Most of us don’t know about Celts a lot. Very often their image is formed by the modern entertainment literature where Celts resemble Vikings very much –the same people in helmets with horns and the same fans of fist-fighting.
It is worth mentioning that Celts were not lucky with the image of them in books even a very long time ago. Polybius and Diodorus described Celts in their essays as dumb people who couldn’t do anything but making war and cultivating the land. Writer of later time kept sticking to the same opinion.
Nevertheless the data of modern archeology allows to affirm that Cesar defeated not the poor hut inhabitants but the serious political-economical opponents which had been in advance in technical development for many years ahead of Romans. Even the contemporary of Celts Aristotel called them “wise and skilful”.
It could be proven by the fact that in 1853 archeologists found a very elaborate trappings in Switzerland. At that time they had a lot of doubts about if it really had belonged to Celts or it was a modern imitation but the following findings scuttled all the doubts. Nowadays scientists are sure that Celtic masters were able to make a very fine art.
The researcher of Celtic culture admit that Celts were the first who set up salt mines and the first who learned how to eliquate steel from iron ore. And this is not only one achievement of those people. To make it clear I will number them:
1) Only Celtic people (and no other nation) made bracelets out of smelted glass and they had no joints.
2) They learned how to find copper, tin, lead and mercury in deep-seated deposits.
3) They made the best in Europe carts for horse harnesses.
4) They were the first who managed to beat out steel helmets, swords and chain armors and it was the best weapon in Europe.
5) They managed to master the washing gold on Alpine rivers and the extraction of gold was measured in tons.
An Austrian scientist Harold Schtraube tried to simulate Celtic metal manufacture. His experiment showed that Celts could bring the temperature to 1400° C in their smelt-furnaces. Running the temperature and skillfully dealing with molten ore and coal Celtic masters could produce either soft iron or hard steel.
On the background of bright technical achievements the rituals connected with human immolation don’t look very good but we should look careful at this information because most information was brought from the Romanic sources and they contained a lot of artifices and prejudices about Celts.
This combination of high technologies and slaughterous rituals amazes the scientists all over the world. One of the specialists in manners and curves of ancient people admitted that that diabolic synthesis was met only in Maya and Aztec cultures.
The final Curious phrase:
“Left-handed to no profession”
(English saying)
