All language subtitles for BBC.The.Celts.Blood.Iron.and.Sacrifice.1of3.720p.HDTV.x264.AAC.MVGroup.org-eng

ALICE ROBERTS:
In early 2015 in Yorkshire,

the remains of a body
were discovered in an unmarked grave.

They belonged to a man
who had died in his early 20s.

Beside him lay a large sword,

and the heads of five spears.

It was an iron age ritual burial.

NEIL OLIVER: Graves like this have
been discovered throughout Europe,

and we now know that this man
once shared a common culture

that stretched from Turkey
to Portugal.

We know this because he was one
of our pre-historic ancestors...

..a Celt.

In Britain we're never far
from our Celtic past.

The Celts seem to belong
to a shadowy, wilder,

more primal time
than anything in more recent history.

But much about their origins,
beliefs, and ultimate fate

remains a mystery.

But a story etched in vivid colour

is how these powerful tribal people
battled for survival

against their arch-enemy,
the Roman Empire.

From the first Celtic
raiding parties

that rampaged through ancient Italy,

to Julius Caesar's
campaign in Gaul.

And the Celts' last stand
under the warrior queen, Boudicca.

One of the greatest
cultural conflicts

that still defines our world today,

and reveals Europe's
most enigmatic ancient people.

Advertise your product or brand here
contact www.OpenSubtitles.org today

Rome.

Once the heart
of Europe's greatest empire.

For hundreds of years,

this city ruled over lands
stretching from Syria to Britain.

Rome's power was forged
on its military strength,

enshrined in its laws,
economy and monuments.

But even before this empire
spread across Europe,

it would be challenged by powerful
barbarian forces,

from lands north of the Alps.

Warrior tribes that would fire
the imagination of Romans

for centuries to come.

The Celts.

This is the Roman image of the Celt.

It's called The Dying Gaul.

He's completely naked,
he has tousled and unkempt hair,

a moustache, and around his neck
he's wearing a torc,

which is the ultimate status
symbol of the elite Celtic warrior.

In Roman eyes, this is
the quintessential naked savage,

and more importantly

it's a naked savage who has been
subdued, and defeated.

Here in his side
he's bleeding from a mortal wound,

and in his agony he's
dropped his sword to the ground

and then slumped alongside it,
awaiting death.

It's a beautiful

and very powerful
and moving work of art,

but it's also propaganda.

This is how Rome
wanted its citizens to see,

to perceive the Celtic opponent.

As noble, yes,

but essentially a savage.

A powerful, potent image

to set against the idea of Rome

as a disciplined, ordered,
civilising presence.

For 400 years,

the Romans and Celts would struggle
for supremacy in Europe.

A conflict that, in the end,
would define them both.

But while Rome would celebrate
ITS victories

in monumental architecture...

the Celts would gradually
fade from history.

One big difference
between the Celts and the Romans

is that the Celts left us
no written records of their own.

Theirs was an oral tradition,
not a written one.

Unlike the Romans,

who documented
almost every detail of their lives

in their writings, in their
sculptures and in their monuments.

But the Celts aren't entirely
invisible to us.

The world that they left behind

is there to be discovered -
beneath our feet.

Throughout Europe,

archaeologists are unearthing
the world of the Ancient Celts.

I'm in Central France,
in Champagne country,

and here on the outskirts
of Bucheres in April 2013,

a team of archaeologists
found something very exciting indeed.

They were investigating this area

simply because this is going to be
the site of a large new warehouse.

And what they stumbled across

was a burial site.

They discovered the graves
of 27 men and women,

and they'd been buried here
in the fourth century BC.

This was an iron age cemetery -

the people buried here were Celts.

Finds like Bucheres

give us direct insight
into who the Celts really were.

This is one of the skeletons
from those graves at Bucheres,

and in fact this is one of the most
complete skeletons that were found

because some of the bones were in
a very bad state of repair indeed.

Now, I've looked really carefully
at these bones, and I can't see

any signs of injury or disease
on them.

But in fact there are some marks
or perhaps I should say stains

just here on the left forearm bones.

Now, this isn't a disease, this is

where something made of
copper or copper alloy

has lain very close
to these bones in the grave,

and in fact,
with all of these skeletons,

with all these graves at Bucheres,

it's not the human remains themselves
that are the most interesting -

it's what was buried with them.

The bodies were accompanied into
the afterlife by their possessions,

and they reveal a surprisingly
sophisticated culture.

