The Celtic people, a branch of the Indo-Europeans, and the earliest identifiable Northern European civilization, included many different cultural groups living in Europe around 400 BCE. Many of these groups were centered on England and Ireland, but they were thriving in Spain as well. The Celtics, or Celts, divided into many different civilizations completely independent of each other but all grouped under one name, for example they were called the Gauls from France to Switzerland, the Gaesatae by Polybius, and the Celtiberians in western Spain.
The Norfolk tribe of the Iceni, was another civilization branch of the Celtics. Their warrior Queen, Boudica or Boudicca, was a strong, large framed, and harsh voiced woman with bright, flowing red hair down to her knees. It was known that she would wear a twisted gold necklet, starting the fashion of large, heavy gold necklets throughout the Celtic land. These gold necklets were similar to the torques (torcs) worn by Gauls, Germans, and Britons. A torque is a collar, necklace, or armband made out of twisted metal. .
But art wasn't the same throughout the years of the Celtic rule; it changed and morphed just like ours did. Around 700 BCE there were Compass-drawn decorations, compositions based on axial symmetry; gold torques, chariot fittings and phalera, belt-hooks, scabbards, wine jugs, and sculptures mainly in geometric designs. Then around 400 BCE compositions with radial symmetry alongside those with axial symmetry; red enamel; helmets, sheathes and scabbards, torques, armlets, and red-figure vases appeared. At 450 BCE there were floral designs using compasses and French curves. Also developing were swirling spirals, cleverly hidden faces and animals. Between 300 and 200 BCE there was plastic metamorphosis: the blending of human, animal, plant, and abstract forms, complex compositions incorporating various forms of symmetry, high point of metalwork, and colored glass beads and bracelets.
