693 



CELT. 



CELT.E. 



B9-J 



are more wedge-like in shape, the cutting end being wider, and of 

 course thinner than towards the haft. That these instruments were 

 used as chisels, the blunt end being fixed in a wooden handle, there 

 can be little doubt ; marks such as might be made by a chisel of this 

 kiu.l are still traceable on the canoes and wooden vessels which have 

 been exhumed of primeval date, and instruments of a similar kind 

 formed of jade are used at the present day by natives of the South Sea 

 Islands in hollowing out and carving their canoes, &c. Stone celts are 

 most commonly made of flint, but they have also been found of serpen- 

 tine, jade, porphyry, sienite, siliceous schist, indurated clay-stone, &c. 

 They are found very plentifully throughout Great Britain, Ireland, and 

 the Channel Islands, and over the entire continent of Europe, and 

 indeed wherever primeval antiquities have been dug up. Examples of 

 them consequently abound in most European museums; the British 

 Museum contains numerous specimens. 



Bronze celts are scarcely less numerous than those of stone. They 

 belong to a somewhat more advanced stage of social progress. In 

 form they are more varied ; and they must have been more varied in 

 their mode of attachment, some being hollowed out to receive a handle, 

 while others are shaped to fasten into a handle. The hollowed kind 

 have usually an ear or ring attached, which it has been conjectured 

 served to fasten the celt to its handle by means of a thong. Several 

 moulds in which these bronze celts were cast have been found in 

 various places. Numerous examples of bronze celts and moulds will be 

 found in the British Museum. 



Much interest has lately been excited by the discovery of " flint- 

 objects," somewhat resembling in form and size the ordinary stone 

 celts, and therefore by some called celts, in those undisturbed beds of 

 gravel, sand, and clay known by the geological name of drift, and 

 in what geologists term bone-cave. Objects of this kind appear to have 

 been found in the drift at different periods without exciting particular 

 attention, several, for instance, are recorded (' Archacologia,' v. xiii.) 

 to have been found in gravel 12 feet below the surface at Hoxne in 

 Suffolk in 1797, but no particular attention appears to have been 

 given to the matter till M. Boucher de Perthes announced similar dis- 

 coveries made by himself at Abbeville of very large quantities of flint 

 implements, evidently shaped by the human hand, in undisturbed 

 gravel beds at a considerable depth below the surface. M. de Perthes 

 published his discoveries in his 'Antiquite's Celtiques et Ant<!dilu- 

 viennes,' 2 vols. 1817, but they at first attracted little notice. A second 

 edition of his work appeared in 1857. Within the last few months 

 discoveries of a similar kind have multiplied in a remarkable manner. 

 Objecte precisely similar were found in Brixham Cave, Devonshire, 

 among the bones of extinct mammals ; and shortly after, Dr. Falconer 

 found them in various caves hear Palermo, also in immediate con- 

 junction with bones of large extinct mammals; whilst Mr. Prestwich 

 and other geologists have been equally successful in their researches 

 among the beds of drift in Suffolk, at Abbeville, Amiens, and else- 

 where. In fact an immense quantity of these " flint-objects " have been 

 discovered in various parts of England and the continent of Europe, 

 and a great body of information accumulated. The objects differ 

 somewhat in shape from the ordinary celto, are very much ruder, 

 and always unpolished. They have been classed by Mr. J. Evans, one 

 of the most zealous investigators of the drift, in a paper read before 

 the Society of Antiquaries, as : " 1. Flakes of flint apparently intended 

 for knives or arrow-heads. 2. Pointed implements, usually truncated 

 at the base, and varying in length from 4 to 9 inches, possibly used 

 as spear- or lance-heads, which in shape they resemble. 3. Oval or 

 almond-shaped implements, from 2 to 9 inches in length, and with a 

 cutting edge all round : they have generally one end more sharply 

 curved than the other, and occasionally even pointed, and were possibly 

 used a sling-stones, or as axes, cutting at either end, with a handle 

 bound round the centre." 



Mr. Evans, it will be seen, feels little doubt of their character; and 



of the geologists who have taken part in the inquiry appear 



ly satisfied as to their being artificial products. The fact is how- 



5Vr very far from being generally admitted. Mr. Thomas Wright, 



ill, and other skilful antiquaries have published their reasons for 



duu'iting whether they are really works of human manufacture. The 



bearingi of the question with reference to the date of man's existence 



.ML the earth are so important that the matter must be thoroughly 



iftod in every way before any statements can be received as conclusive. 



i in the one hand, it will not be denied that, if found in any of the 



known placed of human resort, or sepulture, their artificial character 



v..JiiM have pawed unquestioned. On the other, besides the difficulty 



wining from the extreme rudeness of the articles themselves, there are 



difficulties suggested by the conditions in which they are found 



that cannot be overlooked. They are found amongst the bones of a 



great number of animals ; yet although, as is presumed, objects of 



ii workmanship, no human bones have been found with them; 



and this is the more remarkable because they occur in such quantities 



hundreds together sometimes and in so many places, that there 



mint have been in the various localities a somewhat dense population 



to require go many cutting-tools, for whatever purposes they were used. 



It u, to wy the least, a remarkable fact, that neither in the drift nur in 



the caves has any other trace of the existence of man been found except 



ttwfe rude " flint-objects," and that they should occur in such pro- 



fuirii.ni. But we have no intention to draw any conclusions either way. 



Probably before long some facts will be brought to light that will go 

 far to dissipate the difficulties which at present surround the subject. 



CELT^E, the name of an ancient race, which, according to the oldest 

 historical records, occupied a great part of central and western Europe. 