We've got some fibulae,

some brooches here,

some bracelets,

some little pins just there

and a couple of necklaces as well.

The fibulae are gorgeous.

This fibula
is the piece de resistance.

It has a repeating pattern running
along the body of interwoven spirals,

and then this strange white button
just here

is actually made of coral,

so that would have come from
the Mediterranean.

This is a fairly classic
Celtic torc.

The thing which characterises them
is this opening at the bottom

with these two terminals,

and the whole neck ring
would have been twisted open

in order to place it around
somebody's neck.

And it's got this nice decoration

stamped onto the shaft.

A few of the graves
contained weaponry,

and these swords are
absolutely beautiful.

They are still in their scabbards,

and the degradation of the iron

has meant that it's sprung apart,

so you can actually probably see

the sword sitting inside there.

Now, the length of these
swords is interesting.

They're not quite as long
as the slashing swords

that would have been carried by
the cavalrymen amongst the Celts.

So these are designed
to be carried by warriors on foot.

And here, this iron band

is decorated - we've got these
strange circles just here

but if you look at them really
closely you realise what they are.

These circles,
which are made of coral,

are the eyes of two dragons.

So we've got this lovely
symmetrical pattern on this scabbard,

which is actually
very different from this one.

Both these styles
are typical of the period,

but they're very individual
at the same time.

And you imagine that these swords
would have been

very prized personal items.

The picture emerging

is that the Celts were a people
with individual style

and technical skill,

who took pride in their appearance
and weaponry.

It's a far cry from the naked savage
depicted by Rome.

Over 2,500 years ago,

the Celts and Romans
were destined to meet,

as Celtic influence spread south
of the Alps into Northern Italy.

And we know that some Celts
must have come through here -

the Alpine pass of Valcamonica.

Carved, etched into the rocks
hereabouts

are markings that some
archaeologists believe could be

the very earliest depictions
of Celts.

As they came through
these high Alpine passes,

they encountered a mountain people
called the Cammunni -

and it may well be the case that it
was those Cammunni

who made these marks in the rocks

and so created the very first
indelible record

of what the Celts looked like
and what they had.

And what you've got on here

is something really quite
remarkable.

Most obvious perhaps

is a depiction of a four-wheeled
vehicle - a chariot.

Elsewhere,
there's a couple of warriors,

or at least figures who seem to be
armed with spears and shields -

but it's a fabulous,
unforgettable snapshot

of what someone saw
when a new people arrived.

What IS clear

is that the Celts who
ventured south were ready to fight.

This whole area is just peppered,
littered with the rock carvings,

so that you've even got to need
to look underneath the leaf mould

in case you're missing something.

We'll clear it away...

and look there!

Right away, that's fantastic.

See that figure there, look?

A man, his head,

two legs, got shoes on,

and he's holding a spear.

And then in his left -

well, that's either a small kind of
type buckler-type shield,

or it could be a trophy. Could be
a man's severed head, who knows?

And so it goes on. You've just
got to keep revealing the canvas.

There's more...

There's a crowd of them there,

armed with spears and shields
and swords.

More of them.

They're fantastic.

Everything about it
seems to be either

war-like and aggressive,
or jubilant.

You know, the figures are either

threatening combat

or they're celebrating victory -

but they're very much alive.

Whoever saw them and decided to
commit their image to the rock

had been impressed,

and wanted to make sure that

some aspect of their arrival
was remembered.

The Celtic tribes were migrating,

taking new lands

and moving south
towards Central Italy.

The ordered, structured world
of Rome had a storm coming.

THUNDER RUMBLES

To find out what happened
when the Romans first met the Celts,

we have to rely on this -
Livy's History of Rome.

Now, bear in mind that Livy -
Titus Livius - WAS a Roman

so he's likely to be partisan,

and he was writing 300 years
after the event.

He tells us that that
first meeting

between the Romans and the Celts

took place in 387 BC, in Clusium,

a town in what's now Tuscany,
100 miles north of Rome.

It's hard to believe,

strolling around this peaceful
Tuscan hill town today,

but events that unfolded here

would set in train centuries
of conflict and bloodshed.

Livy writes that "outlandish
warriors in their thousands,

"armed with strange weapons,
marched to Clusium

"in search of new lands to conquer
and riches to plunder."

They were led by a Celtic tribal
leader and warlord

called Brennus.

While the Celtic horde
descended upon Clusium,

the town's officials sent word to
Rome asking for armed protection.

