Celtic Art

Celtic art reflects the way Iron Age people interpreted the world around them. The designs they used help us understand how they viewed themselves, their environment and their gods.

The Celtic art found in Wales is part of a much wider tradition in Britain and Europe, often called La Tène art, which developed during the Iron Age from about 500BC.

The earliest example from Wales is the Cerrig-y-Drudion bowl which was found in 1924 in a stone-lined grave in the county of Conwy. It is one of the few decorated artefacts from Britain to date to the 4th century BC and was probably made by British craftsmen influenced by Continental traditions.

Many more decorated objects are known from about 200BC, by which time Britain had developed its own distinctive style. British craftsmen continued to produce swords, daggers, spears, brooches and horse equipment, but also other objects such as tankards, mirrors and spoons.

Symbolic designs

Particular motifs and designs are introduced and often repeated, reinforcing their meaning. Archaeologists interpret these as symbolic and powerful with religious connotations. For example the three-fold character of the triskele (a three-legged design radiating from a centre) may represent the relationships between the living, the dead and the gods or the ongoing cycle of birth, life and death.

The crescentic plaque from Llyn Cerrig Bach (pictured) is decorated with an elaborate triskele, each limb ending with a trumpet and raised circle that suggests a stylised bird head.

Stylised representations of people and animals become more common after 100BC with faces often hidden within complex patterns. Human heads surrounded by a flowing plant-like design can be seen on plaques from the Tal-y-Llyn hoard while a variety of cows, horses, boars and birds adorn a wide range of other artefacts. Ox head escutcheons (bucket-fittings) have been found in Wales (pictured - the Little Orme (Conwy) hoard also contained two Roman trumpet brooches, indicating that this Celtic style continued in use after the Roman conquest), showing the stylised characteristics and flowing lines of native British artistic styles.

Mythical beasts are also hinted at, for example in the imaginatively constructed horse-cow heads that ornament the Capel Garmon firedog.

Celtic designs did not disappear with the Roman conquest, but continued to influence art. A bronze trulleus (saucepan) from Coygan Camp in Carmarthenshire was repaired with a sheet of metal sometime in the 3rd century AD. It was not decorated with a typical Roman design, but with a triskele motif, showing a continuing appreciation of Celtic art.

Background Reading

Early Celtic art in Britain and Ireland by Ruth and Vincent Megaw. Published by Shire Archaeology (1986).

Druids, the ancient priests of Britain and Ireland, have long intrigued and kindled the imagination of large popular audiences. The stereotypical image of the white robed wise man, carrying perhaps a golden sickle and mistletoe, or clasping a white staff, remains strong with us today, the outcome of many centuries of thinking and invention. Yet what evidence do we have for these powerful but elusive figures?

Earliest mention of Druids comes during the 1st century BC, referring to druidae in Gaul (France) and Britain, who were wise men, observers of natural phenomena and moral philosophers. Similar to the druids were the

bards (bardoi) - singers and poets, and diviners (vates), who interpreted sacrifices in order to foretell the future.

Druids and bards were common in medieval Welsh and Irish texts, probably giving account of much earlier oral tradition, passed on by word of mouth.

The visual appearance of druids - what they wore and what possessions they owned - is difficult to clarify. There are few illustrations or inscriptions of the time, whilst archaeology rarely provides certain answers. A druidic ceremony described by Pliny, in his Natural History, describes, a white robed druid climbing an oak tree to cut down mistletoe with a golden sickle.

Hywel Dda

In Wales, the roles and privileges of bards related to laws set down by Hywel Dda in the 10th century AD. During the 18th century, druids came to be seen as the ancestors of the bards, the praise poets, musicians and genealogists, who flourished in Welsh medieval society.

Human Sacrifice

A revival of interest in druids began during the Renaissance (14th to 16th-centuries), when translations of Classical Greek and Roman texts became widely available. A number of sources describe the druids as performing human sacrifice. Places of worship were described as isolated wooded groves and near sacred pools and lakes. According to one source, the druidic groves on Mona (Anglesey) had the blood of prisoners drenched upon their altars.

Stonehenge

Some accounts suggested that the stone circles at Avebury and Stonehenge had been druidic temples. Similarly, a number of megalithic monuments on Anglesey were thought as the temples and sacrificial altars of druids. However, with advances in archaeological understanding during the 19th century, it became clear that these monuments were built over 4,000 years ago, long before the appearance of druids. Nevertheless, modern druids and bards continue to meet within stone circles today.

Celtic rituals of the Iron Age

Archaeology does however provide evidence for the religious expression of Celtic Iron Age people. The tradition of offering gifts to the gods is well illustrated at the site of

Llyn Cerrig Bach on Anglesey. Here, between 300BC and AD100, chariots, weapons, tools and decorated metalwork items were cast from a causeway or island into a small lake. Coincidentally, an account by the Roman author Tacitus vividly recounts the crushing of a druidic stronghold on Anglesey by the Roman army, leading some to infer that Llyn Cerrig Bach was a druidic site.

