Celtic Europe

Landscapes of Somerset, England. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 The region was formerly known as Glastening, from which Glastonbury gets its name. Glastening was named after a Welsh chieftain named Cyndrwyn Glas(t) (i.e. “the grey”), son of Elnaw, who hailed from the chiefdom of Dogfeiling in north Wales, which was part of the Kingdom of Gwynedd. He was a descendant of Gwynedd’s founder, Cunedda Wledig, who hailed from Manaw Gododdin in Scotland. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 After the Welsh king of Powys, Selyf Sarffgadau (“Solomon Battle-Serpent”) was killed by the Angles of Northumbria at the Battle of Chester (AD 613), Cyndrwyn seems to have opportunistically invaded Powys and enthroned his son Elfan there. Part of Powys’ territory in central England was carved out to form another kingdom called Pengwern, where Cyndrwyn’s other son Cynddylan was enthroned. Another son, Morfael, gained renown fighting against the Angles of Mercia, when he stormed and took the town of Caer-Luitcoyt (now Lichfield) from them. Subsequently, an alliance was made with Mercia, and the Pengwern Welsh were instrumental in the defeat and killing of king Oswald of Northumbria at the Battle of Maserfield (AD 642). However, Penda’s Welsh allies would eventually have a falling out with him, and they notably abstained from fighting the Battle of Winwaed (AD 655), where he was killed by Oswiu of Northumbria. The victorious Oswiu then attacked Pengwern unexpectedly, killing Cynddylan and Elfan, and forcing the elderly Cyndrwyn, his son Morfael, and many of their people to seek refuge in Dumnonia. There, they were apparently given Glastening as a chiefdom. Tragically, they lost half of it almost immediately, as the West Saxons invaded and defeated the Britons at the Battle of Peonnum (AD 658), pushing the border to the river Parrett. Celtic Europe - channel link (please share!): https://t.me/CelticEurope

Sheep and heather in the Wicklow Mountains of Ireland. 🇮🇪 Celtic Europe - channel link (please share!): https://t.me/CelticEurope

Artistc reconstructions of the Gallic city of Bibracte as it would have looked in the 1st century B.C. Bibracte was the capital of the Celtic Aedui tribe, one of the most powerful in all Gaul and one of Rome’s principal allies in the region. The city was located on the top of Mont Beuvray, in Burgundy, France. Art by Jean Claude Golvin. 🇫🇷

The hill of Allt Cunedda, near Kidwelly, in Carmarthenshire, Wales. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Local tradition has it that the founder and first king of Gwynedd, Cunedda Wledig, son of Edern, was killed here. Cunedda was a chieftain from the northern region of Manaw Gododdin, located around present day Falkirk in what’s now Scotland. In the 5th century AD, he was invited by the rulers of southern Britain —possibly even Vortigern himself— to come to Wales and re-conquer large parts of it from Irish invaders who’d taken over and colonized the area. After many years of fighting, Cunedda and his people were successful in either killing or driving out most of the Irish from northern and western Wales. They carved out two kingdoms from the territories they had acquired: Gwynedd and Ceredigion. The old folk tale recorded around Kidwelly held that later on, Cunedda came to the area with his army, seeking to make additional conquests in south Wales (the area was part of the Kingdom of Dyfed at that time). At the hill that bears his name, he was met by a large band of locals (presumably includingIrish colonists), who fought a battle against him in which he was finally defeated and killed. Cunedda was said to have been buried nearby, and his sons Einion Yrth and Ceredig followed him as kings of Gwynedd and Ceredigion respectively.

