3611
Online museum and repository for historical and ancestral knowledge.
Red sandstone pillar cross, located at Carndonagh (Irish: Carn Domhnaich; “Stone-heap of the Church”), in the Inishowen peninsula of county Donegal; 7th century AD. 🇮🇪
The reverse side of the cross is covered in interlace patterns, while the obverse displays Christ crucified. Along with Him are depicted the two thieves executed beside him, and the Roman soldiers Stephaton and Longinus. Below are three figures wearing long robes and cowls, thought to represent the three women who visited Christ’s tomb. The cross was accompanied by two smaller stones with carvings that represented various figures, including a pilgrim, a minstrel (possibly intended as the biblical David), and a warrior.
More information: http://www.megalithicireland.com/High%20Cross%20Carndonagh.html
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Heather blooming in the Shropshire hills of western England. 🏴
This region was formerly part of a Celtic petty-kingdom known as Pengwern, which was a subsidiary of the Welsh Kingdom of Powys. The region was conquered around AD 655 by the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria. That year, Northumbria had defeated the rival Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Mercia at the Battle of the Winwaed, killing their king, Penda, son of Pybba. They followed up their victory with a series of raids and conquests, taking over parts of Mercia and destroying the allied kingdom of Pengwern. These conquests did not last, however, as the region was later taken over by a resurgent Mercia. The people were then re-organized as an Anglo-Saxon ruled sub-kingdom called Wreocansaete, becoming culturally assimilated over time.
A collection of Welsh poems known as Canu Heledd (“The Songs of Heledd”) tell the tragic story of the fall of Pengwern; the most notable piece is Marwnad Cynddylan (“The Elegy for Cynddylan”). In these poems, the sole survivor of the royal family of Pengwern, princess Heledd, recounts how her brother, king Cynddylan, son of Cyndrwyn, was killed in battle against the invading Northumbrians, who subsequently attacked and destroyed the royal court, killing all of her family and forcing her to flee farther west into Wales.
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The kingdoms of medieval Wales and their divisions (cantrefi); mid 10th century AD. 🏴
Notes:
-Of all these kingdoms, Gwynedd was by far the strongest and most pre-eminent. It also stood out as putting up the longest and most obstinate resistance to English conquest.
-A “cantref” was an administrative division; the word means “a hundred villages/homesteads” in Welsh.
-There is an error on the map: The cantref of Gwyr (a small peninsula in the south) was part of the Kingdom of Deheubarth, not Morgannwg/Glywysing.
-Morgannwg came about as a merger of the kingdoms of Glywysing and Gwent, so for that time period, those parts should be shown in one color. This union did not last, however.
-The region known as Rhwng Gwy a Hafren (“[Land] Between the Wye and the Severn [rivers]”) was historically part of the Kingdom of Powys, but broke away in the 10th century, the cantrefi forming independent petty kingdoms. -Powys would also go on to lose the cantref of Penllyn to Gwynedd in the 12th century.
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Gold bracelet found near Leekfrith, in Staffordshire, England, part of a larger hoard of gold torcs; 400-250 B.C. 🏴
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Lochaber Axe, from an unknown location in Scotland, estimated date 17th or 18th century; from a private collection. 🏴
The Lochaber Axe was a popular weapon in the Scottish Highlands, first attested in the early 16th century. It takes its name from the Lochaber region, presumably because that’s where the design first originated and/or became popular. It was a large halberd-like weapon; a battle-axe mounted on a 5-6 foot long pole, featuring a hook protruding from the back. The latter feature was intended as a tool to pull horsemen from their saddles. Heavy battle-axes were a legacy of the Viking Age, the Norse having been the first to pioneer the use of such weapons for smashing shields and armored opponents. Like all weapons of the halberd type, the Lochaber Axe was useful even before the brutal hand-to-hand violence of a battle had commenced. The mere sight of such weapons can provoke terror, making them as much a tool for the psychological aspect of warfare as they are for the kinetic.
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Gold hemi-stater coin, from an unknown location in France; 1st century B.C. 🇫🇷 Both sides appear to depict the Gallic equine fertility goddess Epona.
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Dumbarton Rock and Castle (Gaelic: Dùn Breatainn, “Fortress of the Britons”), in west Dunbartonshire, Scotland. 🏴 3rd and 4th images are artistic reconstructions, by Peter Dennis & Historic Scotland respectively, of what the settlement looked like during the early medieval period.
