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Will the Real Cynesians Please Step Forward? (History)
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After banging on about the Cynesians for months, Dan informed us that a book he'd recently read helped the pieces fall into place and he proceeded to set out what he'd garnered along the way with the following series of posts, which, in his words
"puts a large cornerstone of European history into place and points out a few places [ well, there are many ] where my knowledge runs out, but others' here can take over.

Please indicate how the loose strands are picked up if you can, or point out any obvious blunders. Plaudits should be made payable to DPCrisp
."
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Please let me put up a series of posts before anyone comments:
early questions might be answered later and we can go walkabout once you know the course I've plotted.

In brief, I've been proceeding along lines tenuously drawn like so:

i) Two sorts of "Celt" were conflated by 17th century writers, much to everyone's confusion ever since: the Insular Celts of Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Brittany and Galicia; and the Continental Celts who ranged from Gaul to Galatia. [ Insular as in "of the islands", not... well... insular. ]

ii) The former I have taken to be both the megalith builders and the Cynesians mentioned once by Herodotus and forgotten ever since.

iii) The latter (or some of them) were the Saxons, at the centre of the salt trading and metalworking enterprises that spread throughout the continent.

HOWEVER

iv) Having read The Celts: Origins, Myths & Inventions by John Collis, I think I know the correct relationship between these two.

v) The Celts were not the Cynesians.

vi) The Saxons are out of this picture: I have nothing to say about them here. This is something we'll have to pick up separately.

So, I need to redraw the lines.
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DPCrisp


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(1) Megalithia



As you can see from the map above, Megalithia correlates strongly with the Celtic western littoral, only more so:

-- the coasts of Iberia;
-- two inland incursions from Brittany to the headwaters of the Po and the Danube [Central Megalithia];
-- a large annex in Jutland/northern Germany [Northern Megalithia];
-- and a few small islands and outposts.

I still crave a comprehensive graphical resource giving dates and types of megaliths, but this map (from A History of Europe, J M Roberts) seems to be good enough to make progress with.

Brittany appears to be the hub of operations and, indeed, I gather
Brittany has the oldest megaliths.
http://www.lessing4.de/megaliths/time.htm

Some comments:

a) Northern Megalithia is enigmatic because while it is never reckoned into Celtic territories, the Number One, top, classic Celtic artefact, the Gundestrup Cauldron, was found in Jutland.

b) In Warriors of the Wasteland, John Grigsby examines the mythological/spiritual themes of Celtic Britain, well expressed in the Gundestrup Cauldron and connected with the bog bodies here and in Scandinavia.

c) It may turn out that Jutland/Germany is a separate strain of megalithing; and the distribution of bog bodies and Celtic/Germanic/Scandinavian art deserve closer investigation. It may be that these are purely cultural/religious commonalities, not central to the matter at hand -- and I would appreciate any input in this area. (Though see section 7 below.)

d) The bulk of Megalithia, however, must represent a substantial ethnic incursion:

-- onto the western shores -- determination of their origin being a separate question that people here have various views on;

-- no mere diffused penchant for megalithing -- which ought to radiate out from cultural centres;

-- no mere elite ruling class that raked the profits off the indigene-operated estates -- see g).

e) An alternative view might be that the cyclopean bug spread only among certain cultures, along certain trade routes, and not others. But this requires some pre-existing cultural distinction, which advances us no further than supposing a new culture was brought by the Megalithers. (We wouldn't want William of Occam to spin in his ashes now, would we?)

f) Whoever they were, these incomers were in complete control for a long time -- long enough for the megalithic system to be worked out and implemented. That is, about 5,000 BC at the latest.

g) Whoever they were, these incomers were rather isolationist (unless they actually displaced the natives) because these megalithic incursions evidently carved up the original Romance language speakers into the groups we know now.

-- Spanish-ish, French-ish and Italian-ish were already different because they were separated by the Pyrenees and the Alps.

-- The south-west corner Iberia becomes (or remains) Portuguese;
-- the centre Spanish;
-- the north-east Catalan.
-- Provencal somewhere around Provence;
-- the Basques always keeping to themselves.

