The Celts

All Episodes 2006

  • Ended
  • #<Network:0x00007f9c562bf788>
  • 2006-02-18T00:00:00Z
  • 50m
  • 1h 40m (2 episodes)
  • United Kingdom
A fascinating journey through the history of the Celtic culture, following the trail back to pre-Roman times when the Celts were regarded as the masters of Europe. The appeal of being a Celt has rarely diminished over the centuries. Their leaders were men and women of legend - King Arthur of the Britons, the Warrior Queen Boudicca, and Vercingetorix the Gaul. However few people understand who the Celts actually were or what their true legacy is. This powerful series cuts through the romanticism and clichéd images to give a true picture of Celtic culture. Presenter Richard Rudgley follows the trail back to pre-Roman times, looking into every aspect of Celtic life to show how they adapted to change.

2 episodes

Series Premiere

2006-02-18T00:00:00Z

1x01 Episode 1

Series Premiere

1x01 Episode 1

  • 2006-02-18T00:00:00Z50m

We call them the Celts – bloodthirsty warriors who fought naked in battle and took their enemies heads as trophies. They had powerful priests called Druids, who practiced human sacrifice to their gods, and a distinctive artistic style now sold as jewellery across the world. Evidence of Celtic civilizations stretch across Europe, in Germany a huge walled settlement is unearthed, in Switzerland thousands of artifacts illustrate the distinctive Celtic artistic decoration. Excavations in northern Europe uncover a huge engineering achievement. The expanding Roman Empire crushed the Celts in continental Europe and evidence uncovered in Britain and Ireland suggests that migration of a warrior tribe of Celtic settlers occurred, bringing their foreign traditions with them.

2006-02-18T00:00:00Z

1x02 Episode 2

1x02 Episode 2

  • 2006-02-18T00:00:00Z50m

A monument in the Shetland Islands is one of the largest and most mysterious of Iron Age Britain. In Wales, a reconstructed hill fort and roundhouses echoes the way of European Celtic society, the people were warriors, but also farmers using iron tools – ones which we still use today. Roman writing tells of Britons who spoke a language similar to the Celts of Gaul and shared a class of religious leaders unique in the Celtic world – Druids. Two million people in Britain and Ireland speak a Celtic Language – the greatest number is Welsh. Does this make an even stronger connection between the people of the British Isles and Celts of Europe? In Ireland a rocky crag soaring vertically seven hundred feet out of the Atlantic Ocean sums up the unique spirit of what became Celtic Christianity.

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