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Visions of Power: Imagery and Symbols in Late Iron Age Britain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

John Creighton
John Creighton
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Reading
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Extract

This article is a speculative essay about one aspect of authority and power in the late Iron Age. Excellent narratives exist which discuss the political context of the rise of the polities of Verica and Cunobelin in the South East of Britain, but over the last few decades the place of druids in this story has been neglected. However druids did exist, and they need to be worked into our narratives of the past. What follows leads to a discussion of their nature and function in society, and of their decline in importance during the large-scale social changes which took place in the generations immediately preceding the Roman conquest. The article uses a mixture of ethnographic, historical, numismatic, and archaeological evidence.

Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 26 , November 1995 , pp. 285 - 301
Copyright
Copyright © John Creighton 1995. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 Haslegrove provides one of the best descriptions of the development of SE Britian throughout this period linking it in to changes across the channel in Gallia-Belgica: Haslegrove, C.C., ‘Romanisation before the conquest,’ in Blagg, T.F.C. and King, A.C. (eds), Military and Civilian in Roman Britian, BAR 136 (1984), 5–63.Google Scholar

2 The Druids were last comprehensively looked at by S. Piggott, The Druids (1968).

3 Allen and Nash provide accessible introductions to the origins of coinage in temperate Europe: D.F. Allen (ed. D. Nash) The Coins of the Ancient Celts (1980); D. Nash, Coinage in the Celtic World (1987).

4 See J. Puhvel, ‘Aspects of equine functionality’, in J. Puhvel (ed.), Myth and Law among the Indo-Europeans (1970), 159–72.

5 K. Simms, From Kings to Warlords: The Changing Political Structure of Gaelic Ireland in the Later Middle Ages (1987).

6 ibid., 21.

7 The use of a horsewhip is referred to in the twelfth-century Life of Colman son of Luachán in the initiation of the kings of Tara. This is discussed by Simms, op.cit. (note 5), 23.

8 ibid., 23.

9 ibid., 21–2; after: Giraldus Cambrensis, Topographia Hibernie III.25, O'Meara (ed.), 93–4, transl. O'Meara, 109–10. The event may be derived from oral tradition and represent a discontinued practice, or indeed it could have taken place at any time up to the twelfth century when the text was written. The Fulachta Fiadh or ‘burnt mounds’ of Northern Europe, with their dual cooking and bathing function, may provide archaeological support for such stories, however they do date by and large to the Bronze Age. For the functional debate see: Drisceoil, D.A.Ó, ‘Burnt mounds: cooking or bathing?’ Antiquity 62 (1988), 671–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the latest broad survey dating the mounds see: Brindley, A.L., Lanting, J.N., and Mook, W.G., ‘Radiocarbon dates from Irish Fulachta Fiadh and other burnt mounds’, The Journal of Irish Archaeology v (1989/1990), 25–33.Google Scholar

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14 Particularly in Armorica: P. de Jersey, Coinage in Iron Age Armorica (1994).

15 R. Megaw and V. Megaw, Celtic Art: From its Beginnings to the Book of Kelts (1989), 160, 224.

16 Allen, op.cit. (note 3), 9.

17 ibid., 18.

18 ibid., 19.

19 ibid., 5.

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21 Allen, op. cit. (note 3), 38.

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29 Van Arsdell, op.cit. (note 24).

30 Dronfield, op.cit. (note 28).

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32 Ray and Blaker, quotation cited in Layton, ibid., 176.

33 A. Sherratt, ‘Sacred and profane substances: the ritual use of narcotics in Later Neolithic Europe’, in P. Garwood, D. Jennings, R. Skeates and J. Toms (eds), Sacred and Profane, Proceedings of a Conference on Archaeology, Ritual and Religion; Oxford 1989 (1991), 50–64; 52.

34 ibid.

35 Piggott, following De Witt, refers to the anachronism of Caesar's account: op.cit. (note 2), 128.

36 P. MacCana, ‘Early Irish ideology and the concept of Irish unity’, in R. Kearney (ed.), The Irish Mind: Exploring Intellectual Traditions (1985), 56–78; 69.

37 Piggott, op.cit. (note 2), 129–30.

38 Simms, op.cit. (note 5), 87–8.

39 ibid., 87.

40 ibid., 88.

41 cf. R. Bradley, The Social Foundations of Prehistoric Britain: Themes and Variations in the Archaeology of Power (1984), 150; Stevens, C.E., ‘The Frilford site – a postscript’, Oxon. v (1940), 166–7; I. Hodder, ‘Some new directions in the spatial analysis of archaeological data at the regional scale’, in D.L. Clarke, (ed.), Spatial Archaeology (1977), 223–351; and A. Fitzpatrick, ‘The deposition of Late La Tene Age metalwork in watery contexts in southern England’, in B. Cunliffe and D. Miles (eds), Aspects of the Iron Age in Central Southern Britain (1984), 178–90.Google Scholar

42 Haselgrove, C.C., Iron Age Coinage in SE Britain: the Archaeological Context, BAR 174 (1987), 119.Google Scholar

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44 L. Sellwood, ‘Tribal boundaries viewed from the perspective of numismatic evidence’, in B.W. Cunliffe and D. Miles (eds), Aspects of the Iron Age in Central Southern Britain (1984), 191–204; fig 13.11.

45 R. Bradley, The Passage of Arms: An Archaeological Analysis of Prehistoric Hoards and Votive Deposits (1990).