I don't know all the details, but you get the picture. Central Megalithia is a wedge driven between the Germanic and Romance people, who were originally divided north and south of the Alps (and/or all those other mountains extending eastwards).

h) Of course, this need not be a precise map of Megalithia: the territories occupied may well have extended beyond the areas in which megaliths survive. In particular, it would not be unreasonable to expect areas further to the east to have been occupied before the megalithic system was extended that far; or after the megalithic building phase of their history had passed -- which appears to have been about 1,500 BC.
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DPCrisp


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(2) Celtica

Collis' book gives an overview of the historical and archaeological evidence regarding the Celts. Apparently, the orthodox view is that the Hallstatt Iron Age culture was pre-Celtic, while the rise of the La Tène Iron Age culture represents the genesis of the Celts. While there is controversy over the homeland and maximum extension of the Celts, there is a broad consensus. The maps given in the book show the origin of La Tène art is invariably placed in some combination of

-- north-west France (Champagne),
-- Germany, south of the Main and
-- Bohemia

by everyone from d'Arbois de Jubainville to Cunliffe.

Well, well. Fits Central Megalithia like a glove (if a little loose around the Bohemian fingertip).

It's probably significant that the new art style arose somewhere along the outer edge of the empire, not buried in the Breton heartland, for instance.
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DPCrisp


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(3) Celtic Tribes
Collis provides an overview of the classical references to the Celts:

They're rendered in Greek as Keltoi, Keltai or Galatai; in Latin as Celti, Celtae or Galli.

Strabo:
"This then is what I have to say about the province of Narbonitis whom the men of old called 'Keltai' and it was from them that the Galatai in general were called Keltoi on account of the fame of the Keltai, or the Massaliotes contributed to this due to their proximity."

Pausanias, quoting Hieronymos Cardanos:
"These Galatai live at the ends of Europe, near a vast sea the limits of which no ship can reach."

Julius Caesar:
"All Gaul is divided into three parts, of which one is occupied by the Belgae, another by the Aquitani, and the third by the people called 'Celtae' in their language, but 'Galli' in ours."

Diodorus Siculus:
"It will now be useful to make a distinction which is unknown to most people. Those who live in the interior above Marseille, and those along the Alps, and those on this side of the Pyrenees are called Keltai, whereas those who settled above Celtica in the area stretching towards the north both in the region of the Ocean and in that of the Hercynian Mountains and all the people beyond them as far as Scythia are called Galatai; the Romans, however, include all these peoples together under one name and call them all Galli."

If Diororus is talking about everyone, then the distinction he draws between the Keltai and the Galatai, as discussed in another thread, appears to be the same as the distinction between Romance and Germanic. Perhaps the Romans considered all Europeans others than Romans and Greeks to be Galli.

But Diodorus might be referring only to the Megalithics in those respective territories.

---

Collis notes a general increase in the specificness of terms used:

700 - 350 BC: Hesiod, Aescylus, Heraclides of Pontus:

HYPERBOREOI


500 - 100 BD: Herodotus, Eratosthenes, Ephorus:

KELTOI ... SKYTHAI


100 - 50 BC: Poseidonius:

KELTOI ... GALATAI ... SKYTHAI


50 BC - 100 AD: Caesar, Strabo, Tacitus:

CELTAE ... AQUITANI ... BRETANNI ... BELGAE ... GERMANI


Most of the more specific references are to Celtiberia(ns):

Diodorus Siculus:
"These two peoples, the Iberians and the Celts, in other times fought one another over the land, but they made peace, and lived together in the same country, and through intermarriage they established a relationship with one another, and for this reason were given the common name."

Strabo:
"The Bergones, neighbours of the Conisci, live in the parts to the north of the Celtiberians, and they too took part in the Celtic expedition."

Pliny:
"Marcus Varro records that the Iberians, Persians, Phoenicians, Celts and Carthaginians penetrated the whole of Spain."

So much for the medieval Muslim Invasion as the origin of Spanish swarthiness! Notice that Celts are happily mentioned in the same breath.

Strabo:
"The Celtici who lived around the cape [Finisterre] have a common origin with those who live on the river Anas [Guadiana, southwest Iberia], for, it is said, these people and the Turdali made an expedition there, and had a quarrel, they lost their leader, so they scattered and settled down there."

Lucan:
"Besides Roman soldiers they had active Asturians, and nimble Vettones, and Celts, fugitives from the ancient people, the Gauls, who have mixed their name with the Iberians."

The Celts/Gauls appear to be distinct from the French and the Spanish.

