Release date is 2025-08-26

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"Celtic art in Pagan and Christian times" by J. Romilly Allen is a scholarly archaeological and art-historical study written in the early 20th century. It investigates the origins, development, and motifs of Celtic art in Britain and Ireland across two broad phases—pagan and Christian—set against Continental cultures such as Hallstatt and La Tène. Drawing on excavations, museum collections, and comparative ornament, the work explains how patterns like spirals, chevrons, and knotwork evolved and appeared on metalwork, pottery, sculpture, and, by analogy, illuminated manuscripts. The opening of the study states its aim to synthesize current evidence on Celtic art’s origins and growth, crediting recent discoveries (Aylesford, Glastonbury, Hunsbury; Hallstatt and La Tène; Marne cemeteries) for reshaping the timeline and sources of influence. It sketches the Celts in Classical literature and art, then pivots to archaeology to define the Hallstatt (earlier) and La Tène (later) Iron Age cultures, their weapons, fibulae, shields, helmets, and the role of Greek trade in shaping Gaulish styles; it also stresses the Celts’ habit of imitating foreign coinage. The narrative then traces how Goidelic Celts entered Bronze Age Britain, encountering Neolithic Iberian-like populations, and distinguishes Goidels and Brythons linguistically (Q vs P) and culturally (Bronze vs Early Iron Age), before proposing broad Bronze Age chronologies. At the start of the art discussion, the book catalogs the primary evidence—barrows, settlements, hoards, stray finds, and rock carvings—and shows how Bronze Age burial customs and pottery types (cinerary urns, food-vessels, drinking-cups, incense-cups) are decorated chiefly with chevron-based geometric schemes executed by impressing cords, tools, and stamps. It explains, with clear geometric breakdowns, how triangles, lozenges, saltires, and hexagon effects derive from the chevron, and contrasts these with spiral motifs found on carved stones (notably at Newgrange) rather than on British bronzes. The section closes by linking those spirals to Scandinavian Bronze Age metalwork, underscoring a web of Continental connections. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Originally published: London: Methuen & Co., 1904