Celtic Culture

Celtic culture is one of the most enigmatic civilizations in the history of Mankind. The Celtic culture had no written language of their own, so most of what we know of them comes from the writings of the ancient Greeks and Romans, and later the Irish Monks, who meticulously copied down old Irish legends and stories.

The Celtic culture has the evidence that the Celts inhabited central and western Europe. From the 2nd millennium to the 1st century BC, these nomadic people, who spoke Indo-European dialects, spread through much of Europe, & finally gave rise to the Celtic culture. The modern populations of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany retain strong elements of the Celtic culture. Accounts of the Celtic culture come most notably from the Roman and Greek writers, Julius Caesar (in his "Commentaries on the Gallic Wars"). These records on Celtic culture are supplemented and corroborated by early Irish.

And yet these accounts are somewhat one-sided in their portrayal of the Celtic culture, as the Romans viewed the Celts as a barbaric rabble, uncouth and uncivilized. The ancient Celts didn't themselves give any commentary of their Celtic civilization, we are dependent on Roman accounts, as well as the writings of the Monks, who added their own, Christian slant to the tales on the Celtic culture. From these sources inferences may be drawn regarding the structure of Celtic culture - its social institutions, classes, and obligations, as well as Celtic customs and beliefs.

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