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New Book Claims Celtic Settlements Followed Solar Paths

11/4/2013

8 Comments

 
Although I have not yet read Graham Robb’s new book The Discovery of Middle Earth: Mapping the Lost World of the Celts, which was published in the U.K. as The Ancient Paths, the book’s major claims straddle the border of alternative history and deserve a mention, even if it might take me a while before I get to reading the book. The information below comes from a number of reviews of the books published recently.

Robb holds a Ph.D. in French literature but became famous as a historian for his 2007 book The Discovery of France, which I read and much enjoyed. His other major works were biographies of French literary figures, unread by me. However, Robb has ventured out beyond his field of specialization to make bold claims about the archaeoastronomy of the ancient Celts who occupied what is now France, Spain, and Portugal before the Romans.

Robb believes that modern historians have systematically underestimated the intellectual achievements of the Celts and have devalued their accomplishments. He points to the widespread dismissal of rhomboid Celtic four-sided enclosures as “irregular” even though they can be inscribed within an ellipse, and he also argues that the Celts must have used well-built gravel roads in order to support the heavy wagons they are known to have built. He suggests that archaeologists attribute to the Romans roads originally constructed by the Celtic peoples from Gaul to Scotland.

Here is where Robb begins to exceed the evidence, according to reviewers. Robb argues that Celtic enclosures were purposely made in rhombus shapes because they were constructed within a symbolic ellipse meant to represent the path of the sun. There is, of course, no evidence to indicate that the Celts viewed the sun’s path as elliptical, or that the buildings were intended as solar structures.

Robb, however, makes some interesting observations that immediately recall the more outlandish claims of the alternative historians. He suggests that the Celts organized their settlements and structures according to an elaborate grid created through astronomical alignments. Here, I think, he has something interesting to say. Alternative historians have been very big on imagining a similar grid constructed along fictional “ley lines” and at the site of “energy centers.” Instead, Robb suggests that the Celts used a complex system of trigonometry based on the observed position of the rising sun at the winter solstice, the path of which they marked on the ground of Iberia as the Via Heraklea. It was later covered over and superseded by the Roman Via Augusta. This is interesting, though I am not sure what proof he has that the Via Heraklea predates the Greco-Roman (or Phoenician-Carthaginian) occupation of Iberia.

He also believes he’s found evidence of “shouting stations” used to relay news across the Celtic world, which should not be terribly controversial since Caesar (Gallic Wars 7.3) recorded the existence of such a thing when he saw how fast news spread when Genabum was attacked:

The report is quickly spread among all the states of Gaul; for, whenever a more important and remarkable event takes place, they transmit the intelligence through their lands and districts by a shout; the others take it up in succession, and pass it to their neighbors, as happened on this occasion; for the things which were done at Genabum at sunrise, were heard in the territories of the Arverni before the end of the first watch, which is an extent of more than a hundred and sixty miles. (trans. W. A. McDevitte and W. S. Bohn)

Robb also places a great deal of weight on the 29 Celtic sites named Mediolanum (with a possible 80 or so more suggested by modern place names), of which Milan is the most famous. The name looks Latin, but it comes from the Gaulish, another Indo-European tongue, literally meaning the place “in the middle (medio) of the plain (lanon = Latin planum). Robb asserts that most of these places are too far from anything to be worth living in, suggesting that they existed as mathematical outposts for calculating trigonometric measurements for the layout of sacred roads. Because that makes much more sense than the idea that farmers would live amidst plains; most of these settlements, such as Le Mayollant in Saint-Jean-de-Bournay, France, are still occupied today, suggesting that somebody found them useful for reasons other than trigonometry.

We know that the Neolithic and Bronze Age peoples of the Celtic lands had elaborate sacred landscapes that were composed of structures aligned with one another and with the sun and the moon. Stonehenge and its surroundings, including Woodhenge, demonstrate this sufficiently. It’s not impossible that Roman-era Celts continued to settle along favorable paths dictated by solar alignments. Yet, the reviewers I have read make plain that Robb’s case is circumstantial and not proved. Here’s Tom Shippy writing in the Guardian:

Too many coincidences, furthermore, erode belief rather than reinforcing it. Culloden Moor was fought in 1746 on a line bisected by the Dinas Emrys meridian, where King Lludd buried the dragons. But one doubts whether any of Bonnie Prince Charlie's men knew that. The summer solstice line from Dinas Emrys takes you straight to Camelot – Camelot theme park, that is, now closed. I doubt Excalibur ever was thrown into Martin Mere close by, even if there is a local legend about it. One has to be aware, as Robb admits, of "the ruthless ingenuity of the unconscious mind".

Here’s Laura Miller, writing in Salon:

Robb would inspire more faith in his conjectures if he were not so extravagantly speculative about the Druids and their training. There are absolutely no original sources on this aspect of Celtic society (which according to the Romans had some sort of prohibition against writing their teachings down). Robb is too ready to offer up imaginings of the educational system that must have produced the people capable of the sophisticated feats of geography he can’t prove they performed in the first place.

In other words, at its heart Robb’s argument is circular, depending first on the belief that astonishing Celtic systems must have existed in order to see their remains amidst all the data.

I’m not sure what to make his claims; some are almost certainly far beyond what the evidence supports, but I think there’s probably merit in at least some of the archaeoastronomy.

8 Comments
Varika
11/4/2013 07:27:36 am

Wow. This actually touches on a subject near and dear to my heart. Vercingetorix has long been my hero of heroes, when it comes to historical figures, with Boadicea not far behind.. I fully support his belief that history has consistently undervalued and underestimated the Celts, though I would suggest that it started with the invading Romans, rather than being a strictly modern phenomenon. I'm not at all sure I can support some of his OTHER beliefs, in the face of a huge lack of evidence.