BELL RINGS

But the request was denied.

Instead, Rome sent three of
her ambassadors to negotiate

a peaceful settlement.

It would be the first time Rome
would come face-to-face

with her greatest adversary,

and so begin centuries of struggle
for the heart and soul of Europe.

As negotiations started,
the Celts demanded land,

and, with vastly superior numbers,
they were in no mood for compromise.

There was a fierce argument

and in the heat of the moment
a Roman ambassador stabbed his

spear through a Celtic chieftain's
heart, killing him instantly.

In a single stroke,
the oath of neutrality,

one of Rome's own accepted customs,
was broken.

The Celts demanded that the Roman
in question be handed over

to them for suitable punishment
The demand was ignored.

Big mistake.

Livy wrote, "The Celts
flamed into the uncontrollable anger

"and set forward with terrible speed
covering miles of ground.

"The cry went up, 'To Rome!"'

The Romans came face-to-face
with the Celts in 387 BC,

but from modern archaeology we know
that Celtic culture goes back

much further than that.

Some of the earliest evidence
comes from a tiny village

south-east of Salzburg in Austria,
called Hallstatt.

It's a place that has given its name
to an entire Celtic period

and has become synonymous
with early Celtic culture.

This is Hallstatt, tucked away
in a fold of the Austrian Alps.

It's a quiet town with
an even quieter population,

and yet it's one of the most
famous names in archaeology,

and the ideal starting point
for any investigation of the Celts.

Because it's here that we catch

the very first glimpses
of Celtic material culture,

by which I mean identifiable things

Ieft behind by Celts -
Hallstatt culture.

I had it drummed into my head
when I was an archaeology student.

And, now, 30 years after I first
heard the term, I'm finally here.

Starting in 1846, archaeologists
at Hallstatt

gradually unearthed over 1,000
graves out of perhaps 5,000

scattered across the upper valley,
an entire city of the dead.

Within the graves
were over 20,000 artefacts

dating as far back as 800 BC.

Intricate brooches,
gold bracelets,

vessels made of sheet bronze,
iron daggers and axes.

This was the earliest evidence of a
long forgotten prehistoric culture,

a culture we now recognise as Celtic.

Archaeologist Hans Rechstreiter
has worked here for over 25 years.

What was special about the graves
that were found here?

It's the number of the graves.
We have more than 5,000 of them,

and also the grave goods
we found in the graves.

We have a lot of jewellery and other
luxury products in the graves.

In Hallstatt, more than 60% of
the graves

are with a lot of grave goods.

Ah, so the majority of people
who died and were buried

in these graves were rich enough

to take stuff with them?
Yes. That's it.

How do you know this wasn't
a graveyard for the wealthy?

How do you know the poor
weren't buried somewhere else?

No, the traces on the skeletons,

the muscle marks show that also
the people in the rich graves

have worked their whole lives,

these muscle marks show
traces of heavy workload.

So what kind of activity creates

that kind of build-up
of wear and tear on the bones?

For the women, for example,

we see that they have
heavy marks on one shoulder,

it seems they have carried
heavy loads on one shoulder.

For the men, we have
no muscles on the legs,

but we have a lot of muscles
here in the shoulders.

Right, so whatever it was they were
doing required upper body strength

but not a lot of moving around.

No. Right.

What made Hallstatt unique
can still be found buried

deep inside these mountains.

A valuable commodity that made

the ancient people who lived here
rich and Hallstatt famous.

On the right, we have the first
prehistoric site

we are entering here. Take care,
it's slippery.

Right. Now, this tunnel is a little
different than the one we walked up!

Oh, yeah, it is. Here you see
the remains of one of these huge

prehistoric tunnels.

So you've re-excavated a space that
was originally made 3,000 years ago?

And the shining crystalline
sand, that's the salt?

That's the salt, yes.
Pure rock salt.

This is the salt of the pre-historic
miners were looking for.

And this salt is
heading in this direction

so the pre-historic miners
followed the direction of the salt.

Salt was highly prized as a vital
preservative in the ancient world,

and the Celts of Hallstatt
mined it on a massive scale.

This mountain is riddled
with huge excavated galleries,

up to 200 metres long
and 20 metres high.

Everything the miners left behind
is preserved perfectly.

Here you see thousands of burnt
tapers to illuminate the light.

Tapers from the end of
flaming torches? Yes.

