Was Galatian Really Celtic (original) (raw)
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A question of identity : who were the Galatians?
2013
This dissertation attempts to answer the research question: who were the Galatians? It focuses on their identity over the period when they are known to history, from about 279 BCE to the sixth or eighth century CE. Chapter 1 presents the research question and the four subsidiary questions, which mirror the order and structure of the following four chapters. This is followed by a brief historiography of the Galatians, and justification for the dissertation. The concept of identity is then discussed, and a model that recognises identity as containing both sameness and difference or otherness is adopted for the study. The varying uses of the word ‘Celt’ are discussed. The Celtic invasions of Greece are then described as a prelude to their entry to Asia Minor as mercenaries. Chapter 2 concerns the arrival of the Galatians in Asia Minor, their settlements, socio-political organisation, religion, and relations with the Romans. Contemporary sources are plentiful, supplemented by modern arc...
The “Celtic From The West” Hypothesis and the Gaulish Language
In recent years a theory has been put forward that proposes that the Celtic language family developed on the Atlantic seaboard of Europe in the Bronze Age and then expanded eastwards into central and eastern Europe. This short and informal essay examines that theory and suggests that some hitherto not considered data from the Gaulish language may have the potential to contribute to the debate.
Galatians in Macedonia (280-277 BC): invasion or invitation?
2017
The Celtic invasion of the Balkans in 280-277 BC could have been not a clash of civilizations but the consequence of the invitation of a Macedonian royal faction in its struggle for power. If the Ptolemy mentioned by some sources as active in Macedonia after the death of Ceraunus is the son of Lysimachus, Arsinoë’s son, then, he could have had attempted to gain the throne of Macedonia with the help of the Gauls since 280 BC. An examination of several sources, mainly Justin, Pausanias and Appian lead me to question if Bolgios, Brennos and their Celtic followers were just savage warlords or active part of a confuse succession of the Macedonia crown after Lysimachus assassination in 281 BC.
Studia Celtica Fennica 22, 2024
This eagerly awaited volume, edited by one of the greatest authorities on ancient Anatolian Galatae, brings together a well-thought-through and thematically varied selection of chapters originally stemming from workshops and collaborations taking place in the 2010s. It is difficult to envision anybody better qualified to edit such a collection than Altay Coşkun, who in addition to his meticulous and tremendously valuable Introduction contributes to the book two chapters on different aspects of Galatian studies. This just underlines the breadth and quality of Coşkun's own research record: complementing his narrower specialisation in Galatian matters is his position as one of the leading scholars on Seleucid history. The need to cast new light into the study of Galatia has been fairly pressing for some time. The studies of Karl Strobel in the 1990s and the early 2000s, as well as Stephen Mitchell's numerous contributions over much of the same time period, laid a very solid basis for the better understanding of this still rather understudied Anatolian region and its history. 1 Mitchell's Anatolia: Land, Men and Gods in Asia Minor (1993; see pp. 8-9 in Coşkun's introductory chapter in this volume) remained for many decades the definitive work on Anatolian history from the Hellenistic to the Early Byzantine period. Generally, Mitchell -who sadly died in January 2024 -sought to foreground local agency in the processes of Romanization and cultural integration in the Galatian area; in so doing, he paid close attention to local inscriptions and settlements, though he may have occasionally overstated the 'Celtic' character of some local artefact assemblages and material evidence. Strobel's work, on the other hand, leaned rather heavily in terms of the identity and ethnicity of the Galatians on the 'ethnogenesis' framework (especially in Strobel 1991(especially in Strobel , 1994(especially in Strobel and 1996)), preferring to see an overarching ethnic identity coalescing around a combined nucleus of Celtic elements and local Anatolian traditions from rather early on in the Hellenistic era. Strobel also very valuably drew the attention to the preconceived, rhetorical and stereotype-laden way in which the ancient sources wrote about Galatians, and the influence that the broader Hellenistic polities had on the Galatian groups. To a degree, neither of these great scholars put much emphasis on the agency of the Galatians themselves.
The case for Late Gaulish: the old and the new evidence reevaluated
The date for the demise of the Gaulish language has been a moot point in Celtic historical linguistics since the inception of the discipline in the late 19th century. Because Gaulish text monuments are scarce and limited to Roman Age epigraphy and Late Antique glosses, most linguists have been hesitant in expanding the chronological reach of the Gaulish language beyond the actual attestations. Metalinguistic remarks by Late Antique and Early Medieval commentators talking about a late lingua Gallica are therefore generally regarded in a skeptical manner. An under-appreciated perspective on the Late Gaulish language is offered by several classical and recent etymological studies in French and Romance dialectology. In this lecture, I want to focus on the information on the Late Gaulish language that those investigations offer and how we can reconcile this data with our other sources for Late Gaulish. I will also present some of my own findings about Late Gaulish which will be defended in my dissertation later this year.
Imafronte, 2024
The Gallic invasion of Greece in 280/279 BC left a deep mark in the collective memory of the Greeks. From then on, they represented the Celts as the stereotypical 'barbarians'-primitive, wild, violent and without any culture of their own. As the newcomers had established permanent kingdoms in Thrace and Phrygia, however, both sides had to learn how to deal with each other. The paper asks how the rulers of the Galatians on both sides of the Bosporus handled this challenge and how this influenced their own identity. To go beyond existing research, the analysis draws both on the literary Greek sources and the coinage which the Eastern Celts started to produce in the 3 rd century BC. It will be shown that the Galatian elites quickly adapted to the political practices of the Hellenistic world and confidently asserted their own place within it, mixing their own customs with Greek and local (Thracian, Anatolian) elements to create a unique blend of identity.