Dumbarton rock is a large volcanic plug and promontory that protrudes out into the waters of the river Clyde. It’s easily defensible position made it an ideal location to locate a settlement in ancient times. Formerly known as Alt Clut (Cumbric language: “Rock of the Clyde”), it was the capital and chief residence for the rulers of the Kingdom of Strathclyde, a Brittonic polity located in the southwest of Scotland. The kingdom was often at war with the Picts, as well as with the Scots of neighboring Dàl Riata. As such, it tended to make alliances with the Anglo-Saxons of Northumbria as a means of bolstering itself. Alt Clut itself was destroyed by the Norse Vikings of Dublin and the Isles, after a four month siege in the year 871 AD (depicted in the illustration by Historic Scotland). The Norse king Amlaíb Conung and his brother Ímar took king Arthgal of Strathclyde as a prisoner to Dublin, together with a large number of his people. Arthgal was later executed at the request of king Constantine I of Scotland. The Kingdom of Strathclyde survived this calamity, and for a long time continued resisting incorporation into the kingdom of Scotland. It eventually became closely allied with Scotland and was finally incorporated into the kingdom by the mid 11th century.
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The “Froehner Tessera”, Celtiberian bronze hospitality tessera, from Zaragoza province, Spain; 2nd or 1st century B.C. 🇪🇸
The hand-shaped tessera contains writing in the Celtiberian script, a writing system adapted from that of the nearby Iberian civilization. These tesserae were used as documents to record hospitality pacts, which could be formed either between individuals, or between entire tribes. These types of pacts allowed one party to acquire the same legal rights as the other. The Froehner Tessera records the name of one party —an individual— to such a pact. There is thought to have been another hand-shaped tessera, now missing, recording the identity of the other party. The inscription reads: Lubos Alisokum Avalo Ke(ntis) Kontebias Belaiskas, which translated from Celtiberian means: “Lubos, of the Alisocum (clan), son of Avalos, (from the the city of) Contrebia Belaisca”. Contrebia Belaisca was a city of the Celtiberian Belli tribe, located near modern Botorrita, in Zaragoza province, Spain.
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Illustration of a 5th century AD Pictish hill-fort in eastern Scotland; art by Peter Dennis. 🏴
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Loch Leven (Gaelic: Loch Líobhann), in Fife, Scotland. 🏴
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Gallic envoys meet king Alexander III “the Great” of Macedon; 335 B.C. Art by Angus McBride.
Before embarking on his legendary conquest of the Persian empire, Alexander felt it wise to secure Macedonia’s northern borders through a series of military campaigns in the Balkans. The main target of his campaign were the Thracian Triballi, who inhabited modern day Bulgaria and Serbia, and dominated the entire region. The Greek geographer Strabo recorded how, after defeating and subduing the Thracians, Alexander was approached by envoys from the Celts who’d recently settled farther north up the Danube, and were seeking an alliance. Alexander was impressed when, wanting to see if they were intimidated by him, he asked what thing they feared most, to which their reply was that they feared nothing, except that the sky might fall upon them. The exact meaning of this statement remains a mystery to this day. The ambassadors were careful not to alienate a valuable ally, by adding that they “valued above all else” the friendship of a man such as Alexander.
The English word “ambassador” is a borrowing from the Gaulish language, having been taken indirectly through French. The Gaulish root word was “ambactos”, which meant “one who goes about”.
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Modern partial reconstructions of Celtic fortifications and a farmstead at Havránok, in the Liptov region of Slovakia. 🇸🇰
Havránok was an ancient settlement that formed part of what archaeologists call the “Púchov culture”, which encompassed Slovakia and parts of western Ukraine, lasting from around 300 B.C. to 175 AD. The Púchov culture owed its genesis to the migration into the region of a Celtic people from elsewhere in central Europe, who settled among, and intermarried with the local Slavic population living there already.
Roman authors such as Julius Caesar, the geographer Claudius Ptolemy, and Tacitus, identified two Celtic tribes living here: The Cotini in central Slovakia, and the Anartes farther east. Tacitus stated in no uncertain terms that the Cotini spoke the Celtic Gaulish language.
The Púchov culture came to a tragic end during the 166-180 AD “Marcomanic Wars”, a prolonged and brutal conflict resulting from a series of invasions of the Roman empire by Germanic and Sarmatian tribes. Said war is briefly depicted at the beginning of the 2000 film Gladiator. According to the Greek historian Dio Cassius, the Cotini had promised to assist the Romans by attacking their enemies, the Germanic Marcomanni and Quadi tribes, who lived farther west in what is now the Czech Republic. But the promised attack never materialized, and furthermore, the Cotini are said to have committed an unspecified outrage against a Roman envoy. Without clarifying, Dio stated that this “led to their destruction”. It has been speculated by modern historians that the Romans punished the Cotini people (and their neighbors, the Anartes, who also disappear from the historical record at this time) with a military campaign and mass deportation into the Roman province of Pannonia. Afterward, their deserted lands were occupied by various Dacian, Slavic, and Germanic peoples. These events signified the definitive end of a Celtic presence in central Europe.