And this is everything that
the wealth of Hallstatt society

was all built on, it's this.

So that explains the marks
on the skeletons in the graves.

It's the labour in here.
Oh, yes, it is.

The tool handles we find in here,

those are the handles of the bronze
picks to break

these huge plates of salt, and
the work of those picks explains

the marks on the male skeletons,
and we think the marks

on the female skeletons are from
carrying the huge plates of salt.

So, they bear the marks of a
lifetime of labour on the skeletons.

Yes. So, for the Hallstatt people
this was their life,

this was their surrounding.
This was quite normal.

They were subterranean.
Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Within this ancient mine

are also very personal reminders
of the people that worked here.

So, am I right in thinking
that that there is proof of a life?

Yes, this is pre-historic excrement.

I'll be honest with you,
I never expected to catch

this intimate
a glimpse of a Celtic salt miner.

I feel a strange sense
of communion and brotherhood.

Oh, yeah.

In these excrements,
we also find eggs of parasites,

so we have the proof that
nearly all the miners

had parasites in their stomachs.

So, it was not a nice time
more than 2,000 years ago.

If it gets wet, it still smells.
Oh, no.

That is unbelievable. The Iron Age
is alive and well down here.

It's preserved
because of the salt in here.

It's my first salted poo.

LAUGHTER

The salt from this mountain
was of such high quality,

it became a prized commodity,
traded throughout the region.

The people of Hallstatt
grew rich from this white gold

at a time when another commodity

was starting to transform
pre-historic society -

iron.

The secrets of iron production
had spread from Asia Minor,

through the Eastern Mediterranean,
into Central Europe.

People had long been able to extract
copper and tin to make bronze.

Iron ore was more plentiful,

but iron was harder to extract,
and to work.

Repeated heating and hammering
yielded a metal hardened, durable,

and perfect for weaponry.

The Celts became masters at it.

The extraordinary finds at Hallstatt
revealed the Celts as wealthy,

industrious and technologically
sophisticated.

It was the birth of a new
and very distinctive culture,

one that would grow, influence,
and, ultimately, dominate Europe.

Hallstatt would become famous
as the birthplace of a new culture

that thrived and spread across
great swathes of Europe.

By 500 BC, the Celts
had arrived in Northern Italy.

And by 387 BC,

having been wronged by Roman
ambassadors at Clusium,

the Celtic Chieftain Brennus

and his men were marching south
to Rome, hungry for revenge.

The Roman army, having received word
of the approaching Celtic horde,

marched north to meet them,
led by General Quintus Sulpicius.

Sulpicius had six legions
under his command,

approximately 24,000 soldiers.

Just 11 miles from Rome,
he encountered his enemy

on a plain next to the River Allia.

This is by no means
the most atmospheric place.

Right behind me,
there's a high speed rail track,

the whole area is criss-crossed
with overhead power lines,

but we believe that thousands
of people died here.

This is the battlefield of Allia,
where the Roman army came

face-to-face with the Celts for the
very first time in pitched battle.

And it's worth remembering too
that the Roman commander Sulpicius

had next to no knowledge of his foe.

He knew nothing about their tactics
or their weaponry

and, furthermore, he'd been caught
on the hop, with hardly any time

to prepare for what he could now see
was ahead of him and coming his way.

Mike Loades, an expert in ancient
military tactics, has been

piecing together what happened on the
battlefield nearly 2,500 years ago.

Hi, Neil. How are you?
Good to see you. You, too.

It doesn't really have
the feel of a battlefield. No.

It's not the prettiest, is it?

It's a reminder that history happens

under our feet where
we live our everyday lives.

I kind of like
the ordinariness of it.

What about the topography, would it
have appealed to a commander?

Well, you've got to remember
that this is not the Roman army

of later years, we're talking
387 BC, this is a fledgling Rome.

It's a small force,
and they're fighting in a phalanx,

that's 10-15 rows deep,
shoulder-to-shoulder.

You've got that rigid, static,

entrenched Roman
attitude to fighting.

You hold your ground,
you take your position.

What I think Sulpicius was trying
to do was force a pitched battle

on this plain, that's where
he set his phalanx,

expecting that Brennus would bring
his hordes on to engage them.

And, on that hill,
which probably didn't have

all those trees on back then,

Sulpicius would
have put his cavalry,

the equites -
the elite Roman soldiers.

I think Sulpicius
was planning to either

sweep down in a flanking manoeuvre,
or come round behind the Celts.

