TREASURES of the lost RACES #4—- the CELTS
Evaluating both their strengths and their weaknesses, the Greek historian Herodotus arrived at his own judgment of the Thracians—one which, incidentally—is amply supported by history.
Commented he, "The Thracians are the most numerous nation in the world after the Indians, and if they were ruled by one man, or if they could agree among themselves, they would be invincible and by far the most powerful of all people .... But they are unable to unite, and it is impossible that they ever could, and for that reason they are weak."
Numerous and ununited? Weak and disagreeable? All true, but these are not the characteristics that we are concerned with, for thanks to the romantic science, we now recognize them also as an artistic people and lovers of treasure, and what they possessed is slowly being discovered. In fact, the richest treasure—probably the richest gold hoard ever found in one single place, with the exception of King Tut's tomb—was found in Thracian territory in 1949 near Pangyurishte, approximately ninety miles west of Karanovo. Made of the purest gold, it consisted of eight drinking vessels, and a bowl ten inches in diameter lavishly decorated with seventy-two of what appear to be African heads in relief. The workmanship showed great taste, character and style and was obviously the result of the painstaking attention of master craftsmen. Taken together, the eight vessels weighed slightly more than thirteen pounds. Thirteen pounds of the purest gold! Another large find was made in Vulchitrun, northwest of Karanovo. There, too, exquisite craftsmanship revealed the high artistic standards of the Thracians as well as their untold riches.
But while their arrival on the historical scene had been rather sudden, their disappearance was gradual, and in the interim they provided the Greeks with a foundation for their music, mythology and philosophy. They eventually turned their territorial sovereignty over to a succession of conquerors. Today their country is divided among the Greeks, the Bulgarians, and the Turks. But the Thracians are not forgotten, for their barbaric way of life and their unequaled gold treasures have guaranteed them a memorable place in history. In the final analysis, it is impossible for a people to be absorbed without leaving a trace; no nation ever completely vanishes from the world scene, because the remnants of their culture remain behind as a testimony to the degree of their past greatness.
The Thracians left us their rich heritage of gold and lavishly decorated tombs which graphically depict their barbaric yet opulent way of life. But there are traces of other ancient people whose influence was even greater; their remaining tokens, however, are of a different nature from those of the Thracians. Included in these others are the Celts.
A Mysterious People with Far-Reaching Influence……the CELTS!
(WHAT IS NOT UNDERSTOOD BY THE AUTHOR OR VERY MANY OF THE EXPERTS ON THE CELTS - THEY WERE PART OF THE PEOPLES OF THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL - Keith Hunt)
No one really knows from where the Celts originally came. Even their name is somewhat of a mystery, although it is a derivative of the Greek word keltoi, meaning "heroes" or "lofty ones." What we do know is that they first made their appearance in central Europe during the second millennium B.C.
In the beginning they were a group of tribes unified by religion, language and culture, but it was not until the eighth century B.C.—around the time that Romulus and Remus were founding Rome and Homer was composing his Odyssey—that they became a dominant military and cultural force in north-central Europe, lending their language, traditions, religion and customs to the people they subjugated.
(WE NOTE INDEED, AS OTHER CELTIC SCHOLARS ADMIT, THEY DID NOT APPEAR ON THE SCENE UNTIL ABOUT 700 B.C. - THE TIME THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL WAS TAKEN CAPTIVE BY THE ASSYRIANS. THEY MIGRATED FROM THERE TO THE NORTH, THE BLACK SEA, SOME TO PARTS OF SOUTH WEST INDIA, AND OTHERS INTO EUROPE - Keith Hunt)
As we look back over the heritage they left us, they must have been a fantastic people. Our society owes a great deal to them. They introduced soap to the Greeks and Romans; were the first to develop seamless rims for their wheels; set our standard four foot, eight and one-half-inch railroad gauge with the span of their chariots; and brought iron to northern Europe to be used in the forging of tools and weapons. Eventually more than 150 distinct Celtic-speaking tribes, of whom the Britains and the tribes of Gaul are the most prominent, appeared in Europe to create our racial heritage.