Pliny:
"It is evident that the Celtici came from Lusitania, from the Celtiberians, as is clear from the religion, their language and the names of their oppida, which in Baetica are distinguished by their surnames."

Appian:
"However, I think that once upon a time the Celts, passing over the Pyrenees, settled with the natives, and that they acquired the name of Celtiberians in that way."

They didn't just become Iberians then: "Celt" was a powerful concept.

Isidore of Seville:
"The Celtiberians came from the Celtic Gauls, from which the region is called Celtiberia. For the Celtiberians are named by mixing the two names, from the river in Spain where they settled and from the Gauls who are called Celtic."
---

This is interesting:

Strabo:
"The Boii were merely driven out of the regions they occupied; and after migrating to the regions around the Danube, lived with the Taurisci, and carried on war with the Dacians until they perished, people and all; and thus they left their country, which was part of Illyria, to their neighbours as a pasture for sheep."

Tacitus:
"Therefore the Helvetii, the furthest of the peoples of Gaul, but formerly the Boii, occupy the territory between the Hercynian Forest and the rivers Rhine and Main. The name Boihaemum still survives and indicates the old memory of the place though the occupants have changed."
Bohemia = Boihaemum = Blood of the Boii, apparently not referring to ancestral lands, but to the place they were all slaughtered.

They were evidently not indigenous, but foreign invaders "merely driven out of the regions they occupied". The fact that they perished "people and all" suggests the same thing: that this Celtic tribe was a ruling elite, distinct from the peasantry (and that it was unusual for the "people" to suffer the same fate).

---

A couple of maps summarise the position:





[ Apologies for the quality: they're scanned from the book. ]

In Iberia, the Celtiberians are placed on top of the Ebro, a little south of the Pyrenees; and a few pockets of Celtici dot the western shore. The rest is undefined, but presumed non-Celtic.

In France, the Aquitani are below the Garonne; the Belgae between the Seine and the Germani straddling the Rhine; and the Celtae/Galli are in the middle.

Overall, the correlation to Megalithia is sharp.
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DPCrisp


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(4) The True Celts
There we have it then: the archaeological and textual references to Celts as near as damn it say "these are the people who lived in Megalith country": the Celts were the megalith builders; the megalith builders were the Celts.

Insular and Continental Celts are one and the same and they landed on the shores from the west. (But that was a very long time ago and whatever cultural disintegration there has been since the early days is as much a part of the full picture as this initial or underlying unity.)

Of course, the Roman obsession was with the Gallic, Cisalpine and Transalpine Gauls:

-- the Celts in France, though by their own admission, not all of France (not south of the Garonne, for instance);

-- the Po valley Celts, "those along the Alps", who didn't erect any megaliths further east than the source;

-- the Bavarian Celts of Central Megalithia, "in the region of the Hercynian Mountains", who spread all the way to Bohemia.

But of course, the Romans were only concerned with the movers and shakers, the threats, the ruling classes. Even if the bulk of the fighting men were indigenous French, German, Spanish, Czech..., they would all have been identified with their Celtic rulers.

Much to my surprise, I find the writers of old must have been onto something when they classified so many Europeans as Celts... who were subsequently rubbed out.

Their mistake (or that of subsequent historians) was

a) to take the written sources as referring to the indigenous peoples, which we have no reason to hold to; and therefore

b) to suppose the entire indigenous population must have been replaced by Latinos and Germans when the peace was shattered by the Roman retreat.

Rather, I would suggest that when the Romans attempted to destroy the Celts, they pretty well succeeded, leaving the Germanic and Romance natives to find their feet in the end.

An essential ingredient in this saga would appear to be the predominance of Rhesus Negative blood among the Celts, which would have contributed to their continued distinction from the indigenous Rhesus Positives, even over thousands of years.
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DPCrisp


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(5) Collis is wrong
"No extant authors speak of Celts in Britain. The closest we have is Hipparchus, quoted in Strabo:

But this phenomenon [ the height of the sun at winter solstice ] is more marked among the people who are six thousand three hundred stadia distant from Massalia (people who live two thousand five hundred stadia north of Keltike whom Hipparchus assumes are still Celts, but I think they are Britons).

Strabo himself certainly distinguished Britons from Celts.

For the origin of the inhabitants of Britain, Caesar states:

The inland part of Britain is occupied by people who claim that, according to their own tradition, they are indigenous to the island, but the coastal part by peoples who had crossed from Belgium with the aim of capturing booty and waging war."


