Re: CHAT: Galatians and Celts

At 07:01 07.4.2000 +0100, Raymond Brown wrote:

>The terms Keltiberes, Keltoligyes etc are also IMO revealing.  We know that
>the Celtic langauge(s) and culture were acquired by (or imposed upon)
>peoples of different origins.  The early descriptions of Celts from Greek &
>Roman writers talk of red-haired giants - and such types may still be
>encountered in Scottish Highlands e.g.  The Iberians were generally
>described as short, swarthy dark-haired types.  Read Tacitus' description
>of the Silures and then visit south Wales - they are still very much in
>evidence and similar types are familiar in southern Ireland.  The
>Keltiberes were not so much, I think, mixed Celtic & Iberians as Iberians
>who had been celticized.
In fact there is a terminology of "Red Irish" and "Black Irish", but the
former refers to a light-skinned and dark-haired "Mediterranean) type still
very much in evidence, not least in old Gaul, but also on the coast of
Norway and the Swedish west coast.  The Belgae -- Fir Bolg in Old Irish --
were a sea-faring people controlling the important trade with tin and amber
versus bronze in Bronze Age Europe, and it is not unreasonable to connect
this strain with them; witness the importance of ships in the iconography
of the Swedish-Norwegian Bronze-Age petroglyphs, which are concentrated on
the same areas where this kind of looks is still prevalent.

And of course any hard genetic-linguistic correlation is impossible to
make, as speakers of English should be well aware!




/BP

 B.Philip Jonsson  <mailto:bpj@...>bpj@netg.se
<mailto:melroch@...>melroch@my-deja.com
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