died during childbirth, and that children often died young.  Judging from the remains, it would seem as though over half of their population may have died before adulthood.  Those who survived childhood generally lived to be between 40 - 45.

In 1932, the grave of what would appear to have been a man of some importance was discovered.  The grave-goods included a two-wheeled chariot, burial objects and an iron knife. However, it had been looted in antiquity, so any gold or precious metals had already been removed.

Some other interesting finds of this culture include:

The "Woman of Vix " (Mt. Lassois, E. France, c. 500 BC).  She was about 30 years old. It has been speculated that she was possibly a high noblewoman or priestess, judging by the opulence and number of grave-goods. There was a great deal of gold and jewelry, including a striking gold torque (originally thought to be a diadem), and a 13 ft., 460 lb. bronze Greek "krater" (a vessel used for mixing wine).

Hochdorf Burial

The "Hochdorf Tomb" was the burial place of a man who was undoubtedly rich and powerful.  Unlike many others, this one was not looted.  There were some spectacular and unique grave-goods. Weapons included a golden dagger, much gold, and (amazingly), partially intact textiles including: Chinese silk; embroidered cloth incorporating geometric designs and universal designs such as the swastika, as well as patterns seemingly almost identical with a Ukrainian and Carpathian Mountain embroidered fabric folk art known as "Nyzynka" which is still made, and what appears to be tartan. 

There was also a 400 liter bronze krater which had been used as a mead cauldron. It had lions on the rim, most of them typical Classical Mediterranean style - but one (below) perhaps a local replacement, is somewhat cruder and very different from the others, but rather whimsical. 

The Hochdorf prince was buried in an elaborate pair of shoes, heavily trimmed with gold, rather oriental in appearance. Oddly, they were on the wrong feet.  Jorge Biel, the excavator, postulated that those who prepared him for burial were either in a hurry, or that it didn't matter. However, I believe a different explanation accounts for this seeming incongruity; I believe the shoes may have been deliberately placed on the wrong feet to prevent the spirit from tracing his steps back to the world of the living. This was a common practice among other tribal people, including some native Americans, and would fit with what little we know of Celtic religious beliefs.   

On a less spectacular note, there were also fish-hooks, and a birch-bark hat. Here was a man who obviously appreciated the simple pleasures of life, as well as those associated with his rank. 

Art

Hallstatt art is primarily characterized by fairly restrained and conventionalized geometric patterns.  As with later Celtic art, there is an almost surrealistic appearance to the animals and humans portrayed. This is often described as primitivism. However, the execution is such that, once again, another explanation may be advanced - I believe that, as with the golden shoes, this may have been a sacral matter. There are many modern cultures, otherwise quite sophisticated, who refuse to portray what they consider works of the deity in a life-like fashion because it would constitute blasphemy. For example, some Muslim traditions avoid depictions of  animals, people, and especially of Allah or Mohammed.  They also deliberately incorporate a minor imperfection, or leave a work incomplete, because in their view, only Allah can be perfect. I hasten to add that this is speculation on my part - although it has been advanced by others as well.

Several centuries of commercial and cultural contacts with the Classical Mediterranean cultures including Etruria, Greece, and later, Rome, had given the Hallstatt culture considerable influence both in methods and styles, some of which were incorporated into the native tradition of arts and crafts.

Technology

Hallstatt technology was Iron Age, and fairly advanced. They had iron and metal working, soap, a wheel with a one-piece tyre and felly, as well as a plowshare with mold-board, capable of deep plowing, and a sophisticated chariot. In some areas, they were more advanced than the Classical Mediterranean cultures. 

Housing

Most Celtic strongholds were based on areas with a rich resource base, such as salt, iron, tin, or gold; proximity to a navigable river or other trade route; arable plains for farming and herding, timber for building and firewood, and a hill or elevation for a fort which served both as a defensive and commerce center.

The Celts originally lived in compounds on mountain slopes, or in clearings.  These were likely extended family farmsteads, and included their own graveyards.  

Houses on the Continent ended to be square or rectangular, while those in the British Isles were often circular, although there were exceptions in both cases.

Known housing was generally of wood, and/or wattle & daub, often fortified, rather like the duns, raths, and crannogs of Celtic Ireland and Scotland. 

Towards the end of their period as a free people, the Continental Celts began building fortified towns and cities called oppida. (See La Tene for details)

Economy and Trade

Celtic economy was generally pastoral-agrarian, primarily herd-based. Wealth lay in herds of cattle and horses. The farm crops included cereals, and stock, including sheep, goats, cattle, pigs, chickens, and horses, augmented by hunting.

They also had wide trading links with Bohemia, possibly the Baltic Sea, and to the Mediterranean regions. They customarily traded with the Greeks, and later the Romans, establishing trade links with Massilia, a Greek colony near modern Marseilles.

The main medium of exchange, and the foundation of their wealth was salt, which was necessary in ancient times for many things, including preserving food and working leather.

The rock-salt deposits in the Alps were highly prized in the ancient world. The most popular "brand" deposits were those from the areas later known as Hallstatt, Hallein-Dürnnberg and Reichensall. 