Recreated burial of an Indo-European prince, unearthed near Fuente Olmedo, in Valladolid province, Spain. 🇪🇸 On display at the Museum of Valladolid. The Fuente Olmedo burial is dated to ~1,650 B.C. It contained a young man between 16 and 18 years of age, buried with elite-status items such as bell-beaker pottery, a copper dagger, copper arrows, a golden diadem, and a stone wrist-guard to protect his forearm when engaged in archery. His young age and diadem suggest he was a ruler who inherited his position, but died prematurely. Archaeological and genetic studies have shown that the people to whom the Fuente Olmedo prince belonged were in part derived from Central European migrants who came to central Spain at some point around 2,500 B.C. They were apparently mostly males, who then intermarried with native Iberian women. DNA extracted from skeletons of these people has so far all reflected the paternal lineages R1b-P312 and DF27, which would mean that these people were of the same stock as the later attested Celts. Their autosomal DNA however, was almost entirely native Iberian, as the central European component was diluted through generations of inter-marriage. These people were culturally different from the non-Indo-European Iberian civilization of the southern and eastern peninsula. The latter were urban, agricultural, and matriarchal, while the former were male-ruled semi-nomadic livestock-herders. These Indo-European herders were ancestral to later attested peoples of Iberia, such as the Vettones and Lusitanians, while others of their descendants inter-married with the Celts who arrived in the peninsula from southern France around 1,200 B.C; going on to form hybrid cultures such as the Celtiberians, Berones, Autrigones, and others. In the case of northern peoples such as the Astures, Gallaecians, and Cantabrians, trade and some migration from the British Isles seems to have also contributed to the mix. Celtic Europe - channel link (please share!): https://t.me/CelticEurope

Great Sugar Loaf Mountain (Irish: Ó Cualann; “Lump of Cualu”), with heather prairie blooming in the foreground and the remainder of the Wicklow Mountains in the background; county Wicklow, Ireland. 🇮🇪 The name of this mountain reflects the original and more ancient name of the region, for Cualu was the name of a territory that encompassed almost the whole of present county Wicklow and parts of county Dublin, from Arklow to the river Liffey. According to the Irish place-name index, www.logainm.ie, the Wicklow Mountains were also formerly known as Sliabh Ruadh, meaning “Red Mountain”. The current Irish name is Sléibhte Chill Mhantáin; “Mountains of the Church of St. Mantan”, and is more modern.

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The Anglo-Saxon Coppergate Helmet; discovered in York, England; 8th century AD. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 The brass and iron helmet is modeled on late Roman cavalry helmets and is very much identical to the ones depicted as being worn by Northumbrian soldiers at the Battle of Dún Nechtáin, on the Pictish Aberlemno stone. It is not the only one of it’s type discovered in England and dated to that period either, though it certainly is the finest and most exquisitely executed example. Celtic Europe - channel link (please share!): https://t.me/CelticEurope

Pictish symbol stone depicting a battle against Anglo-Saxon invaders, from the churchyard of Aberlemno, in Angus; Scotland. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿⚔️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 The stone is thought to depict the Battle of Dún Nechtáin, fought on May 20 of the year AD 685, between the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria and the Pictish Kingdom of Foirtriu. Northumbria had been extending its power northward into northern Scotland, trying to subdue and annex the whole of northern Britain. Strong resistance seems to have coalesced around the Pictish king of Foirtriu, Bridei III, son of Beli. The Anglian king Ecgfrith, son of Oswiu, led an immense army into Scotland in hopes of finally crushing that resistance. According to the English historian Bede, the Picts lured the Anglo-Saxon army deep into Scotland to a pre-selected battlefield, where they were defeated and cut to pieces in one of the bloodiest battles of that entire period. Ecgfrith himself was killed —the stone seems to show him in the lower right, being eaten by a raven— along with his entire army. The Picts not only shook off Northumbrian domination, they permanently broke the kingdom’s power; Northumbria would never again achieve hegemony in Britain. Celtic Europe - channel link (please share!): https://t.me/CelticEurope

The city of Dinant, on the banks of the Meuse river, in Walloonia, Belgium. 🇧🇪 Like many other places in this part of Europe, the region’s Celtic past is very much evident in the place-names. The name Dinant is derived from Gaulish Divo-Nanto, meaning “Divine/Sacred Valley”. In like manner, the geographical region in which Dinant is located is called Condroz, a name derived from that of the Gallic tribe that inhabited this area, the Condrusi. Julius Caesar innacurately documented this people as Germanic, however the tribal name, which is rendered in some Latin sources as ‘Condrusti’, is indisputably Celtic. Like many tribal names, it probably represents the name or an ancestor. Condrustos would mean “group-cry” or “group-howl” (Gaulish: Con-/Com- [together, with] + Trustos [noise/cry]). The name was probably a word play reference to wolves, as the first element is similar enough to the Gaulish word Cunos, meaning “wolf” or “hound”. The river Meuse also retains its original Gaulish name, having evolved from Mosa, a word that’d be related to the English word maze and bear the same meaning. Celtic Europe - channel link (please share!): https://t.me/CelticEurope