Garam Éva szerk.: Between East and West - History of the peoples living in hungarian lands (Guide to the Archaeological Exhibition of the Hungarian National Museum; Budapest, 2005)

HALL 5 - The Celts (450 B.C.-turn of the millennium) (Miklós Szabó)

were topographically independent of the 5th century La Tène sites. The grave goods indicate that the ranks of the newcomers included an uncommonly high proportion of warriors, who were equipped with the most advanced iron weapons of the age. The 4th century Transdanubian cemeteries bear witness to the mixed tribal origins of the immigrant Celtic tribes and, also, to their farranging cultural contacts in their new homeland. The tore with coral inlaid discs from Fiad was made in a workshop in the Upper Rhine region, while the engraved decoration on the iron scabbard from Liter and on a spearhead of unknown provenance (Fig. 52) attest the appearance of the continuous tendril designs (called the Waldalgesheim Style) conceived in Italo-Celtic workshops. This style was also translated into clay by local potters, as shown by the situla from Alsópél. The pair of fibulae linked by a chain from Pilismarói-Basaharc are an indication of the growing importance of the Balkanic region for the Celts of the Middle Danube region. THE HEYDAY OF THE CELTS IN THE MIDDLE DANUBE REGION During the later 4th century B.C., the Carpathian Basin acted as the hinterland of the Balkanic migrations. In 335, Alexander the Great received a Celtic delegation at the Lower Danube. By the end of the century, the Celtic advance reached the Balkan Mountains and Central Thrace. The great invasions came after 281 B.C. Led by Belgius, the Celts annihilated the Macedonian usurper, Ptolemy Keraunus' army in early 279 B.C. Another group marched against Greece, advancing as far as the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi. After suffering a crushing defeat, they began their retreat. In spite of the military fiasco, the Celtic invasion was successful in the sense that the territory of the La Tène culture increased spectacularly by the earlier 3rd century B.C. The setting of the most important development, however, was the Carpathian Basin, the hinterland of the Celtic invasion. The Scordiscans, a Celtic tribe emerging in northem Serbia in the late 4th century B.C., grew into a power to be reckoned with after their return to their original settlement territory in 278 B.C. The Taurisci brought Slovenia, Styria and Carinthia under their control, and the Great Hungarian Plain and Transylvania too was drawn into the Celtic world. This process can also be traced in the archaeological record. The cemetery analyses clearly show that the Celts mixed peacefully with the local population made up of Illyrians and Pannonians from the very beginning of their appearance in the Balkans. As a result of the above described migrations and historical events, the Carpathian Basin became one of the major centres of La Tène culture from the 3rd century B.C., characterised by a blend of Celtic culture with local traditions, coloured by cultural impacts from the Balkans. This led to the emergence of the so-called eastern Celtic culture province. 14. CELTIC WEAPONRY The pan-Celtic tradition can best be traced in the superb weapons from the Middle Danube region: swords, scabbards and lances, which also reflect the importance of the Celtic warriors (called équités by Julius Caesar) in Celtic society. The so-called dragon-pair swords, distributed from Britain to Transylvania, were fitted with scabbards decorated with a pair of mythical creatures, whose ancestry can be traced to Mediterranean griffin motifs. The fanciful creature inset with gold on the scabbard from Gödöllő recalls the snake shaped Etruscan lyre palmettes, while the dragons on the pieces from Kosd and Szob bespeak the ingenuity and artistic creativity of Celtic weapon-