It is widely thought that the Celts and Irish are one and the same. While it is true that the Irish are of Celtic ancestry, the ancient Celtic speaking people actually originated in southwest Germany circa 1500 B.C. before spreading throughout Europe, including the British Isles and present-day Ireland. Over the centuries, Romans and barbarians conquered and absorbed the Celts until only the westernmost parts of Europe maintained their Celtic identity. There, the art and culture of Celtic civilization remained relatively peaceful and undisrupted until the Viking invasion of the late eighth century A.D. .
The ancient Celtic culture was characterized by a lack of empire and conscious unity, however its peoples were joined together by their language, myth, ritual, belief, literature and art. Art, in particular, remains one of our most valued insights into the world of the ancient Celts. Pre-Christian Celts were skilled in the arts and crafts yet had no cohesive form of written language; history and tradition were passed down orally from one generation to the next. The unique and surviving art of the traditional Celtic people lives on as an important piece of history.
Among the earliest Celtic artifacts are the decorations of tombs and sanctuaries such as the great heathen sanctuary at New Grange, which may be more than five thousand years old. The granite kerb-stone adorning the entrance of this burial chamber is decorated with carvings of double and triple spirals flowing alongside and into one another, breaking at the ends to form diamond shaped patterns. Simple geometric patterns such as this characterized much of the early Celtic period or Bronze Age, which established a basis for abstract art that would develop over time.
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