Dürnnberg was a major site, occupied from c. 500-300 B.C. The Celts dug and operated mines of about three hundred meters.  They dug the highly desirable core salt, which was then broken up and traded in large pieces. (They did not process it with water at this period as was done later, in the Middle Ages.)  As many as two hundred men worked the mines by the light of torches.  

Salt and slaves, as well as raw materials such as gold and hides, were exchanged for wine and Mediterranean crafts, fabrics, (as witnessed by the Chinese silk in the Hochdorf find) and decorative art, including jewelry.

Social System 

Celtic tribes were united by language and culture, rather than political unity.

The social system, as with many Indo-European societies, was based on a tripartite aristocracy of warriors, priests, and farmers, with no strong central government. Local kings, chiefs, and loose alliances based on family and tribe formed the basis of the system, with "client" and "patron" relationships a common feature at all levels of Celtic society. 

There were several major classes; the nobles; the druid and poetic classes; the warriors; the men of arts (such as smiths, who were divided into whitesmiths who worked bronze, gold, and silver, etc., and blacksmiths who worked iron, as well as wainwrights, wheelwrights, etc.); the free farmers and herdsmen; and the unfree. 

As regards religion, we can know little for certain, since they left no written records of their own, and the Classical commentators, even where they lack a discernible bias, have sometimes misinterpreted the data. 

However, the priestly class (druids) were recruited from the aristocracy.  They regarded the Earth as the property of divine forces, and acted as intermediaries between the gods and Celtic society, interpreted the will of the gods, supervised sacrifices, observed nature and created calendars. The Classical commentators inform us that they were great natural philosophers, and believed in reincarnation, and the transmigration of souls. 

This is supported by some of the surviving Celtic oral literature in Ireland. For example, among the prequel stories to the Irish epic, the "Tain Bó Cuailgne" is the story of two swineherds, Friuch and Rucht in the story known as "The Quarrel of the Two Pig-keepers and how the Bulls were Begotten." They got into a contest as to who had greater magical powers, and each morphed into a variety of beings, including birds of prey, men again, then water creatures, stags, warriors, phantoms, and dragons, and finally worms. One worm then fell into the spring of the river Cronn in Cuailnge, where a cow belonging to Dáire mac Fiachna swallowed it, which then bore Dub, the dark bull of Cuailnge. The other worm fell into the wellspring of Garad in Connacht, where a cow belonging to Medb and Aillill drank it. It became Finnbennach, the white-horned bull. These bulls became the cause of the war depicted in the Tain.

They also seem to have believed that spirits exist in this world and others, inhabiting the bodies of people, of animals, of plants, of trees and places, such as wells, brughs, caves, stones, rivers, ponds, and fields.  This belief seems similar to other animists, such as the Dega of SE Asia, some of whom, the Bru tribe, I lived among in Vietnam.

The druids seem to have had immense power, as we are told that they could go between two armed forces ready to engage and halt them with a gesture and a word.  

Their deities seem to have been tribal, and each tribe had its own names for particular gods and goddesses, as opposed to the well-organized pantheons of the classical Mediterranean cultures.  There are over 300 different deity names recorded, and only a handful appear more than once. one exception to this individualistic set of deities seems to be a god known as Lugh, who may or may not be the same god who appears in Irish legend as Lugh Lamh-fada (Lugh of the long arm or hand), and also as Lugh Samildanach (Lugh the all-skilled).  His name is found scattered over Europe in religious dedications, and commemorated in the names of towns once known as "Lugodunum" - Lugh's fort, now the modern Lyon, Laon, Liegnitz, Leiden, etc.)

Women appear to have had much greater status in all known Celtic societies than in other European and Mediterranean cultures. This is evidenced by some of the burials, such as that at Vix, and is further borne out by the evidence of both Classical sources, and in the native literatures in historic times. 

(We will examine Celtic social structures more thoroughly elsewhere.)

Appearance and Dress

We are somewhat limited by the fact that the climate of Northern Europe is not particularly good for preserving fabric, leather, and other organic substances, and the Celts unfortunately left little record of themselves outside of the later Irish, Scottish, and Welsh hero tales and some carvings on the High Crosses of the Christian Era. Older art depicting people is rare (perhaps for the sacral reasons discussed above), though not non-existent. We also have Classical descriptions and statuary which is useful, and a handful of items preserved to us by various means, such as the bog people.  

The Celts as described and depicted seem to be large, well-formed, and fit people (though this may be true mainly of the warrior aristocracy).  They were fond of  highly elaborated and even gaudy ornamentation and clothing. The men  often wore trousers, (which the Classical commentators thought barbarous), and large cloaks, which some Classical writers described as “checkered” or “marled" - terms which may have been an attempt to describe what we now refer to as Tartan or “plaid.”  (We will explore the history and nomenclature of tartan and aspects of Celtic dress more thoroughly elsewhere.)  

While we know of some aspects of their dress from archaic representations in stone, metal and other media, and from native Celtic literature, we have (as noted above) little in the way of cloth or other perishable material. 

Their weapons were both functional and elaborate, some of their arms and armor being quite beautifully decorated.