The return of the Celts newstatesman.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from newstatesman.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
In 320BC an expedition set out from what is now southern France on an unprecedented journey: to find out what lay beyond the pillars of Hercules (the mouth of the Mediterranean) in the mythological northern lands. Pythias great journey was both thefirst and last Greek attempt to explore northern Europe. Cunliffe has used this journey to recreate the world through which the Greek ship sailed with its bustling trade, ferocious wars and complex, pre-literate societies. As Pythias sails up the English Channel and becomes the first literate man to visit Britain, to the edge of the Arctic sea-ice, we learn about the world view of classical Greece and about our own ancestors at the furthest limit of written experience.
Who were the Celts? nationalgeographic.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from nationalgeographic.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Who were the Celts?
With settlements stretching from Ireland to Turkey, this Iron Age culture used their metalworking skills to build extensive trade networks with ancient Greece and Rome.
These iron and bronze scabbards were found in Switzerland, the product of the Celtic civilization known as La Tène. Emerging in the fifth-century b.c., aspects of the La Tène culture spread to western Europe and are closely associated with modern notions of Celtic patterns and style.BERTHOLD STEINHILBER/LAIF/CORDON PRESS
ByBorja Pelegero
Email
Near the mouth of the Rhône River, 2,600 years ago, Greek traders founded a colony called Massilia, today the site of the French city of Marseille. Venturing inland along the Rhône Valley, those traders encountered a people who spoke a tongue the Greeks did not recognize. Ruled by wealthy chieftains and hungry for luxury goods, they seemed fierce and warlike. A century later, Greek geographer Hecataeus of Miletus gave them a name Keltoi, translat