Fascination with what the old Celts were really all about and what they might have left us as tangible evidence of their early sojourn in Europe started back in 1834 when a group of miners, digging in the old Celtic salt-mine shafts of Austria's Salzburg in the Salzkammergut region, came upon the body of an old Celt buried by a layer of salt. Surprised there by a salt avalanche which has been dated as several centuries before Christ, the two-thousand-year-old miner had literally been pickled—preserved like a salted fish. In triumph and in awe, the miners of the nearby village carried him to the church, but inasmuch as the local cemetery was the churchyard, and a heathen naturally could not qualify for a "Christian" burial, the surprise visitor was disposed of in an unknown place. But even though his remains vanished, curiosity about his origin did not. However, it was not until 1846 that the curiosity turned into action. Realizing the importance of the ancient graves in an area outside of Hallstatt, local authorities decided on a systematic excavation of the entire area. What had begun as a probe ended in a full-scale excavation resulting in the uncovering of more than two thousand graves from the Iron Age.
[A variety of silver ornaments found in a Celtic grave near Szarazd-Regoly in Hungary.
A bronze razorback boar: a reminder to us that the Celts were
extremely realistic in their art. Found in a grave near Bata,
Hungary. (Hungarian National Museum).
Yielding enough artifacts to fill a museum. Caldrons, heavy swords, exquisitely crafted jewelry, daggers, axes and pottery brought a nearly forgotten people back to life.
But as large as the total find was, the discovery was completely overshadowed by the exhumation of a Celtic princess and her treasure near the village of Vix in eastern France in 1953, slightly over one hundred years after the first probe in the Austrian cemetery. It was the archaeologist Rene Joffroy who was first to recognize the remains of an ancient tumulus no less than thirty-three meters (one hundred feet) across and seven meters (twenty-one feet) high, and his astute observation led to one of the most astonishing finds of the nineteenth
[A Celtic silver and bronze scabbard from Kosd, Hungary. (Hungarian National Museum)]
century, evidence of which can now be found in the Museum of Chatillon-sur-Seine.
The Celtic princess was about thirty years old when she was buried lying atop her funerary wagon in her wood-lined grave, her head still adorned with a gold arc, the insignia of Celtic royalty. She had been laid to rest accompanied by a variety of gifts and personal belongings, including a silver bowl and amber jewelry. But the museum also proudly displays a bronze krater, lavishly decorated with Greek warriors and chariots around the very edge. In this case, it is neither the decoration nor the bronze that calls attention to the krater but rather its unusual size, for it is more than five and one-half feet in height, with a circumference of approximately thirteen feet and an overall weight of 460 pounds! Was it really made to be used? If so, the Celts must indeed have been heavy drinkers: its capacity is well over one thousand one-liter bottles.
In their enthusiasm for living, the old Celts recognized no national or tribal boundaries and could be found practically all over Europe. It may therefore be assumed that their artifacts may be found in many different locations. A casual suggestion made by a teacher from the small German village of Hochdorf to an archaeologist connected with the State Antiquities Service to "come and investigate an unusual elevated area in a nearby field" led to the eventual opening of the Celtic tomb of the Hochdorf prince, a six-foot-tall nobleman who was forty years old at the time of his death. He had rested in the field quietly amidst his most precious possessions, seemingly waiting to be called back to life. Yet here too it was not only the prince but also that which surrounded him in death that made his tomb one of the most exciting Celtic graves of the century.
Jorge Biel, the state archaeologist in charge of the excavation, could barely conceal his pride about the discovery and remain scientifically sober and impartial when he penned his recollections of seeing the Hochdorf prince for the very first time. "The prince's skeleton lay on the three-meter-long sheet of bronze, actually a funeral-bed," he wrote later on. "Gold jewelry was strewn over the remains and in fragments of his clothing, which had been made from richly patterned cloth with embroidery in Chinese silk.
"The Hochdorf prince wore an important status symbol of a Celtic chieftain of the Hllstatt period—a necklace in the form of a gold ring," he continued. "His clothing was fastened with intricately twisted gold brooches. A delicate band of gold adorned his wide leather belt. The hilt of the noble's dagger had been plated with gold, and he wore a wide gold armband. Thin strips of gold had embellished the prince's shoes—a novelty in the field of Celtic archaeology."