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Castell y Gwynt, atop Glyder Fach Mountain, in Snowdonia National Park, Wales. 🏴
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Carved stone stele depicting a mounted warrior preparing to throw a spear, found among the ruins of the ancient city of Veleia, near Iruña de Oca, in Álava province, Spain; 2nd century B.C. 🇪🇸 On display at the Archaeological Museum of Álava.
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A misty morning in the mountains of Snowdonia; Gwynedd, Wales. 🏴
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Depiction of king David I of Scotland (reigned 1124-1153), from a charter issued by his grandson and successor, Malcolm IV, to Kelso Abbey in 1159. 🏴
David is remembered mainly for a massive overhaul of the kingdom of Scotland, with sweeping reforms to its legal system and economy. He imported thousands of English nobles and granted them estates in the most fertile lands of Scotland. This was part of David’s policy of introducing feudalism (feudalism was not organic in any part of Europe, having originated from reforms and social-economic decline of the late Roman Empire). Towns and infrastructure began to be built on a massive scale, while new industries and technologies were introduced. Essentially, David sought to modernize Scotland and make it more like England and France. While these trends had begun in Scotland since the time of his father, Malcolm III, David accelerated them. For that reason, it’s often referred to as the “Davidian Revolution”.
David’s policies, and those of others of his dynasty, have been heavily criticized by some historians. They point out that feudalism and mass migration by English noblemen alienated the Gaelic natives of Scotland and turned formerly free peasants with legal rights into serfs with practically none. Other nations, i.e. in Christian Iberia, accomplished the same modernization without importing thousands of foreigners. The new English-migrant nobility were also often people of questionable loyalty. This became painfully obvious for David at the Battle of the Standard in the year 1138, when David invaded England only to suffer a humiliating military debacle. Accounts of the battle are consistent: The English nobles in David’s retinue left a Gaelic contingent from Galloway and Lothian to fight outnumbered and alone, blocking reinforcements, then fled the battlefield without striking a blow, taking the king with them by force and initiating a general rout of the entire Scottish army.
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Gallowglass mercenaries in 16th century Ireland. 🇮🇪 Illustration by Angus McBride (RIP: 1931-2007).
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The lost Celtiberian city of Titiakos has been found by archaeologists in Spain. 🇪🇸 Article translated from Spanish linked below.
The context spoken of in the article is the Sertorian War (80-72 B.C.), a civil war that raged between political factions of the Roman Republic. The war broke out when an exiled Roman general named Quintus Sertorius galvanized native tribes in Spain for a full scale revolt against Rome. Sertorius was a talented strategist who gained many victories and came close to controlling all of the Iberian Peninsula. Sadly, he was undermined by the incompetence, jealousy and scheming of the other Roman generals who were fighting on his side. He was ultimately betrayed and assassinated by them, whereupon his movement unraveled and was speedily crushed by the Roman government. The traitors who’d murdered Sertorius were all captured and executed by the Roman general Gnaeus Pompeius, a.k.a. “Pompey the Great”.
Article translated from Spanish via Google Translate:
https://www-xataka-com.translate.goog/investigacion/acabamos-descubrir-ciudad-celtibera-soria-gracias-a-campamento-romano-titiakos?_x_tr_sl=es&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp
Lightning strike at Covesea Lighthouse, Moray 🏴
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Dyfed will rise again
https://youtu.be/_oeUpbarWeo
A beach in county Donegal, Ireland. 🇮🇪 Muckish mountain in the distance.
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“The Death of Tewdric”; 1852 drawing, based on a sculpture by J. Evan Thomas.
The illustration (and sculpture) depicts the death in battle of king Tewdrig, son of Teithfallt, who ruled the Kingdom of Glywysing in south Wales. 🏴 Tewdrig had abdicated his throne in favor of his son Meurig, retiring to a monastic life at Tintern. When Anglo-Saxon invaders attacked his people, he was recalled to lead the defense of the kingdom. Tewdrig defeated the invaders in battle near the river Wye, but was mortally wounded in the encounter. He was buried at Mathern, where his son Meurig built a church in his honor. These events took place in the late 6th century AD. His adversaries were almost certainly the tribe of the Gewisse, a.k.a. the West Saxons, whose kingdom of Wessex was coalescing in the upper Thames river valley at that time.
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The Wandsworth Shield; Bronze shield boss decorated in La-Tène style, found in the river Thames, in London, England; 2nd century B.C. 🏴 On display at the British Museum.
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“The Dying Galatian”; Roman marble sculpture, copy of a Greek original. Housed in the Capitoline Museums of Rome.
