3611
Online museum and repository for historical and ancestral knowledge.
Bronze horse-bit discovered in the mound burial of a Galatian chieftain at Hidirsihlar, in Bolu province, Turkey; 3rd century B.C. 🇹🇷
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Bronze knife found near Passau, in Bavaria, Germany; Urnfield Culture (13th-8th centuries B.C.) 🇩🇪
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Canaanite invasion of Europe; 228 B.C. 🇱🇧🇹🇳⚔️🇪🇸 Art by Radu Oltean.
The scene depicts the defeat and death of Phoenician general Hamilcar Barca at the hands of Iberians. The Phoenician city-state of Carthage invaded Iberia to gain access to its mineral wealth and recover from a disastrous defeat against the Roman Republic in the First Punic War (264-241 B.C). Carthage had been building an empire in the western Mediterranean and had already invaded Sardinia and Sicily, as well as built colonies on the Spanish coast such as Cádiz, Almuñécar, and Málaga. Hamilcar invaded Spain in 237 B.C; landing at Cádiz. He won two battles against the native Iberians thanks to the use of war elephants. In the first, the presence of Celts is noted by historian Diodorus Siculus, who says it was even a Celtic general named Istolatios who led the Iberians, being killed in the battle together with his brother. The second battle resulted in the capture and torture of an Iberian ruler named Indortes. Hamilcar augmented his army with native recruits, who were even sent to north Africa with his son Hasdrubal the Fair the next year to put down a Berber revolt. He then continued the conquest of southern Spain successfully for nine years, building a new colony at Akra Leuke (modern Alicante) and exploiting the mines of the Sierra Morena. In the year 228 B.C; Hamilcar besieged the Iberian city of Heliké. An Iberian warlord named Orissus came to relieve the city and fought a battle against the Phoenicians. The Spanish negated the advantage of the African war elephants by stampeding herds of bulls with torches tied to their horns against them. The elephants panicked and the Phoenician army was thrown into disorder, then set upon and cut to pieces. Hamilcar was chased down and drowned in a river by the natives. The conquest project would continue under Hamilcar’s sons Hasdrubal the Fair (who was assassinated in 221 B.C; by a Celtiberian slave) and Hannibal, until it was eventually defeated and completely undone by the Roman Republic in the Second Punic War (218-201 B.C).
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Aurora Borealis over the Loch of Skene, in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. 🏴 Photo by John Stoddard.
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Ruins of the hill-fort of Las Cogotas, in Ávila province, Spain. 🇪🇸
Las Cogotas was inhabited continually from the 12th to the 1st centuries B.C. Its massive walls enclosed a total of 14.5 hectares, with human habitation mainly being in the higher acropolis, while the outer enclosure seems to have been used mostly to corral livestock. It was one of the principal settlements of the Indo-European Vettones people of western Spain. They were descended from the very first Indo-Europeans to have entered the Iberian peninsula, coming from somewhere in Central Europe in the mid 3rd millenium B.C. The area where we later find the Vettones was the first area of settlement for these people, before they began propagating to other parts of the peninsula. Genetic studies on bone material have shown that their paternal lineages were the same as those of the Celts (R1b-P312>DF27). Their archaic Indo-European language survived up until Roman times, and is now documented as Lusitanian (the Vettones were one of the peoples inhabiting the wider region bearing the name Lusitania). Their culture was one of semi-nomadic livestock herders. It was a lifestyle that Indo-Europeans had brought from the Eurasian steppes, and the semi-arid savannas and oak woods of Iberia happened to be ideal for it. The culture of the Vettones came to be heavily influenced by that of the Celtiberians, whose forebears arrived in Iberia at around the same time when Las Cogotas was first built. In every respect, the archaeological “Cogotas II” culture is identical to that of the Celtiberians, having adopted the craftsmanship styles and even the crematory funeral rites of the Celts. By the 5th century B.C; Celtiberians had even settled in Lusitania to the south of the Vettones (recorded there as “Celtici”), and the two peoples would later participate together in the wars against the Roman conquerors.
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The Carse of Stirling; Stirling Castle and the Wallace Monument visible in the distance. 🏴 Painting by Kevin Leary.
