Customer Reviews

The Celts: Life, Myth, and Art

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Five stars for the sheer beauty of this book, but I found myself mentally correcting the text as I read. There are lots of books out there that give a better account of the Celts' history. Recommended only if it's on sale, and only if you have some knowledge about the Celtic tribes before cracking the cover, so you can take some things with a grain of salt. If the previous two conditions are met, this is a gorgeous coffee-table book with absolutely exquisite photos of landscapes and of ancient Celtic artwork and jewelry. It feels like the author wanted to make a photography book, but felt the need to fill it with text. Much better if you just look at the stunning pictures.

I read this book hoping to find out more about who the Celts were. I sort of know now, but the constant jumping around in time confused me. This book seems very unorganized by its shotgun approach to subjects. I wish it had been written chronologically for greater understanding of the Celts' culture in the context of history.

Instead, it jumped around from 800 BC to AD 100 back to 400 BC, etc. mining nuggets about their art, mythology, and warfare.

Another annoying thing was that it was unabashedly apologetic of the Celts, even though history shows them to be viscous warriors, involved in such atrocities head hunting and child sacrifice.

If you wanted to know anything about Druids, don't read this book. It doesn't get to them till late in the text, and then there is only a brief and unclear description of their role in Celtic religion.

What I did like about the book were the excellent illustrations. I was not familiar with Celtic art, and now I can see how the beautifully illuminated Scriptures of Medieval times derived their style from earlier Celtic motifs.

In all, this is a nice picture book to flip through, but I wouldn't use it as research material for a history paper.

I read the German edition of 2004 of the originally 1998 book. Compared to most other non-fiction books I have read recently, this one is sure eye candy. However, beneath the glossy pictures, the remaining text is just of introductory length and doesn't present itself fully agreeable with both - the history establishment and unorthodox autodidacts. Even the captions are used as regular, i.e. original information text, not as repetitions or complements of the text pages. Meaning: The text pages are rather superficial, even lacking. (Be aware that the missing captions of some pictures are to be found on the very last page of the book.) I was looking for any connection with ancient Egypt, which at least the alternative historians suggest. These links are completely ignored. According to the Euro-centered text the reader will get the impression, the Celts originated in the Balkan-Bohemian-South German area. Yet, Egyptian/African traces are left for those who know what they are looking at:

The Gallarus Oratory in Dingle is depicted, which is in a turned over boat shape. No explanation is offered. It has been suggested elsewhere, that this shape is the result of an architectural meme pool of initially real boats, which weren't of any other use after an exodus from Egypt. For more information read the second of Cleopatra to Christ (Jesus was the Great Grandson of Cleopatra) / Scota, Egyptian Queen of the Scots (Ireland and Scotland were founded by an Egyptian Queen) [Two Books in One], though overall this double book is a little too far out in other aspects.

It is mentioned that the Celts eagerly adopted the fish as the symbol of Jesus, when the early Christian missionaries arrived, as they already venerated fish. The same author of the just mentioned book reasons convincingly that the veneration of fish is of Egyptian origin, due to the changing star formation of astronomical precession, which changes every 2,000 years. Before it was the ram (Aries), before that the bull (Taurus). Both, Jesus and any Egyptian-derived religious cast were aware of the change into Pisces. Read more in Jesus: Last of the Pharoahs. (But be warned: Anything else in this book about Jesus is a bit less convincing...)

The mysterious round towers are depicted, as well as golden torques (jewelry), to be worn on the skin. No real explanation for the former is provided, the latter gets banalized. For a really far out, but very convincing reasoning relating both read Lost Star of Myth and Time. It wouldn't make sense to pitch the content for this one in a oneliner, as this harbors all the potential of a review killer, if you haven't read the sophisticated book itself. (No, it's not about aliens or Astrology.)

The Picts are merely referenced. They should have played a bigger role. For more on them and other peoples of potentially black/dark skin color (not mentioned in this book) read the two volume 19th century classic Ancient and Modern Britons: Volume One (Ancient & Modern Britons) and Ivan Van Sertima's African Presence in Early Europe (Journal of African Civilizations).

The most rewarding picture for me personally, however, for it qualifies as the evidence, which turns speculation/reasoning into knowledge is the golden crescent moon shaped fibula. Again, the book at hand does not draw any connection, even though it is really obvious for anybody of faint knowledge about ancient Egyptian theology. It is clearly a depiction of the night time barque, under which the sun travels in the underworld to appear the next morning.

With all of these books (and more in depth orthodox ones on the Celts), this book is worth to look at. But not really by itself.