Other instances of Celtic Iron Age ritual have also been identified. For example, a probable sacrificial victim preserved in peat has been found at Lindow Moss in Cheshire (England). Recently, the famous

Cerrig-y-Drudion bowl , elaborately decorated in the Celtic or La Tène art style, has also been convincingly interpreted as a ceremonial crown. This and a number of other crowns and regalia, found with burials or in temples in Britain, may have denoted priestly office.

In this prehistoric world, the power of the pagan Celtic gods was keenly felt, ever present and intermingled within everyday life.

Anglesey

The druids have long been associated with Anglesey in popular imagination. The historical evidence upon which this association is based is an account by the Roman author Tacitus, who wrote of the Roman conquest of Anglesey:

"On the beach stood the adverse array [of Britons], a serried mass of arms and men, with women flitting between the ranks. In the style of Furies, in robes of deathly black and with disheveled hair, they brandished their torches; while a circle of Druids, lifting their hands to heaven and showering imprecations, struck the troops with such an awe at the extraordinary spectacle that, as though their limbs were paralysed, they exposed their bodies to wounds without an attempt at movement. Then, reassured by their general, and inciting each other never to flinch before a band of females and fanatics, they charged behind the standards, cut down all who met them, and enveloped the enemy in his own flames. The next step was to install a garrison among the conquered population, and to demolish the groves consecrated to their savage cults; for they considered it a pious duty to slake the altars with captive blood and to consult their deities by means of human entrails." (Translated by John Jackson, published by William Heinemann, 1951).

Background Reading

Druids by A. Ross. Tempus Publishing (1999).

Exploring the World of the Druids by M. J. Green. Published by Thames & Hudson (1997).

Shrines & Sacrifice by A. Woodward. Published by Batsford (1992).

Tacitus: the annals By J. Jackson. Published by William Heinemann (1951).

The Bog Man and the Archaeology of People by D. Brothwell. British Museum Publications (1986).

The Druids by S. Piggott. Published by Thames & Hudson (1968).

In 1990, archaeologists working at a site on Llan-gors Lake, near Brecon, made an unexpected discovery - the remains of a magnificently decorated textile, over a thousand years old.

Just off the northern shore of Llan-gors Lake lies a crannog (a man-made island) built as a royal site for the ruler of Brycheiniog in the 890s - a turbulent period in the kingdom's history.

At this time, Brycheiniog was under pressure from several neighbouring kingdoms, and Llan-gors must have seemed a safe retreat. However, excavations of the site have shown that this haven was short-lived, being destroyed by fire in the early 10th century.

Much of the archaeological work at Llan-gors focused on the waterlogged silts that surrounded the crannog. It was here that the textile was discovered, badly charred and very fragile.

Through careful conservation treatment it was possible to separate and clean its many layers revealing this unlikely lump to be among the most important finds of early medieval textile yet found in Britain.

The base material of the textile was a very fine plain-weave linen. Silk and linen threads have been used to decorate the textile with birds and other creatures within a framework of vines, and with borders containing repeating patterns or lions.

The skill with which this work has been accomplished continues to be a source of wonder. The linen has 23 threads to the centimetre - a magnificent achievement given the equipment available in the 9th and 10th centuries AD.

The textile appears to be part of a garment, perhaps a tunic or dress - it has a hem and a belt loop - but unfortunately too little survives to indicate its detailed shape.

Its owner was a person of considerable status since the silk that decorates it must have been imported to Britain, while the quality of the needlework suggest that it was produced in a specialist workshop.

So how did this fine textile come to be lost? A clue can be found in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for AD916, which records that in this year a Mercian army from England destroyed a site called Brecenanmere (Brecknock-mere = Llan-gors Lake) and captured 'the wife of the king and 33 other persons'.

Was this the event that saw the burning of Llan-gors and the loss of the textile? It is tempting to believe so.

Background Reading

'A fine quality insular embroidery from Llangors Crannog, near Brecon' by H. Granger-Taylor and F. Pritchard. In Pattern and Purpose in Insular Art edited by M. Redknap, S. Youngs, A. Lane and J. Knight, p91-99. Published by Oxbow Books (2001).

'Worn by a Welsh Queen?' by L. Mumford and M. Redknap. In Amgueddfa, vol. 2, p52-4 (1999).

'The Llangorse textile; approaches to understanding an early medieval masterpiece' by L. Mumford, H. Prosser and J. Taylor, in C. Gillis and M.-L. B. Nosch (eds), Ancient Textiles: Production, Craft and Society, 158-62. Published by Oxbow Books (2007).