So what did go wrong
for Sulpicius and his Romans?

Well, the first thing is Brennus
didn't do what Sulpicius

thought he was supposed to do,
he didn't play the game.

He didn't let his undisciplined
hordes rush forward,

he had control of them.

And they went streaming up that hill

and they drove that elite Roman
cavalry off the battlefield.

The Celts were much more
imaginative, swirling and using

the landscape, and they would
hit and run, and fluid,

it's just a different way
of commanding the battlefield.

It sounds as if the analogy is
that the Celt is the flowing stream

and the Roman is
the rock in the river.

With the elite cavalry dealt with,
the Celtic warriors

turned their attention to the Roman
phalanxes on the plain.

BATTLE CRI ES

CLASHI NG OF SWORDS

THUNDER CLAPS

Overrun and outmanoeuvred,
the Roman legionnaires

fled in panic,
terrified by the Celtic charge.

Many were cut down in the rout,

others drowned in the Allia, weighed
down by their heavy bronze armour.

The Romans would later claim
they lost 20,000 men that day.

The city of Rome
was left to its fate.

The Romans may have thought their
enemy had come out of nowhere,

but the Celts had had connections

with the Mediterranean world
for years.

Hill forts are iconic features
of Celtic Europe -

Iron Age castles that
were the homes of chiefs

and great centres of power.

Heuneburg, built
in the 6th century BC,

Iies 250 miles west of Hallstatt
in southern Germany.

This is Heuneburg, and, in 600 BC,

this whole place would have been
covered in Iron Age buildings.

And archaeologists are
arguing that we shouldn't
just view this as a hill fort,

but that this was a city, perhaps
the first city north of the Alps.

The Celtic City of Heuneburg is
estimated to have had a population

of 5,000 and its construction
was on a grand scale.

A five-metre-high white wall
surrounded the entire citadel,

punctuated by huge defensive towers,
which were further protected

by a large earthen ditch,
six metres deep.

This was architecture designed
to be impregnable and to impress.

Dirk Krausse is the Head
of Archaeology at Heuneburg.

These walls are pretty
magnificent, aren't they?

They're much more magnificent than
I expected, for an Iron Age fort.

Yeah, because they are unique,
and they are very extraordinary.

Normally they built with timber,
and stone, and earth,

but here they used
limestone foundation

and above they built
with mud bricks.

And this painting is necessary
for the protection of the mud bricks

because we have bad weather
here, north of the Alps.

It's also for the demonstration
of power because these walls

were seen from miles away

so everyone who came here
knew this is a mighty side.

So this is what the walls look
like underneath all that white paint?

Yeah, these are the mud bricks.
They're not baked clay bricks

but they are dried in the sun
or the air.

So just how unusual is this style
of building for the Iron Age?

It's extraordinary.
They didn't build with mud bricks

north of the Alps - never,
never before and never afterwards.

Where has this idea come from?

For a long time, it was a mystery
where this idea came from,

but the combination of mud bricks
and of towers which were built

in the citadel wall here,

you find it only in the Phoenician
culture, for example, in the Levant,

or in Sicily, or
in the Iberian peninsula.

So maybe an architect came here

who learnt to build
in a Phoenician context.

It's an example of this
Mediterranean influence,

centuries before you think
Mediterranean influence

really takes off with
the Roman Empire. Yeah.

When you get up on top
of the Heuneburg, you realise just

why it was such an important site.

It dominates the landscape but it's
also extremely well connected

within this landscape.
That, down there, is the Danube,

which, of course, carries on
and flows east to the Black Sea,

and to the south of Heuneberg,

the Rhine rises. These are really
important river routes

but there are also important
overland routes nearby as well.

The autobahns of the Iron Age.

Silver from Iberia,
amber from the Baltic,

wine and pottery from Italy
and Greece crisscrossed

the continent, east to west,
south to north.

Its links to the wider world
made Heuneberg a vital hub

for trade and industry, and
helped to build the foundations

of a powerful civilisation.

The enormous wealth from this trade
transformed early Celtic leaders

into more than chiefs.

It created an elite class,

the oligarchs of the Iron Age.

Some can even be regarded
as royalty.

This burial mound protected
the grave of a man

who died around 530 BC.

He's become known as the Hochdorf
Prince, because despatched with him

into the afterlife were some of the
most remarkable finds of the early

Celtic world, now housed in the
depository of the Stuttgart Museum.