For us, a very interesting pair of quotes.

1. Caesar actually underlines what we, unlike the general populace, already knew: that England was distinct from Celtic Wales, Scotland and whathaveyou. The "inland part of Britain" is straightforwardly English. The "coastal part" is Kent, the south coast and the Isle of Wight: recently invaded by the Belgae, apparently. But this is no surprise or problem for us.

Of the obviously Celtic parts in the far west, Caesar says nothing: so his failure to identify part of Britain as Celtic means nothing to us here. Quite possibly the whole of Britain was at one time controlled by the Celts -- we can look at the evidence with fresh eyes to determine just how far this is true -- and Caesar may have been writing at a time when they were loosing or had lost their grip. (There's plenty more stuff in De bello gallico to delve into concerning the language, bringing Gallic princes and stuff.)

2. Strabo/Hipparchus is interesting in two ways. First, 6300 stadia is 700-and-odd miles: barely the distance to south Wales, but certainly the distance to middle England. So, again, we can readily agree with Strabo that we are not talking about Celts, without ruling out the Welsh as Celts.

Secondly, Hipparchus' dimensions place Keltike squarely in Central Megalithia, to the south of Paris.


The back cover blurb puts Collis' case better than anything I can find in the text:

"We use the word 'Celtic' fast and loose -- it evokes something mythical and romantic about our past -- but what exactly does it mean? Furthermore, why do people believe that there were Celts in Britain and what relationship do they have to the ancient Celts?

This fascinating book focuses particularly on how the Celts were re-invented in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and how the legacy of mistaken interpretation still affects the way we understand the ancient sources and archaeological evidence."


That is, he thinks the Insular and Continental Celts are distinct (though he disputes that Lhuyd was the chief perpetrator of the mis-conflation, motivated by Welsh nationalism) and, curiously, I shared his view until I read his book!

His single observation is that the Britons are never positively identified in the classical sources as being Celtic; and he points out that popularly conceived 'Celtic art' is not La Tène art. But we can see right through these: the connections between British and French/Spanish Celts are clear: Britain is not unequivocally equated with the Celts because there is hardly any classical material on Britain at all. And knowing that modern Celtic art has more to do with Scandinavia than La Tène simply tells us that there another story to be told.

The root of Collis' confusion seems, as with everyone else, to be that he assumes Iron Age Britain to have been uniformly either all-Celtic or not-at-all-Celtic; and does not even consider the truth that lies between.
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DPCrisp


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(6) Cynesians
Back to the beginning then. If the Cynesians are not the Insular Celts, then who are they?

Herodotus said:

"The Celts live beyond the pillars of Hercules, and border on the Cynesians who dwell at the extreme west of Europe."

And

"...the Celts (the most westerly of all nations of Europe, excepting the Cynesians)"


In Greek, they are Kinetes or Ginetes; and Ginetes (or Zenetes*) were fabled horse-back warriors of south-western Iberia. Some even say they were the founders of Minoan Crete. There's stuff to be Googled up on this, but most hits for Ginetes refer to the a place in the (Portuguese) Azores.

(* Just to confuse things, Zenetes or Zeneta is a tribe in Morocco, which may or may not have a Celtic connection.)

Look at the map of Megalithia again. See that megalith-free pocket in the bottom, left hand corner of the Iberian peninsula (just where Collis' Geographical reconstruction of the Periplous of Himilco places the Cynetes)? There they are: the Cynesians are the Portuguese.
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(7) Cimmerians
As far as I know, there is no difference in style between the Northern megaliths and the rest of the Megalithia, so they must be part of the same story.

I don't know the consensus on the Scythians and Cimmerians. I believe there is still a lot of variation and controversy, but the elements are these:

-- One or other or both groups are sometimes placed to the north of the Black Sea.

-- One or other or both groups are sometimes placed in and around Jutland.

-- One or other or both groups migrated from one of these areas to the other.

-- The Cimmerians may or may not be connected with the Cymri.

-- The Scythians [remember, the Greek is "Skot" rather than "Sith"] may or may not be connected with the Scots.

Now,

i) remember the links between Celtic, Scandinavian, Anglo-Saxon and Byzantine art (I don't know about the art styles, but the Scythians are best known for their gold work, right?); and

ii) look at the map and note the 'trail' of megalithic enclaves between Northern Megalithia and the Black Sea. (There's another Galicia somewhere along this line.)

