Eastern Europe
Celtic Danube Region
Bronze "Ring or Wheel or Roulles" Proto-money Trading Token of Triskeles Shape
35mm x 10mm (2.92 grams)
Circa 500-100 B.C.
The ancient Celts proto-money trading tokens like this to
conduct trades before the introduction of coins to the area and perhaps even
afterwards.
This is a type I have never seen before in the Triskeles
shape.
You are bidding on the exact item pictured,
provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of
Authenticity.
A triskelion or triskele (which invariably has
rotational symmetry
) is a
motif
consisting of
three
interlocked
spirals
, three bent human legs, or three
bent/curved lines extending from the center of the symbol. Both words are from
Greek
"τρισκέλιον" (triskelion ) or "τρισκελής"
(triskeles ), "three-legged", from prefix "τρι-" (tri- ), "three
times" + "σκέλος" (skelos ), "leg". Although it appears in many places and
periods including 3200 BCE
Newgrange
, it is especially characteristic of
the Celtic art
of the
La Tène culture
of the
European Iron Age
.
A triskelion is the symbol of
Sicily
, where it is called trinacria , as
well as of the
Isle of Man
,
Brittany
, and the town of
Füssen
in Germany.
Neolithic, Bronze Age, and Iron Age use in Europe
Ancient greek beaked jug decorated with triple spirals
Rhine Celts, electrum 'regenboogschoteltje' or rainbow cup with
triskele
The
flag of Sicily
, featuring the
triskelion symbol revived by
Joachim Murat
The
flag of the Isle of Man
, is
composed solely of a triskele against a red background
Flag of
Ust-Orda Buryat Okrug
The triskelion symbol appears in many early cultures, the first in
Malta
and in the astronomical calendar at the
famous megalithic tomb of
Newgrange
in Ireland built around 3200 BC,
Mycenaean
vessels, on coinage in
Lycia
, and on
staters
of
Pamphylia
(at
Aspendos
, 370–333 BC) and
Pisidia
. It appears as a
heraldic
emblem on warriors' shields depicted
on Greek pottery.
Familiar as an ancient symbol of
Sicily
, the symbol dates back to when Sicily
was part of
Magna Graecia
, the colonial extension of
Greece
beyond the
Aegean
.[8]
Pliny the Elder
attributes the origin of the
triskelion of Sicily to the
triangular
form of the island, the ancient
Trinacria
(from the Greek tri-
(three) and akra (end, limb)), which consists of three large capes
equidistant from each other, pointing in their respective directions, the names
of which were
Pelorus
,
Pachynus
, and
Lilybæum
.[citation
needed ]
The Celtic
symbol of
three conjoined spirals
may have had triple
significance similar to the imagery that lies behind the triskelion. The triple
spiral motif is a
Neolithic
symbol in Western Europe. It is
considered a Celtic symbol but is in fact a pre-Celtic symbol. It is carved into
the rock of a stone lozenge near the main entrance of the prehistoric
Newgrange
monument in
County Meath
,
Ireland
.
Newgrange
, which was built around 3200 BC,
predating the Celtic arrival in Ireland but has long since been incorporated
into Celtic culture.
Area Where the Danube Area Celts would have been located
The Danube
is a river in
Central Europe
, the
European Union
's longest and the
continent
's second longest (after the
Volga
).
Classified as an
international waterway
, it originates in
the town of
Donaueschingen
--which is in the
Black Forest
of Germany--at the
confluence
of the rivers
Brigach
and
Breg
. The Danube then flows southeast for
2,872 km (1,785 mi), passing through four
Central European
capitals before emptying
into the Black Sea
via the
Danube Delta
in
Romania
and
Ukraine
.
Once a long-standing frontier of the
Roman Empire
, the river passes through or
touches the borders of ten countries:
Romania
(29.0% of basin area),
Hungary
(11.6%),
Serbia
(10.2%),
Austria
(10.0%),
Germany
(7.0%),
Bulgaria
(5.9%),
Slovakia
(5.9%),
Croatia
(4.4%),
Ukraine
(3.8%), and
Moldova
(1.6%).[1]
Its
drainage basin
extends into nine more.
The Celts
or Kelts were an
ethnolinguistic
group of
tribal
societies in
Iron Age
and
Medieval
Europe who spoke
Celtic languages
and had a similar culture,
although the relationship between the ethnic, linguistic and cultural elements
remains uncertain and controversial.
Diachronic distribution of Celtic peoples:
core
Hallstatt territory, by the 6th century BC
maximal Celtic expansion, by 275 BC
Lusitanian
area of Iberia where Celtic presence is uncertain
the six
Celtic nations which retained significant numbers of Celtic
speakers into the
Early Modern period
areas where
Celtic languages remain widely spoken today
The earliest archaeological culture that may justifiably be considered
Proto-Celtic
is the Late Bronze Age
Urnfield
culture of Central Europe, which
flourished from around 1200 BC. Their fully Celtic descendants in central Europe
were the people of the Iron Age
Hallstatt culture
(c. 800–450 BC) named for the
rich grave finds in
Hallstatt
, Austria. By the later
La Tène
period (c. 450 BC up to the Roman
conquest), this Celtic culture had expanded by
diffusion
or
migration
to the
British Isles
(Insular
Celts), France and
The Low Countries
(Gauls),
Bohemia
, Poland and much of Central Europe, the
Iberian Peninsula
(Celtiberians,
Celtici
and
Gallaeci
) and
northern Italy
(Golaseccans
and Cisalpine Gauls
) and, following the
Gallic invasion of the Balkans
in 279 BC, as
far east as central
Anatolia
(Galatians).
Beginning in 2010, it was tentatively proposed that the language of the
Tartessian
inscriptions of south
Portugal
and southwest Spain (dating from the
7th–5th centuries BC) is a Celtic one; however, this interpretation has largely
been rejected by the academic community.
The earliest undisputed direct examples of a Celtic language are the
Lepontic
inscriptions, beginning in the 6th
century BC.
Continental Celtic languages
are attested
almost exclusively through inscriptions and place-names.
Insular Celtic
is attested beginning around the
4th century through
ogham inscriptions
, although it was clearly
being spoken much earlier. Celtic literary tradition begins with
Old Irish
texts around the 8th century.
Coherent texts of
Early Irish literature
, such as the
Táin Bó Cúailnge
(The Cattle Raid of
Cooley ), survive in 12th-century recensions.
By the mid 1st millennium AD, with the expansion of the
Roman Empire
and the Great Migrations (Migration
Period) of
Germanic peoples
, Celtic culture and
Insular Celtic
had become restricted to
Ireland, the western and northern parts of Great Britain (Wales,
Scotland, and Cornwall
), the
Isle of Man
, and
Brittany
. Between the 5th and 8th centuries,
the Celtic-speaking communities in these Atlantic regions emerged as a
reasonably cohesive cultural entity. They had a common linguistic, religious,
and artistic heritage that distinguished them from the culture of the
surrounding polities. By the 6th century, however, the
Continental Celtic languages
were no longer in
wide use.
Insular Celtic culture diversified into that of the
Gaels
(Irish,
Scottish
and
Manx
) and the
Brythonic
Celts (Welsh,
Cornish
, and
Bretons
) of the medieval and modern periods. A
modern "Celtic
identity" was constructed as part of the Romanticist
Celtic Revival
in Great Britain, Ireland, and
other European territories, such as
Portugal
and
Spanish Galicia
. Today,
Irish
,
Scottish Gaelic
,
Welsh
, and
Breton
are still spoken in parts of their
historical territories, and
Cornish
and
Manx
are undergoing a revival.
|