This is fantastic.
Just look at this.

This is the couch that the Hochdorf
Prince was laid to rest on

in his tomb.

And it's made entirely
out of sheet bronze riveted together.

It's got this wonderful hammered
pattern, stylised warriors

fighting in single combat,
and then, at each end,

we've got the representation
of a four-wheeled chariot pulled by

two stallions with a warrior
holding a shield and a spear.

You've got to remember
that when it was put in the grave

it would have been a beautiful,
shiny, bronze object,

not this green, verdigrised
appearance we see now.

And you can see that this
bronze couch is at the moment

resting on these steel legs
which of course are not original.

This is what it originally stood on.

So this is one of the eight legs
of this couch, and you can see

that it's a little bronze figurine,
so this is a woman

bearing a pot on her head
and she's drilled all over,

and would have been
inlaid with coral,

and she's standing astride a wheel,
so she's a miniature unicyclist,

so this couch
would have been on casters.

Also discovered in the tomb were
drinking horns, bronze plates,

and a vast cauldron
decorated with three lions,

that would have contained up
to 500 litres of honey mead.

This is the cauldron.

It is enormous.

The size of it
is incredibly impressive.

And cauldrons really are emblematic
of something which was pretty

fundamental in Celtic society,
and that, of course, was feasting.

This was the way
that chieftains showed their power,

and their wealth,
and kept their allies close to them.

Just based on the size
of his cauldron, the Hochdorf Prince

must have been
a fairly important person.

But the greatest luxuries of all
were found on the Prince himself.

Our Hochdorf Prince was wrapped
in layers and layers of cloth,

and, not only that,

he was adorned with all of this
gold, and it is stunning.

He was wearing this beautiful,
golden neck ring.

When you look at it really, really
closely, you realise what appears

at first glance to be an abstract
pattern is in fact a little repeating

stamp of a tiny rider on a horse.

And then there are these two golden
fibulae, or brooches,

and you can see the pins
have been deliberately bent,

so this is part of the strange
ritual of his funeral.

He was buried with these brooches

but they're not to be used
again by a living person.

And other objects like
a bronze dagger which has been

encased in gold, again with
a hammered pattern all over it.

But I think what is most
extraordinary about this

entire collection are his shoes.

Now, of course, I say shoes
but the shoes themselves

have long since rotted away,

but what we have left are
these wonderful gold plaques

going round the top of the shoe here
and right up and over the toe.

So, having lived in luxury,
he took luxury to the grave with him,

and he also took everything
he needed to carry on feasting

right into the afterlife.

From the tiny Alpine village
of Hallstatt had grown

one of Europe's great
ancient cultures.

The Celts may not have fitted
the classical model,

but they were a rich,
complex and structured society.

A telling contrast of the Roman
image of a naked warrior,

the wild barbarian
of the Dying Gaul.

I learnt the accepted theory
as an archaeology student,

but brand-new research is suggesting
that Celtic origins might be

far more complex.
And intriguing.

If we're trying to track down
the Celts and find out how and where

it all started, there are a number
of lines of evidence we can follow.

There's archaeology, so we can look
for their material culture,

their swords and shields,
and jewellery,

and look at how
that spreads across Europe.

But we can also look at language

because we believe
that these Iron Age tribes

spoke very similar languages

and that we have surviving Celtic
languages in the west of Europe,

in Wales, in Scotland, Ireland,
Cornwall and Brittany.

But it's not to any of those places
I've come in search of ancient

Celtic language - it is to the
Algarve, to south-west Portugal.

John Koch is a philologist -
the study of literary text -

and he's behind
a new theory of Celtic origins

that starts with a very old source -

the ancient Greek
historian Herodotus.

John, I must say that
I didn't expect to come to

Portugal in search of the Celts,
but you think that they were here?

Oh, I've no doubt
that the Celts were here.

As well as saying that the Celts
lived near the source of the Danube

Herodotus in our first
good references to the Celts,

writing in the 5th century BC,

says that they also lived
beyond the Pillars of Hercules,

that's the Straits of Gibraltar,

and next to a people
he calls the Kunetes.

And the Kunetes seems to be
a Celtic name as well,

so we have Celts in name
and Celts linguistically.

So, how do we square that,
what Herodotus is telling us,

with this idea that the Celts
come from Central Europe,

that is their homeland,
and then they spread out

and that Western Europe
is very much a kind of afterthought?