Note also that Celtic occupation of Bohemia would bridge the gap between Northern and Central Megalithia. It may complicate things, but it shouldn't be too hard to tie up the loose ends.
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Ishmael


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DPCrisp wrote:
Look at the map of Megalithia again. See that megalith-free pocket in the bottom, left hand corner of the Iberian peninsula (just where Collis' Geographical reconstruction of the Periplous of Himilco places the Cynetes)? There they are: the Cynesians are the Portuguese.

Well done! A true mystery solved.

I am becoming an advocate of this thesis, Dan. I was initially very skeptical of your work on Celts but you appear to be building quite a list of successes.
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DPCrisp


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(8) Wales / Walachia
Is Wales related to Gaul, as the G = Y = U ~ W rule might suggest (mentioned elsewhere)?

Observe:

1. "Wales" is not Welsh. Wales and Walachia are said to mean "foreign".

NB.Cornwall was known as West Wealas: West Wales or western foreigners. [ Cornwall probably means "corn/horn of Britain Wales". ] Furthermore, Devon was Dyfneint or Defnas which I can't help seeing as "definers", as in "the place/people that draw a limit at the edge of the country". They obviously knew what historians have since forgotten: that Wales and Cornwall, maybe Devon, belong together, distinct from England.

2. The Celts have no name for themselves: the Irish, the Welsh, the Scots... name themselves individually. It's only outsiders who lump them together.

3. Walacha is in Romania on the Black Sea coast at the mouth of the Danube, 'outside' the Carpathians. It's a long way from the tip of Megalithia near Vienna, but they built megaliths on the Black Sea and probably went down the Danube.

4. Galati is in the region of the Danube delta.

I think the implication is that Wales/Walachia is a local name for the foreigners, the megalith-builders [ The Anglo-Saxon meaning of "foreign" could just as easily have been picked up from "Wales" the country as the other way around. ]; and Gaul could very well be a variant of the same word.
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1. Where did they come from?

Is this the short answer: from the Middle East, via north Africa, Berbers, Phoenicians...?

Islands somewhere around these parts (not necessarily the British Isles) were known as the Oestrymnides. I haven't been able to find out what that means, but Oestr- is surely East. And some would say Hibernia and Iberia really mean Hebrew.

The Rhesus Negative trail leads to the Basques, but no-one identifies them with the Insular Celts. (I haven't read Cunliffe's Facing the Ocean yet, though.) That's another quest in itself.

The trail leads to Ireland; and whether all or only some of Ireland is of crucial importance. If Rh Negatives are identified with the Celts and they are clearly an incoming population, then the time frame is fixed at some point after the inundation of the Celtic Shelf and the isolation of the islands. If all of Ireland was Celtic, then it may have been continuous with Wales before the Irish Sea existed: and that's a different story. There's plenty here for a mythology aficionado to get their teeth into.

The trail leads to northern Scotland and to Norway, which just reminds me a) that we haven't got to the bottom of the Picts (the balance is tipping towards the Norse, but we need to know more about red hair); and b) I'd like to know more about the troublesome, dark-haired Norwegian trolls.

2. Where did they go?

I'm assuming that Rh- pretty well preserved the distinction between Celts and European indigenes, giving them an identity that made them dangerous to others -- as well as the knowledge and skill embodied in the megaliths that must have played no little rôle in their success -- and an identity that was ultimately dangerous to themselves, making it possible for them to be targeted and eradicated.

The Romans evidently did a good job of destroying them -- while the empire was in operation that is, rather than the Celtic attrition being a Dark Age demotic miracle. Perhaps the hatred for Carthage was part of the same campaign.

Perhaps the Celts were similarly removed from Northern Megalithia by the Saxons. I have no idea as to the timing of their demise in Britain, Germany, France, etc., but I expect a whole wealth of information to tumble out of the archaeological record when you know what to look for.

Collis rather skips over "Hallstatt culture" and this must be worth digging into. And per our other long-term obsession, there is no doubt a connection here between salt- and metal-mining Saxons, Vikings, Picts and brochs that we just need to piece together.

3. What was the Celtic invasion, really?

KomoriDude says there was no Celtic invasion. I agree that there was no Celtic invasion in the 1st millennium BC. But what makes everyone think there was?