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Aberlleiniog Castle; Isle of Anglesey, Wales. 🏴
Aberlleiniog was built by Norman (English) invaders in the 1080s AD, when king Gruffudd ap Cynan of Gwynedd was treacherously kidnapped and imprisoned by Hugh d’Avranches, 1st Earl of Chester. The original castle was a timber structure of motte-and-bailey type (image 4: artistic reconstruction); the stone ruins are of a newer castle that was built in the 17th century. Gruffudd escaped after several years in captivity, going to Ireland and then to the Hebrides Islands of Scotland. There, he obtained help from the famous Norse-Gaelic king of Dublin and the Isles, Godred Crovan, who outfitted him with a fleet of sixty ships. Gruffud returned thus to Wales in the year 1094, and recovered his kingdom. The Welsh and Norse-Gaels fought several skirmishes on Anglesey, taking Castell Aberlleiniog by assault in a battle in which 125 English defenders were killed, including the castle’s warden. Hugh’s nephew Robert de Tillieul —who was then ruling Gwynedd as his personal fief— was also killed outside his castle of Deganwy by a raiding force of three ships led by either Gruffudd or Godred. The king of England, William II Rufus, responded to the Welsh reconquest by leading two full scale invasions of Gwynedd in the years 1095 and 1097, seeking to drive out Gruffudd; both invasions failed. The Normans tried again the following year, and managed to drive Gruffudd back to Anglesey and again to Ireland after bribing some Viking mercenaries he’d hired so that they switched sides. However, the Normans experienced unusual bad luck, as a Norwegian fleet of six ships arrived in Anglesey, led by king Magnus III “Barefoot”. The Norwegians routed the English in a battle in which Hugh of Montgomery, 2nd Earl of Shrewsbury —who’d been involved in the kidnapping of Gruffudd over a decade earlier— was killed by an arrow shot by king Magnus himself. The Normans evacuated the island and Magnus considered it conquered for Norway. The following year, with the Norwegians having returned to Scandinavia, Gruffudd came back from Dublin and reclaimed Anglesey and the greater part of Gwynedd.
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Gallic settlement in southern Germany; La Tène era (5th to 1st centuries B.C.) 🇩🇪 Artist unknown.
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St. Andrews (Gaelic: Cill Rímhinn), in Fife province, Scotland. 🏴
Originally known as Cennrígmonaid (“End of the king’s moor”), St. Andrews was founded as a monastery at some point in the 8th century AD, probably by the Pictish king Nechtan III (ruled 706-724 & 726-728), or by his successor Óengus I (ruled 732-761). It was said that the relics of Scotland’s patron saint, Andrew the Apostle, had been brought to Scotland in the 4th century by a Greek monk known as St. Regulus, and that St. Andrews came to be their resting place. In the year AD 877 the third king of Scotland, Constantine I, —son of founder Kenneth MacAlpin— was killed nearby in a battle against Viking raiders. He had just completed overseeing the construction of a new church at St. Andrews when a Norse fleet arrived in the vicinity. Constantine seems to have hastily assembled a force to fight against them, but he was defeated, captured and killed.
By the late 9th century, St. Andrews had become the seat of a bishop, who was the ecclesiastical head of all Scotland. Essentially, St. Andrews had become to Scotland what Armagh was to Ireland and Canterbury to England. The first known Bishop of Alba was Cellach I, who was recorded holding a synod at Scone with king Constantine II in the year 906. There, they amended the ecclesiastical laws of Scotland, as well as the secular laws regarding the relationship between church and state, bringing them into conformity with Irish law. St. Andrews is also home to Scotland’s oldest university, the University of St. Andrews, founded in 1410 by Augustinian clergymen from France. The town is also known as the home of golf, since one of the earliest and the most prestigious golf links is located there (image 4). However, the sport predates the links (recorded as early as late 15th century in Scotland) and is probably not —contrary to popular belief— a Scottish invention.
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Don Alejandro O’Reilly, 1st Count of O’Reilly. 🇮🇪🇦🇹🇪🇸 Portrait by Francisco Goya.