But that wasn't all, for this tomb too contained much more than just a skeleton adorned with an assortment of gold ornaments. The greatest surprise was the bronze bier
[One of the eight cast-metal statues of women that supported the funeral bed of the Hochdorf prince. "Those figures balance, almost like circus acrobats, on functional wheels of bronze and iron; the whole affair could be rolled like a sofa on casters."]
which had been used as a final resting place for the prince. "In the form of a high-backed bench," Biel reported, "the great bed was supported by eight cast-metal statues of women a foot high. These figures balance, almost like circus acrobats, on functional wheels of bronze and iron; the whole affair could be rolled like a sofa on casters." Nothing like this had ever been found before. The Bronze Age just wasn't supposed to have been that sophisticated!
That the prince's family had taken great care to assure his well-being in the hereafter showed clearly in the many provisions they had made for him. A huge four-hundred-liter bronze caldron still contained the dried remnants of the mead with which they had filled it at the time of the funeral, and bronze platters and plates as well as an assortment of slaughtering and carving tools were stacked on a four-wheeled serving cart across the tomb.
By now, many Northern, Western and even American art collectors are slowly expanding their private hoards of illegally acquired artifacts retrieved from the raided tombs of ancient nations. About those artifacts—many of which are rumored to be gold—specific details are difficult to obtain and the locations of the illegal collections even harder to trace. But with both the Thracians and the Celts, it is as if the pressure of time is now forcing them into the front of history, drawing archaeologists as if by magic to their unmarked graves, calling them to the rescue.
Lifting the Veil of Secrecy
The secrecy which has become the way of life in the Soviet Union has also put its censorship stamp on the inoffensive but imaginative science of archaeology. But, once discovered, treasures are almost impossible to keep hidden, no matter how much "decadence" they represent, for the exchange of scientists and their published reports in scholarly journals often supply sufficient leads about new discoveries to initiate serious probes—often with startling results.
I vividly remember sitting on the terrace of the Nile Hilton in Cairo a number of years ago, comparing notes on a recent news development in the Middle East with a competing journalist from the Russian news bureau Tass. During the course of our conversation the Russian dropped a hint about startling archaeological discoveries being made in the Soviet Union. When I pressed him for details, he ducked. "Just take my word for it," was his irritated answer. "Tombs, artifacts, remnants of old civilizations, and real treasure have been found . . . ."
I pointed into the direction of the pyramids. "Anything comparable to what came from there?" I queried.
He remained noncommittal. "Someday you'll hear about it."
It was not until several years later that, while combing through some partially translated Russian archaeological reports, I began to realize what he had been hinting at. Russia and the various people's republics that together form the USSR have always been somewhat of a mystery to the West. The discoveries that have been made in those countries have only added to the intrigue instead of lifting the veil, but even the little bits of information that have leaked out have inadvertently caused steadily increasing curiosity among collectors of rare art and dealers in archaeological artifacts.
In Issik in Kazakhstan, not far from Alma Ata, a dig which started more or less as a routine excavation turned into a major find for the Russians when it led to the discovery of a body dating back to the fifth century B.C. Jav-ishly surrounded by more than a thousand gold objects. The gold added glamour to the somber gravesite, and even though the origin of the ornate gold objects is uncertain (it has been suggested that they may have been left behind by passing caravans in the form of a tribute or taxes), the real mystery of the grave was a finely handcrafted silver vase. Engraved with twenty-six signs or characters, it appears to tell a story—but of what or about whom no one is certain. One thing is sure: the inscription bears a very close resemblance to early Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon writing, which may indicate that there was a possible trade connection between Kazakhstan and western Europe as far back as 500 B.C. Where are the objects now? The Russians aren't saying.
(I GUESS SO …TRADING…. THEY WERE THE ISRAELITES OF THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL, NOW MOVED INTO EUROPE - Keith Hunt)
Slightly more has become known about the treasure retrieved from the small mound of Tillya-Tepe (Golden Hill), located a mere three miles (five kilometers) northwest of the city of Shibergan in northwestern Afghanistan, an area that was formerly part of the empire of the Great Kushans. The results of the work of the expedition did not receive the worldwide acclaim and international press coverage accorded Howard Carter's opening of King Tut's tomb, yet now the find is said to rival that one in overall richness.
