The Celts love of ostentatious display extended beyond jewellery and weaponry, with more mundane articles like drinking vessels, cauldrons and even fire dogs being heavily decorated.
Not only did the Celts use precious metals to create their artefacts, they also made use of glass to create beautiful objects. Craft workers would melt and twist different coloured strands, to make jewel-like beads similar to the Murano glass we are familiar with today and probably crafted using techniques we would recognise now. Glass was also used as enamel. Horse harnesses, weaponry, jewellery and everyday utensils were all decorated using enamelling techniques that have changed little over the centuries.
Strabo (Cunliffe, 2003) describes the Celts as …show more content…
The paint used would be woad which is a blue dye made from plants similar to the henna tattoos we are familiar with today. It is fascinating that these symbolic designs are still used today in our body art; Celtic tattoos proving to be eternally popular.
In the Celtic world, symbolism was everything and it can be assumed to have been used to identify different tribes. Britain alone was made up of numerous tribes from the Catuvellauni tribe in southern England, the Iceni in the East to the Briganties in the North. While it is not known whether the appearance of the people differed between the tribes, one wonders whether their body art and ornamentation did. “Rather like the way North American Indians, Aborigines and Maori warriors would paint their bodies with different symbols to identify which tribe they belonged to.” (Allen,2001, P …show more content…
Much credit must be afforded to the people of the’five’ Celtic nations, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Brittany and the Isle of Man (perhaps we should also include Cornwall). Over time the people of these nations have managed to carve out their own individual Celtic regional identities and remain fiercely proud of their heritage to this day. Over time each of these areas have employed local traditions to carve out distinctive regional identities which have distinguished themselves from their English neighbours. Many of these traditions have survived to this day giving us the stereotypical Celtic style we recognise such as kilts, torcs, aran knitwear, knots and Celtic
Not only did the Celts use precious metals to create their artefacts, they also made use of glass to create beautiful objects. Craft workers would melt and twist different coloured strands, to make jewel-like beads similar to the Murano glass we are familiar with today and probably crafted using techniques we would recognise now. Glass was also used as enamel. Horse harnesses, weaponry, jewellery and everyday utensils were all decorated using enamelling techniques that have changed little over the centuries.
Strabo (Cunliffe, 2003) describes the Celts as …show more content…
The paint used would be woad which is a blue dye made from plants similar to the henna tattoos we are familiar with today. It is fascinating that these symbolic designs are still used today in our body art; Celtic tattoos proving to be eternally popular.
In the Celtic world, symbolism was everything and it can be assumed to have been used to identify different tribes. Britain alone was made up of numerous tribes from the Catuvellauni tribe in southern England, the Iceni in the East to the Briganties in the North. While it is not known whether the appearance of the people differed between the tribes, one wonders whether their body art and ornamentation did. “Rather like the way North American Indians, Aborigines and Maori warriors would paint their bodies with different symbols to identify which tribe they belonged to.” (Allen,2001, P …show more content…
Much credit must be afforded to the people of the’five’ Celtic nations, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Brittany and the Isle of Man (perhaps we should also include Cornwall). Over time the people of these nations have managed to carve out their own individual Celtic regional identities and remain fiercely proud of their heritage to this day. Over time each of these areas have employed local traditions to carve out distinctive regional identities which have distinguished themselves from their English neighbours. Many of these traditions have survived to this day giving us the stereotypical Celtic style we recognise such as kilts, torcs, aran knitwear, knots and Celtic