Born in 1729 in Baltrasna, county Meath, Ireland, Alexander O’Reilly migrated to continental Europe and joined the Spanish military at just 11 years old. He served with distinction in the Italian theatre of the War of Austrian Succession (1740-1748), being wounded and captured by Austrians at the 1743 Battle of Campo Santo. After the war, he left Spain for Austria and fought for his former enemies and for the French in the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763). In 1761 he rejoined Spanish service to fight against Portugal. Two years later O’Reilly was sent to Cuba in the aftermath of the disastrous Siege of Havana by the British navy (1762). His recommendations helped modernize and strengthen Cuban defences against future attacks. He was given the rank of field marshal and married Rosa de las Casas, who was the sister of the governor of Cuba. Later he was assigned to Puerto Rico to also make recommendations for the improvement of defences and the organization of a militia.
In 1769 O’Reilly was sent to New Orleans to be the governor of Louisiana, which France had ceded to Spain via the Treaty of Fontainebleau (1762). There, he put down a revolt by the French colonists, who’d expelled the first Spanish governor, Antonio de Ulloa. The imprisonments and public executions he carried out earned him the nickname “O’Reilly Le Sanglant” (“Bloody O’Reilly”). O’Reilly then set about reforming the laws and governance practices in the colony, including making it easier for slaves to be manumitted and outlawing the enslavement of Native Americans. His reforms stabilised the economy and put the colony in good order, yet he remained deeply unpopular for his ruthless treatment of the insurgents. He was accordingly recalled to Spain within the year. O’Reilly’s career was stained at the end by a disastrous Invasion of Algiers in 1775. Still, he remained in favor, and was even awarded a new title of nobility, being made the 1st Count of O’Reilly and granted a coat of arms by king Charles III of Spain. O’Reilly died of natural causes in 1794, while preparing to lead an army against Revolutionary France during the The War of the Pyrenees.
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Pottery unearthed from the Celtic burial mounds of Hohmichele, located near the ruins of the city of Pyrene (now Heuneburg) in Baden-Württemberg, Germany; 7th or 6th century B.C. 🇩🇪
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The Rock of Cashel (Irish: Carraig Phádraig; “Rock of Patrick”) in county Tipperary, Ireland. 🇨🇮
Cashel, originally called Caiseal Mumhan (Irish: “Fortress of Munster”) was the original seat of the Irish kings of Munster. The medieval tale The Story of the Finding of Cashel tells the story of how it was sold to a king of Munster named Conall Corc by a local swineherd who’d had a prophetic vision; this would have occurred in the 4th century AD. Corc’s descendants, the Eóganachta, came to be hereditary kings of Munster. In the middle of the following century, St. Patrick baptized Corc’s grandson, king Óengus mac Nad Froích at Cashel. According to the the account of Geoffrey Keating, Patrick stabbed the king’s foot with his crozier during their encounter. In subsequent centuries, Cashel and its kings came to be closely tied to the church. King Cormac mac Cuilenáin (killed in battle AD 908), for example, was also a prominent bishop. By the year 1101, the Rock of Cashel was donated to the church by king Muirchertach Ua Briain. It was after this that it took its present form. The Romanesque chapel (4th photo) was built between 1127 and 1134 under the patronage of king Cormac Mac Carthaigh, the last Eóganachta king of a unified Munster. The larger Gothic cathedral was built later, between the years 1235 and 1270; by that time, Cashel and the surrounding areas were under Anglo-Norman rule.
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NOTE: Read my commentary about the above article. ☝🏻
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Autumn in the Vosges Mountains of France. 🇫🇷🍂🍁
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Breton coast at Plougrescant, in Côtes-d’Armor, Brittany; photo by Nicolas Rottiers. 🇫🇷
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View over the Kilmartin Glen from Dunadd hill-fort; Argyll, Scotland. 🏴
Dunadd was the residence of the Cenél nGabráin kings of Dál Riata. The stone in the foreground is just outside the enclosure of the fort and has several enigmatic carvings, including one in the shape of a foot. It’s widely thought that the carving was used in inauguration ceremonies for the kings of Dál Riata, who were expected to place their right foot in the hollow during the proceedings.