The original is thought to have been commissioned by king Attalus I, of the Greek Kingdom of Pergamon, located in what is now western Turkey. It’s thought to commemorate Attalus’ victory over the Galatian Celts at the Battle of the Caecus River, in the year 237 B.C. Before that, Pergamon had been a vassal of the Galatians, required to pay tribute. The kingdom owed it’s very existence to the Celts, as they’d helped Attalus’ predecessor, Eumenes I, revolt against king Antiochus I of the Seleucid Empire (a successor of Alexander the Great’s Macedonian Empire), defeating and killing him in battle near Sardis in the year 261 B.C. Tribute payments were likely part of the agreement made by Eumenes to secure the alliance, but Attalus refused to continue paying. He successfully threw off the Galatian yoke by defeating them at the river Caecus, not far from the city of Pergamon. The magnitude of this victory however, may be exaggerated by historians: An inscription from the city of Aptera, on the island of Crete, specifies that only one Galatian tribe, the Tolistobogii, participated in the battle, with no mention of the other two, the Tectosages and Trocmi. It suggests that Attalus fought an advantageous battle against a much smaller army, before the Celts could gather the full compliment of their forces.
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The kingdoms of early medieval Ireland. 🇮🇪 Viking settlements also shown (Dublin, Limerick, Waterford, Wexford, Linns and Cork).
The most powerful and formidable native groups in the island at this time were the tribal confederations known as “Uí Néill” (“descendants of Niall”), who had formed two kingdoms: In Fochla in the north, and Midhe in the Irish midlands. Their ruling dynasties tended to monopolize the office of “High King of Ireland”. In the case of the Norse settlers, Dublin and Limerick were the most powerful polities, often dominating large swaths of Ireland around themselves. The other settlements were either subsidiaries of these two, or peaceful trading colonies subject to the native Irish. Dublin and Limerick were bitter rivals and fought a long struggle for dominance against each other, from which Dublin ultimately emerged the winner.
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Statue of the Gallic leader Ambiorix, in Tongeren, Belgium. 🇧🇪
Ambiorix is remembered as one of two leaders of the Celtic Eburones, who put up a tenacious resistance to the Roman legions of Gaius Julius Caesar. The Eburones (Gaulish: “People of the Yew Tree”) inhabited an area encompassing parts of the western Netherlands, eastern Belgium, and some neighboring parts of Germany. At that time, they were a small and poor tribe, forced to pay tribute to both the Gallic Treveri, and to the Germanic Atuatuci.
Together with the elderly king Cativolcus, Ambiorix revolted against Caesar in the year 54 B.C. The Celts attacked two Roman army camps one night and fought fierce battles against the defenders. They managed to lure one of the Roman forces out of their camp in a desperate attempt to escape out of hostile territory. The soldiers were subsequently overtaken, ambushed, and cut to pieces. 15 cohorts were annihilated; the commanders, Quintus Titurius Sabinus and Lucius Aurunculeius Cotta, were both among the killed. Caesar was able to arrive timely with reinforcements to save the second Roman camp, and subsequently carried out a series of genocidal campaigns in an attempt to wipe out the Eburones. The heavily outnumbered Celts either hid in the swamps and forests, or escaped across the Rhine to take refuge among their Germanic neighbors.
The Romans never received any surrender from the stubborn Eburones. King Cativolcus preferred to commit suicide by consuming poisonous yew leaves, while Ambiorix escaped across the Rhine. The tribe seems to have survived the onslaught and quietly resettled their lands, accepting Roman authority without ever making a formal surrender.
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The earliest Anglo-Saxon invaders of Britain were connected to some far-flung trading networks.
https://www.sott.net/article/481862-Enigmatic-Anglo-Saxon-ivory-rings-discovered-in-elite-burials-came-from-African-elephants-4000-miles-away
Wood and leather shield discovered in a wetland near Clonoura, in county Tipperary, Ireland; 1st or 2nd century AD. 🇮🇪
The shield is made from alder-wood and covered in leather. The face of the shield has numerous cuts and notches, making it evident that it was used in combat. It is a light and small object, measuring 57/35 cm. Alder is the perfect wood, being light but also strong and pliable. Behind the central boss was a nook with an oak handle, which was positioned horizontally. The similarity in design to contemporary Roman legionary shields (i.e. the scutum) has been noted, leading to speculation that the natives were imitating Roman equipment. Roman shields however, were much larger and heavier. If the Irish of that period were indeed imitating Roman military equipment, they were only partly doing so, adapting the design for what was apparently a faster, more agility based form of warfare.
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Twisted gold belt found near Irvillac, in the Finistère department of Brittany; middle bronze age (estimated to date somewhere between 1,300 and 900 B.C.)
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