Well, I think we need
to look at that differently,

we need to re-examine
that whole idea.

It simply doesn't work.

For John, what doesn't work
is the absence of archaeological

evidence linking the Celts here
to the Celts of Central Europe.

But there is evidence linking
the Iberian Celts to Britain,

Ireland and the Atlantic coastline.

The clues are etched
into ancient stone tablets

that date to the 7th century BC,

the same period
as the Hallstatt Celts.

So, John, what have we got here,
what is this stone?

Is it a gravestone?

This was found in the far
south-west of the peninsula,

a place called Fonte Velha,
which was a necropolis,

a burial ground of the early
Iron Age. Can you read it, John?

This bit, "logobol,"
the first word,

Iooks very much like dedications

that we have in north-western Spain
of "lughubol."

And these are dedications
to the Celtic god Lugh.

"Neerobol" probably means
something like, "to the Chief men."

So we have, "to the Gods Lugh
and to the Chief Men,"

is the opening of this inscription.

"Logon," I think up here, I think
this might be the word for "burial"

because we get a very similar
word in Northern Italy

in a Celtic inscription
probably about 500 years later.

So this looks like a Celtic word
written in stone?

It looks like a Celtic...
I mean, it's a Celtic name

and it looks like it has
a Celtic inflected ending on it,

so it's grammatically Celtic
and it's etymologically Celtic.

And it still has links
to extant Celtic languages,

to Celtic languages
spoken by living people?

Oh, yeah, that's how we know,
I mean that's sort of,

by definition, this is
how we decide something is Celtic.

John thinks that this
is an ancient language

written down using
the alphabet of the Phoenicians,

Mediterranean seafarers
who reached the Iberian peninsula

as long ago as 900 BC.

Although this language has been
written using that alphabet,

it's not Phoenician.

It's Celtic.

This early Celtic has clear links
to later Celtic languages

spoken in Britain and Ireland,
such as Gaelic, Welsh and Cornish.

And John believes
that Bronze Age traders

and seafarers used this
proto-Celtic as they traded silver,

copper and tin up and down
the Atlantic coastline,

from Portugal to Northern Spain,

Brittany to Ireland,
and the West Country.

For me, this is really exciting,
cos this is new.

This idea is turning what we think
about the Celts totally on its head.

Instead of thinking about
a migration out of Central Europe,

we've got something
really interesting happening on this

Atlantic fringe, something that could
actually be the origin of the Celts.

This new theory suggests
that rather than being invaded

by Iron Age Celts, our Celtic
heritage arrived in Britain

during the Bronze Age
using a very different mechanism.

So, my Celtic-ness
might have much more to do

with the exchange
of ores and ingots,

than with the blood and gore
of a raiding party.

And if that's true, then Britain
and the far west of Europe

may have had much more influence
on the spread of Celtic culture

in Central Europe
than was previously imagination.

And there's a fascinating piece
of evidence to support all of that.

This is a Gundlingen sword,
an early Celtic sword.

It has this elegant leaf shape

and it sweeps back into a big, broad
pommel. It's typically Celtic.

Now, a generation ago, swords
like this were sited as evidence

of the spread of the Celts
into the west from Central Europe.

So, you'd find them made
of iron all over Central Germany

and France. But, recently,
archaeologists have been

finding lots of sword like this
in Britain, made of bronze,

just like this one.
They're from the early 8th century.

They're before Hallstatt.

It suggests there
may have been swords

made in Britain from bronze that
influenced the weapons technology

of the early Iron Age,
spreading from west to east,

from Britain to the Central Europe
and not the other way round.

So when it comes to the case
of a Celtic warlord

Iike Brennus and his men,

they may have been carrying weapons

that were shaped by a technology
that had its foundations in Britain.

In 387 BC, for the first time,

the Celtic and Roman worlds
had clashed at the Battle of Allia.

According to the Roman historian
Livy, 20,000 legionaries had

Iost their lives that day, leaving
the city of Rome at the mercy

of the Celtic army,
under the command of Chief Brennus.

Livy wrote the following -

"As there was no hope of defending
the city, the decision was taken to

"withdraw all men capable of bearing
arms together with the women and

"children and able-bodied senators
into the fortress on the Capitol.

"From that stronghold,
properly armed and provisioned,

"it was their intention to make a
last stand for themselves,

"for their Gods,
and for the Roman name."

The fortress was up there
on the Capitoline Hill,

one of the seven hills
upon which Rome was built.