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Pictish stone discovered at St. Vigeans, in Angus, Scotland; 9th century AD. 🏴 The “Drosten Stone” is notable as one of four Pictish carvings that depict people using crossbows; it is thus surmised that the technology was in use among the Picts during that time. Also of note is an inscription on the stone: Drosten, i re Uoret ett Forcus. The most commonly accepted interpretation: “Tristan, in the time of Uurad and Fergus”.
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Gallowglass carry Gerald of Kildare off the battlefield; Ireland, 1582. 🇮🇪 Art by Seán O’Brógáin.
The scene depicts one of the last battles of the Second Desmond Rebellion (1579-1583), a rebellion started by the Anglo-Irish FitzGerald clans of Munster against the rapacity and aggression of the English crown. In one of the last encounters, the forces of Gerald FitzGerald, 14th Earl of Desmond, defeated those of Thomas Butler, 10th Earl of Ormond. FitzGerald had raided Earl Thomas’ territory and was pursued by English and Irish troops led by Ormond’s sons from Fethard to Knockgraffon in county Tipperary. There was a short battle there in which the English side was put to flight with heavy losses. The Earl of Desmond’s forces suffered a single death, that of Gerald (not the same person as the Earl of Desmond), a great grandson of “Silken” Thomas FitzGerald, 10th Earl of Kildare. It would be one of Gerald of Desmond’s last successes. By the following year his supporters had mostly either died or abandoned his cause. He was killed in November of 1583 by the Irish O’Moriarty clan near Tralee in county Kerry, ending the rebellion.
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Stone animal sculptures of the Hispanic Vettones people, known locally as “verracos” (Spanish: “Stud pigs”). 🇪🇸
(1) Madrigalejo, Extremadura, (2) Segura de Toro, Extremadura, (3) Guisando, Ávila, (4) Artistic representation of Vettones elders holding a meeting at the site of a sculpture. The custom of erecting verracos seems to have been particular to the Vettones; few such sculptures have been found in other parts of Iberia. Most of the sculptures actually represent bulls, although pigs and boars are not uncommon (hence the name). Their function and significance is unknown, though we can perhaps guess that a similar mindset existed in these people as we find reflected in the wider lore of Celtic Europe, which ascribed special, even mythical value to these animals. It brings to mind traditions such as that of the Donn Cuailnge (bull) of Irish lore and the Twrch Trwyth (boar) of Arthurian legend.
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Gold bracelets decorated in La Tène style, from the burial of a Celtic princess near Saarbrücken, in Saarland, Germany; 4th or 5th century B.C. 🇩🇪
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The Gallic votive pier at La Tène, on Lake Neuchâtel, Switzerland; art by André Houot. 🇨🇭
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The burning of Derry, year 1608; art by Seán Ó Brógáin. 🇮🇪
The Irish chieftain of Inishowen, Cahir O’Doherty, was forced into rebellion by English crown officials through oppression and unjust treatment. O’Doherty had supported England during the Irish rebellion known as the Nine Years’ War (1593-1603), but was still accused (falsely) of plotting a new revolt while English lords planted Ulster with colonists. The new governor of Derry, Sir George Paulet, even insulted O’Doherty and slapped him on the face on one occasion. When crown officials failed to properly give audience to O’Doherty’s self-advocacy, he rose in revolt and burned Derry to the ground, Paulet being killed there during the battle. The rebels also took Doe castle and destroyed the town of Kinard. O’Doherty’s rebellion was put down that same year when his castle was taken by English troops and he himself was killed by a musket shot at the Battle of Kilmacrennan. The last of his supporters were besieged in a castle at Tory Island and pardoned after surrendering. The English Lord Deputy at the time, Sir Arthur Chichester, later admitted that it was his own (and Paulet’s) harsh treatment of O’Doherty that had caused the rebellion.
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Portrait of a Gallic nobleman, from Trémuson, in Côtes d’Armor, Brittany; 1st century B.C. 🇫🇷
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Small metal coin purse found among the ruins of the Gallic city of Manching, in Bavaria, Germany; 2nd century B.C. 🇩🇪 The purse was originally wrapped in leather and still contained six gold coins when found.
