Information-age math finds code in ancient Scottish symbols. "The ancestors of modern Scottish people left behind mysterious, carved stones that new research has just determined contain the written language of the Picts, an Iron Age society that existed in Scotland from 300 to 843. The highly stylized rock engravings, found on what are known as the Pictish Stones, had once been thought to be rock art or tied to heraldry. The new study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A, instead concludes that the engravings represent the long lost language of the Picts, a confederation of Celtic tribes that lived in modern-day eastern and northern Scotland."
posted by homunculus on Apr 2, 2010 - 24 comments

The Beltane Fire Society Fire Festival. Happy Beltane! [Some links NSFW.]
posted by homunculus on Apr 30, 2007 - 23 comments

Boudicca (also known as Boadicea) was the queen of the Celtic Iceni tribe in eastern Britain in 60 AD. As recorded by Tacitus and Cassius Dio, she led a brutal revolt against the Romans and razed London and Southwark. There's a famous statue of her at Westminster Bridge, and Masterpiece Theatre has produced a new historical drama about her, Warrior Queen.
posted by homunculus on Oct 12, 2003 - 23 comments

"The Druids of the ancient Celtic world have a startling kinship with the brahmins of the Hindu religion," according to popular historian Peter Berresford Ellis. Another author examines the parallels between Celtic and Vedic culture in the article The Celtic Vedic Connection, and a particular diety is analyzed in The Horned God in India and Europe. This may not be very conservative scholarship, but I found it intriguing and fun to contemplate.
posted by homunculus on Jul 31, 2002 - 6 comments

Mmmmm. Hu-ming. A British archaeologist finds evidence that cannibalism still existed amongst the Celts as recently as two thousand years ago, during Roman Times.

One grisly find includes a femur which had been split lengthways in order to scrape the marrow out. Tastemungus mates :)
posted by zeoslap on Feb 28, 2001 - 6 comments