Like so many significant discoveries, this one had an innocent beginning, casual probe into a small, seemingly unimportant mound of dirt back in 1969. It was not until two years later that careful digging indicated that the site dated to the end of the second or the beginning of the first millennium before Christ. But even then, expectation was low; no one anticipated a major find. Tillya-Tepe was left unattended and at the mercy of the elements until 1977, when a joint Afghan-Soviet expedition led by the renowned Russian archaeologist Victor I. Sarianidi followed up on the findings of the prehminary probe and turned it into a full-scale excavation. The digging, scraping and brushing that followed soon revealed the remains of a monumental structure that had been erected in antiquity on a block platform about nineteen feet (six meters) in height that had been enclosed by a fortification which stood more than thirty feet (ten meters) high. In the interior, remains of columns and even parts of an ancient altar were discovered, giving credence to the growing impression that Tillya-Tepe was the site of an ancient fire temple—in itself a major discovery. Under the guidance of the professionals, local tribesmen continued digging and soon not only cleared the temple structure but began working on the slope of the hill as well. It was there that several burial vaults were discovered, leading the way to human remains and a cache of jewelry that included gold objects weighing up to one kilogram (two pounds) apiece.
"We have every reason to believe that the graves discovered at Tillya-Tepe belonged to the local aristocracy, possibly the royal family of the Great Kushans who resided at Yemshi-Tepe," reported Dr. Sarianidi upon his discovery. "Moreover, the discrepancy between the rich funeral offerings and the modest, almost primitive grave construction could indicate that interment took place secretly, most likely at night." Of the seven graves found, six were excavated. The richness of the find was evident from the start, for while the caskets had been entombed without lids, cloths sewn with silver or gold disks covered them, and in one instance grape leaves were used as ornaments on the cloth.
There is no complete list available showing the exact number of items together with detailed descriptions of the Kushan treasure, but a sketchy inventory compiled from the various reports reveals that it included among others:
Two burial crowns with gold pendants and pearls. Massive gold plates cast in the shape of five-petaled rosettes, with turquoise inlays. Gold figured plates, inlaid with worked stones such as turquoise, carnelian and garnets. Gold multi-petaled roses. Necklaces consisting of hollowed beads. A cast gold hoop with open end weighing 850 grams (almost two pounds), found on the neck of one of the deceased. Gold clasps to hold the richly ornamented garments together. Two gold scabbards. On one, a chain of beasts following one another is presented in high relief. The claws and sharp-toothed jaws of each animal tear into the hindquarters of the preceding creature. A winged griffin grabs the leg of the dragon in front of it; the dragon, in turn, with jaws opened wide, makes an attempt to bite the leg of the next winged beast. It is obvious, however, that the artist who fashioned the scabbard was not without humor. Considering the ongoing struggle between the animals, one would expect a dramatic climax at the top of the handle. But it ends peacefully, with a figure of a bear cub, leaning restfully on its hind legs, good-naturedly nibbling on a bunch of grapes ....
The cloak of secrecy is slowly being lifted from the Kushans. It is not that they tried to hide from us; history has simply covered them up. To the West they are still little more than a name, and most history books don't even mention them. Barely mentioned by the Greco-Roman authors, they fit in "somewhere" within the dark ages of the history of the area, a lost race of forgotten people.
Scythians—Men of Cruelty and Wealth
Say the words "Africa" and "wealth" and one immediately thinks of South African gold mines, the fabulous treasures of the Queen of Sheba, or the riches of Emperor Haile Selassi. When wealth is spoken of in connection
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TO BE CONTINUED
TREASURES OF LOST RACES!