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Autumn in the Chartreuse Mountains of France. 🇫🇷🍂🍁
These mountains are part of the French Prealps and are believed to have taken their name from the town of Saint-Pierre-de-Chartreuse, which may have formerly been called Caturissium. The name Caturissium is in turn believed to derive from an Alpine Gallic tribe, the Caturiges. The Caturiges, or their principal deity Caturix (Gaulish: “Battle King”), also gave its name to the town of Chorges, formerly Caturigomagus (Gaulish: “Plain of Caturix/the Caturiges”).
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Unfortunately, historical revisionism in the post-modern liberal west has now targeted Europe’s Celtic past. The UK government in Wales is now accusing the legendary king Arthur of having been a transvestite or transgender person (source linked below). 🇬🇧🏴🤡
The Welsh county government in Denbighshire cites a silly folk-tale, first recorded by the Welsh chronicler Elis Gruffydd in the 16th century Chronicle of the Six Ages of the World. The folk story had likely come about as a local attempt to explain the name of a rock near Rhuthun in north Wales. Supposedly, Arthur had disguised himself as a woman to sneak into the area and have an affair with a young woman. He was outed by a former rival, Hueil mab Caw, who recognized his limp. For that, Arthur had Hueil executed on the stone nearby, and from thence the stone got it’s name: Maen Huail (Welsh: “Stone of Hueil”).
Note that this is why historians have been keen to develop the craft of Historiography. Essentially, not every historical document is something that should be taken at face value and sources should always be carefully scrutinized in order to get as close as possible to the truth.
The true story of Hueil mab Caw can be reconstructed from much older sources, sources that were closer to the actual events and not obviously intended as comedy like the folk tale of Maen Huail. Four centuries before Elis Gruffydd, the Welsh monk Caradoc of Llancarfan recorded Hueil’s story in his Life of Gildas: Hueil was a prince of the Brythonic Kingdom of Strathclyde —located in Scotland— where his father, Caw Prydyn, had briefly been king in the late 5th century. He was a mortal enemy of Arthur who frequently brought fleets from Scotland to raid and plunder Arthur’s territory in the Kingdom of Dumnonia, located in England’s West Country. One day, Arthur gathered his own fleet in Cornwall and went in pursuit. He caught Hueil and his men off guard as they’d stopped to rest on the Isle of Man, killing them in battle. Caradoc’s contemporary, Giraldus Cambrensis, confirmed the veracity of this tradition, reporting that Hueil’s brother, the monk Gildas, greatly resented Arthur for this, and in a rage, he destroyed several manuscripts containing records of Arthur’s deeds and praise poems dedicated to him.
It should be obvious even to the simplest of minds that this older story is a more reliable account and that the later tale about Maen Huail was intended as entertainment by bored locals in Denbighshire, whose lives were removed from the time of Arthur by as much as a millenium. But in the post WWII age of destroying and defiling anything and everything related to Europe’s past and culture, this is just the type of psychological warfare people are going to have to endure. Fortunately, European peoples have also inherited an invaluable blessing from some of the Greco-Roman forebears of Western Civilisation: Stoicism. It may just prove to be the most indispensable skill for anyone to cultivate in this day and age.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/king-arthur-may-have-been-lgbtq-welsh-council-suggests/ar-AA1s6Qls
Gallowglass mercenaries in Ireland; 15th century. Art by Graham Turner. 🇮🇪🏴
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The souterrain of Raitt’s Cave, in Badenoch, Scotland; 100-400 AD. 🏴 Digital Reconstruction by Bob Marshall + 2 photographs.
Souterrains (French: Sous Terrain; “underground”) were common features in Celtic homesteads during the late iron age and early medieval period. They are found primarily in northwest France (Brittany & Normandy) and the British Isles (mainly Scotland, Cornwall and Ireland). In Cornwall they are commonly referred to as fogous; from a word meaning ‘cave’. The concept seems to have originated in northwest France around 500 B.C; and to have proliferated through Britain shortly afterward. Irish souterrains tend to yield later radiocarbon dates, so the concept seems to have reached Ireland last.
People would dig trenches under or adjacent to their homes, then wall them up with drystone and roof them with huge slabs. Once the tunnel was built, they’d cover it over with earth rendering it either wholly or partially concealed. The cool souterrains mainly served as larders for the storage and preservation of foods, including meats. They would have been the closest thing to a refrigerator these people would have had.
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