The city,
which had never been defeated,

was about to face
the fury of its greatest foe.

Livy wrote - "Then news came
that the Gauls were at the gates

"and all too soon cries
like the howling of wolves

"and barbaric songs could be heard."

That howling of wolves
and barbaric din

might have come from a carnyx -
a Celtic war trumpet.

The Celts carried
hundreds of them into battle.

Today, however, there is only one
carnyx player in the world...

..musician John Kenny.

APPLAUSE

LOW TRUMPET-LIKE SOUND

MODULATING HIGH PITCHED SOUND

The carnyx clearly was used to
strike fear into enemies in battle.

The sound is made in the same
way that we activate a modern

trumpet, trombone, French horn,
tuba - you vibrate your lips.

HE DEMONSTRATES

But, with this instrument, the sound
is entrapped in a bronze skull,

and the skull works
exactly like our skull

because our vocal cords
are amplified

by all the nasal passages,
and the shape form of our skull,

that's why we can make a sound
without opening our mouths.

HE HUMS

It's exactly the same
with this instrument.

So the sound isn't projected
forward, it's radial,

and that's extremely unusual
in the world of musical instruments.

The sound of these trumpets,
accompanied by howls

and shouts is thought to have been
a deliberate part of the Celtic

battle plan
designed to terrify the enemy.

The world at that time
was a much quieter place

and these instruments
can out-shout human beings

and play as loud as thunder,
and as loud as the sea.

Furthermore, when they're played
upright, they're 12 feet high

and they have a head, so if you see
12 or so of these

coming out of the mist in the
morning screaming like mad,

its quite possible to imagine
you're being attacked

by a race of giants.

HE PLAYS CARNYX

So, there we are.

By the time the Celts
entered the city of Rome,

its citizens had either retreated
to the Capitoline Hill or fled.

The streets were empty.

Livy tells us that the Celts
came across a mansion

belonging to Roman nobility,
and found the doors open.

Suspecting a trap,
they entered cautiously.

But the only thing waiting for them
was a group of elderly Romans

sitting motionless,
in an act of silent defiance.

The Celtic warriors stood
entranced by the spectacle.

On an impulse, a Celtic warrior
reached out with his hand

and touched the beard of one
of one of the seated figures.

The Roman lashed out and hit him
over the head with his ivory staff.

It was the moment
that sealed the city's fate.

Enraged, the Celtic warriors
butchered the old men where they sat

and looted and burned
the Imperial City to the ground.

Eventually, faced with the prospect
of starvation or slaughter,

the Romans trapped
on the Capitoline Hill

they had no choice but to surrender,

agreeing to pay the Celts
a ransom in gold.

The commander, Quintus Sulpicius,

who had led the Army to defeat
at the Battle of Allia,

agreed to negotiate a settlement
with the Celtic warlord Brennus.

They agreed the sum of 1,000
pounds in weight in gold.

A colossal ransom
for a city already ravaged.

Just to add insult to injury,
Brennus used weights that

were heavier than normal
to weigh the gold.

It was the second time
he'd outwitted Sulpicius.

When the Roman commander objected,
Brennus flung his sword

onto the scales shouting,
"Vae victis!"

"Woe to the vanquished."

Vae victis!

It was a dramatic reminder
that the Romans

were totally
at the mercy of the Celts.

The Romans had learned the hard way
that the Celts were far from

the wild savages portrayed.

During the course of four centuries,
they had developed a complex

and powerful tribal network.

Theirs was a warrior culture
with a shared language,

and extensive trading links.

They had expanded
across Central Europe,

through the Alps,
and south into Italy

where they had defeated
the emergent Roman Empire.

In the years that followed,
Rome was rebuilt

and defended by a new,
impregnable barrier -

the Servian Wall.

It was a permanent reminder
to its citizens of their defeat

at the hands of the Celts.

They were resolved never
to let their city fall again.

For Rome it was a new beginning.

And over the next few hundred years

the Romans would collide
again with the Celts

and battle for survival, for land,

for the very heart
and soul of Europe.

Next time, 300 years later.

We discover
the golden age of the Celts,

and their expansion to the furthest
reaches of Europe and beyond.

In France, Rome's greatest
military general, Julius Caesar,

is challenged by a warrior king

commanding an army of
a quarter of a million men.

At stake is the survival
of the Celtic heartland of Gaul.

Please rate this subtitle at %url%
Help other users to choose the best subtitles