Caesar says Britain had had a long period of civil war. What's the connection between this, the hillforts and the Celts?
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4. Who were the Phoenicians?

If the Celts were already in place in Britain at the start of the megalithic era, long before the Phoenicians are first heard of, what is their true relationship? What have they to do with Galilee? And who were the Sea Peoples? And how does this connect with a northern origin of Greek mythology?

5. Who built the Roads?

Caesar said there were straight roads throughout Gaul, too. How do they relate to the megaliths... and to the Druids... and Beaker People... and Grooved Ware people of the Orkneys? If I'm not careful, I'll mention the Watchers, Enoch... even Atlantis.

6. Why "Land's End"?

Land's End and Finisterre are Germanic and Romance names, not Celtic. To the incomers, they'd have been Land's Beginning.

Were they named when the English, French, Spanish took them back? Different people at different times: what are the chances of that happening? It's Celtic occupation that they have in common... but there is no Land's End in Ireland or Wales: still Celtic possessions.

I figure it was a Roman idea: the ends of three prongs of the attack on the Celts. "There are no more of them here: we have reached the land's end."

I have no idea about Leon, though; except perhaps it (they) mark the edge of the original colony, where they had to fight like lions for their home soil. (The British Leon might be Caerleon in Wales: Heart of the Lion. Was Lyonnesse submerged under the tide of the Roman empire?)

7. Who were the Centaurs?

People (in particular, archers) inseparable from their horses... Cynesians/Ginetes? (Kinetes means someone that moves about: dashing about on horseback rather than migrating about, presumably.) Not all Celts are particularly horsey, but the Irish and the Spanish are: maybe they picked that up from the Ginetes.

Born of rain clouds: does that mean they're nearly divine? Or does it mean they somehow owed their existence to the rain? Both of these sound suspiciously Atlantean... especially since Poseidon is described as the tamer of horses. And I can't help noticing that i) the Ginetes were horsemen from the corner of the land around the mouth of a major river or two; while ii) the meaning of the Greek kentauros is unknown (according to my dictionary); and iii) up the coast from Spain is another corner of non-Celtic-but-no-doubt-dominated-by-them-at-one-time land where a major river emerges: Kent, symbolised by a horse since the days when Hengist and Horsa turned up there...
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Mick Harper
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Just to throw another brand on the fire of your magnificent oration, Dan. Lots of your references for Celts, Gynetes, Cynesians et al kept reminding me of Romanies, Gypsies, Travellers etc. The associations, in no particular order of importance:

1. The strong association with horses
2. The Europe-wide spread of a people who kept aloof from the host community
3. The iron-working
4. The trading networks
5. The concentrations in Southern Iberia, Romania and Ireland

Yeah, all right, it already seems a bit thin as a primary association but I trust my gut instincts that there's some connection, somewhere, sometime, somehow.
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Ishmael


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DPCrisp wrote:
The Romans evidently did a good job of destroying them -- while the empire was in operation that is, rather than the Celtic attrition being a Dark Age demotic miracle. Perhaps the hatred for Carthage was part of the same campaign.

I have suggested this in the past.

If the Romans tell us that North Africa was home to the Bar-bars, making it Bar-bar-ia (the land of the Bar-bars), and they further insist that Bar-bar-ians (the people of Bar-bar-ia) invaded Italy many times from the north, it implies that the same people lived both north and south of the Roman Empire.

Caesar's Wars were the mopping-up campaign subsequent to the Carthaginian wars.

In my hypothetical model, it goes something like this:

The Bar-bar empire extends from Iraq to Western Spain and the South of France with Carthage as the original capital, or Caliphate. When Rome took Carthage, it split the Bar-bar Empire into two disjointed parts. The eastern part set up a new Caliphate in Bagdad. What happened out west is unknown to me. The area seems to have died slowly, separated as it was from the unifying capital.

But we do now have a motive for all those overland routes up through the Black Sea and Russia, through Scotland and Ireland and down to Spain. Those paths were originally forged in an attempt to circumvent Rome and reconnect the west with the eastern capital in Mesopotamia.

But the whole thing was for naught once the Romans swallowed up Europe. Later, the Mongols would even sack Bagdad itself.

BTW....Carthage...

R = L, PH = TH

Calph-age

Caliphate?
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