Scythians—Men of Cruelty and Wealth
THE SCYTHIANS WERE PART OF THE 10 TRIBES OF THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL, TAKEN CAPTIVE FROM 745 TO 718 B.C, BY THE ASSYRIANS - Keith Hunt
Say the words "Africa" and "wealth" and one immediately thinks of South African gold mines, the fabulous treasures of the Queen of Sheba, or the riches of Emperor Haile Selassi. When wealth is spoken of in connection with Russia, the treasures of the Imperial Russian household come to mind. While still a small boy, I used to listen to stories about the Russian crown prince Peter going to the Netherlands to study shipbuilding. In later years I interviewed one of the escaped palace guards of Tsar Nicolas on the Dutch island of Terschelling and listened to his recollections of the Russian revolution of 1917 and the plundering hordes of revolutionaries who stole or smashed the imperial treasures displayed throughout the palaces. But destructive as they were, the mobs that ransacked the buildings and massacred the family of the tSar could not erase the indelible marks that history had made upon the country. Those marks were there to stay, left there to be rediscovered—first by the grave robbers of the eighteenth century, and later by scientists in search of history.
Some of the republics belonging to the USSR have a vicious past, and the Ukraine is among them. It was to this area that the nomadic tribes from the region of the Altay Mountains on the border of China migrated in the eighth century. Known under the collective name of the Scythians, these thundering, beastly warriors soon established for themselves a notoriety that has echoed throughout the centuries. Their reputation for cruelty far surpassed that of any other race, but tangible evidence even of their existence remained elusive for many centuries. Only the descriptions of them left us by the fifth-century Greek writer Herodotus of Halicarnassus, the ''father of history," kept the memory of their exploits alive—for the horror story given by Herodotus when he describes the Scythians is a nightmare come to life.
In his fourth book of history, produced as a result of his visit to Olbia, a Greek city founded around 645 B.C. at the confluence of the Bug and Ingul rivers, Herodotus describes the Scythians as fierce warriors who beheaded their enemies, sometimes making coats, capes and cushions out of their skins. They were men who rarely bathed, who drank the blood of those they conquered, and who often saved the top part of their victims' skulls to be used as drinking vessels after covering the outside with cowhide and gilding the interior with gold. Their frenzied behavior when going into battle has become legendary, as has their liking for strong, undiluted wine and the smoking of hashish .
Nevertheless, they were stunning military strategists and exquisite craftsmen. Although religious in their own way, they did not settle anywhere long enough to erect temples to their gods. They were always on the move, wedded to the steppes. Commented Herodotus: "Having neither cities nor forts, and carrying their dwellings wherever they go; accustomed, moreover, one and all, to shoot from horseback; and living not by crops but from their cattle, their wagons the only houses they possess, how can they fail of being unconquerable and unassailable?"
All we really knew of them we gleaned from his-references, and from the fact that Scythian power and brutality remained intact until the fourth century B.C., when they had to give way to the Sarmatian invaders and were eventually destroyed/as a powerful force sometime during the second century A.D. It was as if an impenetrable pall of silence had been cast over the Scythians; as if history had conspired to suppress them forever because of their insane cruelty. Only the Greek historian had been allowed to tamper with history's judgment.
The spell was finally broken when a Siberian gold-mine owner sent a gift to Peter the Great, tSar of all the Russian, in 1715. The surprise gift, consisting of twenty pieces of exquisite gold art, greatly aroused the curiosity of Tsar Peter. When shortly thereafter news of other discoveries reached him, he realized the importance of these historical artworks and ordered all looting and grave robbing stopped and all the known gravesites protected. For many
[The influence of Greek craftsmen can be found in virtually every piece of Scythian art. This segment of a gold breastplate depicts men sewing the skin of a lamb or sheep to form a tunic.
(Museum of Historical Treasures, Kiev, USSR)]
of them the protective measures had come too late; and, in fact, his order had little or no effect, since grave robbing did continue, even picking up in intensity after the death of the tSar in 1725.
As a result of the work of the grave robbers and scientific persistence, Herodotus' account has been amply supported by the additional knowledge that has come our way through the methodical opening of the Scythian kurgans, or funeral barrows, which rise like hills from the Russian steppes. Some of them are more than one hundred yards across at the base and measure nearly sixty feet high—and all to protect the bones, relics and personal belongings of the Scythian chieftains or kings.