I will say that it would not SHOCK me to learn that the Celts used astronomical alignments in their architecture, or what appears to be advanced trigonometry, either. I mean, varied and sundry OTHERS did. But I'm not aware of any great evidence supporting this.

What DOES seem logical to me is that IF you accept that these complex alignments were in Celtic minds when building towns, that farming towns would use them to their advantage or even be placed according to them. It's an amazing advantage to have a good idea when to plant and when to harvest, after all.

I totally dispute that roads are necessary for heavy vehicle travel, though. Jeeps almost certainly weigh more than the Celtic carts did, and they go plenty of places there are no roads. Most of what I know about 4x4 travel could still be done with a wagon drawn by horses or oxen. And Conestoga wagons weren't precisely light vehicles, either, and they crossed a continent regularly without roads.

Reply
Thane
11/4/2013 01:44:46 pm

Since there are no written Celtic records (to my knowledge) it is very understandable that the Celts are overlooked or not really given as much weight as cultures that did leave written testaments....not to mention massive building projects.

As for the towns, they could still have been midpoint stations on a communications and trade path. The ones that are farms would be farms because farming could be supported. Perhaps others are in more a fishing resource area and others in a more of a mining resource area. Don't know. Haven't seen the list. Perhaps the list is not complete since not all the villages would've survived the passage of time. Farming villages would stand the best chance to continue on as long as the land remained fertile.

Having said all that, his theories may be a stretch and are unproven but they are also not proven to be false for the same reasons they can't be proved.....lack of records and decipherable monuments.

Reply
The Other J.
11/5/2013 08:23:49 am

Hmm... I know Ireland and Scotland (mainly Ireland) better than Galicia and Brittany, so any take I have on this subject would be shaped by that knowledge. That said, I think it would be hard to speculate about the complexity of alignments when more sites are still being discovered, or at least uncovered and explored. The alignments of specific, individual sites isn't in question -- Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth at Brú na Bóinne in Ireland all prove that (all built well before Roman occupation of Britain -- before the great Egyptian pyramids, even, and the Romans never made it to Ireland in the first place, so...).

I haven't seen Robb's book, so I don't know about his methodology. Is he identifying commonalities in the alignments of specific sites and extrapolating outwards to how the sites themselves may be aligned to each other? If that's the case, it sounds like he's identifying the grid first, and then overlaying that on top of the landscape. But I'm not sure that makes more sense than ancient people first finding a good piece of land, and then situating themselves on that land in accordance with certain alignments that are reflected in some of their sacred sites. It's a chicken and egg, then a horse and cart question.

The Hill of Tara is probably a good example of that sort of thing. It's also at Brú na Bóinne, and is the highest point in the land -- it has the best vantage point, and as such became the Hill of Kings. The other sites in the region (at least 40 burial sites with long passages) were organized around the hill.

But how precise is his use of "Celt"? Does he have dates? Many of the neolithic sites were pre-Celtic and simply adopted by later Celtic settlers, like the same Hill of Tara. It only became the Hill of Kings during the Iron Age, but the sacred sites were already there for a couple thousand years. (And even the concept of a High King of Ireland is questionable, and may be a more recent construction projected back on history to justify historical claims to power.) So is Robb using "Celt" as a catch-all for ancient people of Europe's western fringe?

Reply
Jason Colavito link
11/5/2013 08:31:22 am

Great questions. I don't have a copy of the book to know how he's defining Celts or what methodology he's using. According to reviews, he noticed that the Via Heraklea aligned to the sun and then looked around for sites near it that he could add to his alignment pattern.

Gunn
11/4/2013 08:59:00 am

I think the idea of knowing an exact time to plant is somewhat frivolous. Here in Minnesota, I watch the lilacs. They will tell me when to plant, when they begin to form buds. I'm sure farmers were aware of watching for signs of nature to tell them when to plant back then, too. I guess it's always nice to have an exact date, though, just to be sure.

I read that ley-lines always end on a hill, which naturally makes me wonder why Runestone Hill is surrounded by stonehole rocks. Could Runestone Hill be a significant ley-line feature? Or a hub of sorts? Minus the KRS, what would the stoneholes be for? Land acquisition, or geographical feature, or both? Or neither? Something. Not nothing. Perhaps it will one day be figured out.

Reply
Paul Cargile
11/4/2013 11:40:29 pm

Yes. There's a nugget of dark matter in it radiating dark energy.

Reply
Varika
11/5/2013 12:59:46 pm

Well, YES, Gun, and "signs of nature" include celestial alignments such as moon phases, solstices, and equinoxes. Particularly since you don't plant all crops at the same time, and if you want to start with forcing them, it has to be WELL before "the lilacs begin to form buds." It's not like they would have used these things to flip open their printed Gregorian calendars and circle April 8th or something.

Honestly, you might have a garden, but I doubt you're any kind of farmer, if you don't already know how much planning farming takes.

Reply
D. Andrew White link
1/29/2023 06:09:45 pm

I find it interesting that many of the claims about the ancient Celt are confabulations & speculations. For a number of reasons there are more complete written accounts by the Romans of the Germanic folk. In the lacunae of complete information about the Celts, all sorts of romantic claims and suppositions are made. A common set of claims is that the Celts were somehow more nature loving, peaceful and mystical than were the Germanic folk. The actual written accounts show little justification for the sundry claims of Celtic superiority.

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