 The Celtse appear to have been divided into two great families, the 

 Gauls (Galli, in Greek KeXrai and roArfToi), who occupied the country 

 of that name from the remotest epoch on tradition, and who in their 

 own language called themselves CelUe ; and the Cymri, who are by 

 some considered to be the same as the Cimmerians (Ki/^e'pioi), who 

 appear to have migrated westwards at a later period from the countries 

 bordering on the sea of Azof, and, advancing along the Danube, to 

 have spread themselves across Germany to the Ocean. The latest 

 inquiries into the Celtic language show a clear affinity between it and 

 the languages called Indo-Germanic by modern philologists. The 

 earlier Greek writers had very confused notions about the Celtse. 

 Herodotus (iv. 49) places the Celtae at the sources of the Danube, and in 

 the remotest west of Europe, beyond the Cynetes (an unknown people) ; 

 but he does not mention them in his enumeration of the various 

 nations who furnished the Carthaginians with mercenaries for their 

 Sicilian wars. In the first Punic war we find Gaulish troops in the 

 Carthaginian service. Eratosthenes named all the north-west of Europe 

 Celtim ; and we learn from the inscription found at Olbin, near Odessa, 

 that Celts were settled in the Ukraine (Niebuhr ' Kleine Schriften ' ) 

 probably before the expiration of the second century before Christ. 

 Other Greek writers confound the Celtse with the Scythians, others 

 with the Germans or Teutones (Fabri ' Thesaurus,' art. Galli et Galatse, 

 and references there). The messengers who carried to Athens the 

 news of the burning of Rome by the Gauls (B.C. 382, according to 

 Niebuhr), said that it had been effected by a great host of Hyper- 

 boreans, who had come over the icy mountains from the unknown 

 regions of the north. (Plutarch's ' Camillus.') But long before this 

 (589 B.C.) the Celtic of Gaul had crossed the Alps, under Bellove'sus, 

 into northern Italy, and had become known to the Romans by the 

 name of Galli, ' Gaels,' which seems to have been an aboriginal name 

 of the oldest tribe of the Celtse settled in western Europe. Livy and 

 other ancient historians fix the immigration of Bellovesus in the reign 

 of Tarquinius the elder ; but Niebuhr is inclined to place it at a much 

 later date. It is evident, however, that there were several immigra- 

 tions of the Gauls into northern Italy, and at different times. The 

 Galli, who occupied the plain north of the Po, drove away the 

 Etruscans, but they never, conquered either the Veneti, who were 

 settled east of the Anthesis (Adige), or the Ligurians, who occupied 

 the country south of the Po to the Mediterranean and the river Macra, 

 The various Gaulish tribes that immigrated into Italy are believed to 

 have belonged to the ^Edui, Lingones, Ambarri, and Carnutes, who 

 have left traces of their residence in northern Italy. The Insubres 

 are said by some to have been a division of the JEdui. (Bossi, ' Storia 

 d'ltalia,' vol. ii. c. 9.) The Cenomani seem to have belonged to a later 

 immigration ; they occupied the country of the Orobii, the previous 

 inhabitants of the hilly region about Como and Bergamo. Cato (' De 

 Origin.') says that the Orobii were not Gauls. The Boii were likewise 

 a later immigration of Gauls, who crossed the Po, and occupied the 

 country south of that river. [Bon, in GEOG. Div.] Lastly, the Senones 

 spread south-east of the Boii, along the Adriatic coast, as far as 

 Picenum. The Gauls never made a permanent settlement in Italy 

 south of the Apennines. 



Contemporary with the first recorded immigration under Bellovesus, 

 another host of Gauls, under Segovesus, crossed the Rhine, and, ad- 

 vancing as far as the Hercynian forest, settled along the Danube, and 

 in the country now called Bohemia, from which they were afterwards 

 driven by the Marcomanni and other Teutonic or German tribes. 

 Some of them penetrated into Illyricum, and settled among the 

 Illyrians. The Scordisci, south of the Danube, appear to have been a 

 tribe of Gaids. In very remote times the Celtse of Gaul crossed the 

 Pyrenees, and conquered part of Spain, 'where their descendants, 

 becoming mixed with the aboriginal Iberians, formed the nation known 

 to the Carthaginians and the Romans by the name of CELTIBEBI. 

 Some colonies of Celtic penetrated to the western extremity of Spain, 

 and we find them mentioned in the ancient geographers under the 

 name of Celtici, both on the banks of the Anas (Qnadiana) and on 

 those of the Minius (Minho) in northern Lusitania. 



The GauU likewise are said to have crossed the sea into Britain, 

 which they occupied. [BRITANNIA, GEOG. Div.] But while the 

 Gauls were thus spreading their colonies to the east, the west, and the 

 south, they were themselves pressed upon from the north by the 

 Cymri or Cimmerians, who appear to have been a branch originally of 

 the same stock as the Gauls, and who hud occupied western Germany. 

 The Belgco are believed by some, among whom is Niebuhr, to have 

 been a mixed race of Cimmerians and Germans ; Appian (' De Reb. 

 Gall.') says that the Nervii, one of the chief Belgian tribes, wore dereuii I 

 ants of Cumbrians and Teutones. The epoch of the grtat Cimmerian 

 immigration is unknown, and there is much confusion in the ancient 

 historical records between the movements of the Cimmerians and those 

 of the original Gauls. We know that the Belgse occupied the northern 

 part of Gaul and the southern part of Britain, and drove the Gauls farther 

 inland. It appears also that tribes of Cymri occupied the north-west 

 coast of Gaul, for the Veneti of lower Britanny were called Cymri or 

 Cimhrians, as distinct from the Celtic Gauls around them. Diodorua 