(THE SAME BURIAL PRACTICE WAS DONE BY THE VIKINGS - DANES - WHO WERE OF THE TRIBE OF DAN. THE LATEST BBC DOCUMENTARY ON THE VIKINGS IS UP TO THE MINUTE KNOWLEDGE OF THIS TRIBE OF ISRAEL. HENCE SOME OF THE TRIBES OF THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL HAD THE SAME WILD BARBARISM AND BURIAL TRADITIONS - Keith Hunt)
Russia's museums can now boast of a near-unbelievable collection of gold artifacts, a dazzling array of exquisitely formed creations that betray the Scythians' sensitivity for detail and love of animals and reveal the importance gold had in their brutal society. When Herodotus wrote that the Scythians were "immensely rich," he unknowingly penned the understatement of the century.
How rich this Scythian treasure really was can be judged by looking at some of their ornaments now proudly displayed in museums such as the State Hermitage Museum in Leningrad and the Museum of Historical Treasures in Kiev. During excavations in Kostromskaya Stanitsa, a gold stag plaque, probably the central ornament from a shield, dating back to the sixth century B.C. was found. The plate depicts a stag in reclining position with its head arched. Other stags almost as beautiful as the one displayed in Leningrad have been found in Hungary and the Crimea. Other solid-gold ornaments uncovered include a gold comb with a molded group of highly realistic figures showing a battle between Scythians. Because the horseman on the comb is wearing a Greek helmet, the opinion has been offered that the artist probably was a Greek in service of the Scythians. The influence of the Greeks on Scythian art is also embodied in another fine piece of gold art on display today in the Museum of Historical Treasures in Kiev. It is the central part of a breastplate, depicting two Scythians sewing an animal skin to make a tunic or jacket. Also displayed is the end piece of a collar made of twisted metal; known as a torque, showing the delicately modeled figure of a bareback horseman. The Scythians were famous for their torques, and many of them have been recovered from kurgans throughout former Scythian territory.
One of the Scythian burial mounds at Kostromskaya in the Caucasus surrendered this beautifully handcrafted plaque of a stag in reclining position. The stag was a favorite animal among the peoples of the steppes, and many plaques like this one have been found throughout the area occupied by the Scythians. This one dates back to approximately 700 B.C. and is in the collection of the State Hermitage Museum in Leningrad, USSR.
The vast collections of solid-gold Scythian art pieces now held by major Russian museums and by private art collectors are worth literally hundreds of millions of dollars for their gold value alone, not to mention their value as pieces of art; but the question of how so brutal and barbarous a nation as the Scythians could show so much artistic feeling has thus far remained unanswered. Perhaps these barbarous men, who as maniacal nomads ruled the steppes and the mountains, had a gentler side to their nature which they dared entrust only to the enduring beauty of gold.
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WHEN YOU UNDERSTAND THESE PEOPLE, LIKE THE VIKINGS, WERE PART OF THE ISRAEL TEN TRIBE NATIONS, THEN YOU CAN UNDERSTAND THE "OTHER SIDE" OF THEIR NATURE. LIKE THE CELTS [ALSO ISRAELITES] WHO ALSO WERE VERY WARLIKE [THE CELTS OF BRITAIN DEFEATING THE ROMAN ARMIES MANY MANY TIMES, WITH LEADERS LIKE CARADOC AND BOADICEA IN THE FIRST CENTURY A.D.] AND THE SCOTS AND PICTS IN SCOTLAND, WHOM THE ROMAN ARMIES NEVER DID MASTER, WITH GENERAL ADRIAN OF ROME HAVING TO BUILD THE FAMOUS "ADRIAN'S WALL" ACROSS ENGLAND TO KEEP THE SCOTS FROM COMING DOWN AND DRIVING THE ROMANS BACK TO EUROPE. SO IT ALL FITS…..ISRAEL TRIBES OF THE 10 TRIBE HOUSE OF ISRAEL COMING ON THE WORLD SCENE AROUND AND AFTER 700 B.C. WITH A HUGE WARLIKE NATURE, YET MASTERS OF BEAUTY, HORSEMANSHIP, AND CHARIOT MAKERS [IN BRITAIN] AND YES INFLUENCED BY OTHER PAGAN NATIONS AS THEY MOVED THROUGH FROM ASSYRIA TO THE BLACK SEA TO LANDS OF EUROPE.
Keith Hunt
TO BE CONTINUED
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