2. Who were the Celts?
The Celts were a group of peoples loosely
tied by similar language, religion, and
cultural expression.
3. When did the Celts live?
They lived across most of Europe
during the Iron Age.
4. Why are the Celts called
Iron Age Celts?
The name 'Iron Age' comes from the discovery of a
new metal called iron. The Celts found out how to
make iron tools and weapons.
Before the Iron Age the only metal used in Britain
to make tools was bronze.
The Iron, was relatively cheap and available almost
everywhere.
5. Interesting fact
No-one called the people living in
Britain during the Iron Age, Celts until
the eighteenth century. In fact the
Romans called these people Britons, not
Celts.
The name Celts is a 'modern' name and is
used to collectively describe all the
many tribes of people living during the
Iron Age.
6. What clothes did the Celts
wear?
The Celts loved bright dazzling colours. They
dyed their woollen trousers and tops bright
colours.
7. Clothes were made from wool and dyed with
natural vegetable dyes (plants and
berries) and woven by hand on a vertical
loom.
8. Jewellery
They wore jewellery made
from bronze, gold, tin,
silver, coral and
enamel.
Torc (neck ring)
Important people like
nobles wore a Torc, a
circular twisted
metal neckband. It
was made from gold,
silver and bronze.
10. What did they eat?
PLANTS:
Vegetables: leeks, onions, turnips and
carrots.
Wild nuts: hazelnuts and walnuts.
Grains to make bread and also porridge
Herbs: fennel, wild garlic, parsley
Leaves: nettles and spinach
11. ANIMALS:
Wild animals: deer, wild boar, fox,
beaver, and bear.
Fish: trout, mackerel, and salmon.
Domesticated animals: chicken, goat,
sheep and pigs.
Eggs from hens and wild birds eggs.
INSECTS:
Honey from bees.
12. Houses:
The Celtic tribes lived in scattered villages.
They lived in round houses with thatched roofs of
straw or heather. The walls of their houses were
made from local material. Houses in the south
tended to be made from wattle (woven wood) and
daub (straw and mud) as there was an ample supply
of wood from the forests.
13. The roof was made from straw with
mud placed on top to keep the
warmth in.
The houses had no
windows.
The houses in the north were made with
large stones held together with clay.
14. Animals were often kept inside
the house at night.
The Celts would light a fire in the
middle of the roundhouse for
cooking and heating.
The smoke from the fire escaped through
a hole in the roof.
15. Farmers:
Most Celts lived in
scattered farming
communities
surrounded by a
bank with wooden
fencing and a ditch
to keep out
intruders and wild
animals.
17. Hill Forts:
Sometimes groups of houses
were built on the top of
hills. These are called hill-
forts.
The largest and most
complex Iron Age hill
fort in Britain today is
Maiden Castle in Dorset.
18. Gods and Goddesses:
The Celts believed in many gods and goddesses:
over 400 in fact. Among them were:
Sucellos, the sky god, with a hammer that caused
lightning,
Nodens, who made clouds and rain.
Many gods had no names, but lived in springs,
woods and other places.
19. Druids:
Druids were the link between the supernatural
world and the ordinary human one. They were able
to predict what would happen in the future by
interpreting nature. It is likely that they knew
how to read and write, and they certainly had a
good grasp of mathematics. They knew something of
medicine and law, and they could trace the stars
and the planets. The main centre of the druids in
Britain was Anglesey, in Wales.
20. After Life:
The Celts believed that the
human soul had an afterlife,
so when a person died they were
buried with many things they
would need for the after life.
21. Human Heads:
The Celts made many sculptures of human
heads in stone or wood. They believed
that the human soul lived inside the
head. They believed that capturing
someone's soul gave you really powerful
magic, which is why they collected the
heads of their enemies killed in battles.
22. The Iron Age is when we first find
cemeteries of ordinary people’s
burials.
24. Celtic society was divided into three
groups: a warrior aristocracy, an
intellectual class that included druids,
poets, and jurists, and everyone else.
They were not centrally governed.
Tribes were led by kings but
political organizations were
remarkably plastic.
25. Family life :
The basic unit of Celtic life was
the clan, a sort of extended
family. The Celts practiced a
peculiar form of child rearing;
they didn't rear them, they farmed
them out.
26. Women:
They were technically equal to
men, owned property, and could
choose their own husbands.
They could also be war leaders,
as Boudicca.
27. Language:
There was a written Celtic language, but it
developed well into Christian times, so for
much of Celtic history they relied on oral
transmission of culture, primarily through the
efforts of bards and poets. These arts were
tremendously important to the Celts, and much
of what we know of their traditions comes to
us today through the old tales and poems that
were handed down for generations before
eventually being written down.
