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The Gods of the Celts
Examines the gods, rituals, cults, sacred places, symbolism, and imagery of the Celtic people from Ireland to Austria.
267 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1986
About the author
Miranda Aldhouse-Green
29 books82 followersMiranda Green was born in London and educated at Greycoat Hospital, Westminster. She took an Honours degree at University College, Cardiff and an M. Litt. at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. She gained a research scholarship at the Open University and was awarded a doctorate in 1981 for her thesis on Romano-Celtic sun-symbolism. She has received research awards from the Society of Antiquities of London and from the British Academy, and was awarded the Leverhulme Research Fellowship at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. After holding posts at Worthing and Peterborough Museums, she took up posts as Tutor in Roman Studies and full-time administrator at the Open University in Wales.
Until recently professor of archaeology at Newport University, Miranda's teaching experience ranges from leading undergraduate courses on Roman Britain and Iron Age Europe to managing and contributing to Newport's MA in Celto-Roman Studies. She has supervised more than twenty PhD and MPhil students to successful completion.
Miranda Aldhouse-Green is Tutor for the MA Archaeology programme, and is module leader for three of the MA skills modules (Research Methods, Writing Archaeology/Writing the Past and Speaking Archaeology). She lectures on Early Celtic Studies and contributes to the third-year undergraduate Theory course.
External responsibilities include membership of the Ancient Monuments Advisory Board for Wales, presidency of the Prehistoric Society (2004-6) and membership of the management board of the University of Wales Press.
Until recently professor of archaeology at Newport University, Miranda's teaching experience ranges from leading undergraduate courses on Roman Britain and Iron Age Europe to managing and contributing to Newport's MA in Celto-Roman Studies. She has supervised more than twenty PhD and MPhil students to successful completion.
Miranda Aldhouse-Green is Tutor for the MA Archaeology programme, and is module leader for three of the MA skills modules (Research Methods, Writing Archaeology/Writing the Past and Speaking Archaeology). She lectures on Early Celtic Studies and contributes to the third-year undergraduate Theory course.
External responsibilities include membership of the Ancient Monuments Advisory Board for Wales, presidency of the Prehistoric Society (2004-6) and membership of the management board of the University of Wales Press.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
November 28, 2021
The Celts are so fascinating, in part, because we don’t know that much about them. Their written records come only in the post-Christianization period. Before that Romans wrote about them from the perspective of enemies. Archaeology reveals preserves enough to be intriguing and much has to be reconstructed from small pieces. Miranda Green does an able job reconstructing. Specifically this book looks at their religion, primarily their beliefs about the gods.
It’s clear the book was written with an archaeologist’s eye for detail. Much of it focuses on specific finds and how they illustrate trends such as veneration of the sun, water, animals, and even the human head. Sacrifice, including the human variety, is explored. The Celts come across as warlike yet thoughtful—a people trying to carve out their space in the world. Archaeologists often have a difficult time sorting out religion and what it might be, based on artifacts. Green does a good job of this.
The old joke during my doctoral study days was that if archaeologists found an artifact they didn’t understand they’d call it religious. There’s a bit of truth to that, but it’s also true that religions can be reconstructed from many of the pieces we leave behind. Whether we like it or not, it is a large part of our life, if only because our culture draws so much from it. We may not know much about the Celts, but this book is a good introduction to what we can piece together of their divine world. I wrote a bit more about it here: Sects and Violence in the Ancient World.
It’s clear the book was written with an archaeologist’s eye for detail. Much of it focuses on specific finds and how they illustrate trends such as veneration of the sun, water, animals, and even the human head. Sacrifice, including the human variety, is explored. The Celts come across as warlike yet thoughtful—a people trying to carve out their space in the world. Archaeologists often have a difficult time sorting out religion and what it might be, based on artifacts. Green does a good job of this.
The old joke during my doctoral study days was that if archaeologists found an artifact they didn’t understand they’d call it religious. There’s a bit of truth to that, but it’s also true that religions can be reconstructed from many of the pieces we leave behind. Whether we like it or not, it is a large part of our life, if only because our culture draws so much from it. We may not know much about the Celts, but this book is a good introduction to what we can piece together of their divine world. I wrote a bit more about it here: Sects and Violence in the Ancient World.
December 9, 2014
Um. So, this was basically a catalog of archaeological finds. Rather dull.
December 17, 2021
Not for me. In spite of the rear cover's declaration "Assuming no prior knowledge of the subject on the part of the reader, this book uses no technical language that is not fully explained" I discovered both aspects appeared in the text. Unexplained references to people I've never heard of and some esoteric technical language of which I have no knowledge and which remained unexplained.
A text book for specialists, I think.
A text book for specialists, I think.
June 26, 2023
3.5⭐️
A book detailing Celtic religion and iconography, through archeological evidence. It literally does what it says on the tin.
As a Creative Writing student, I'm always looking for research and material to read up on for my upcoming projects. This was no different. I picked this book up in the hope that I'll find some good inspiration for a story with Celtic undertones, and I definitely did find some very good ideas in this book. The only drawback is that you have to understand archeology to read this, which, shockingly, I don't. Would definitely recommend though.
A book detailing Celtic religion and iconography, through archeological evidence. It literally does what it says on the tin.
As a Creative Writing student, I'm always looking for research and material to read up on for my upcoming projects. This was no different. I picked this book up in the hope that I'll find some good inspiration for a story with Celtic undertones, and I definitely did find some very good ideas in this book. The only drawback is that you have to understand archeology to read this, which, shockingly, I don't. Would definitely recommend though.
July 5, 2020
Very detailed academic study of the archeological evidence regarding Celtic mythology. Not for someone who seeks superficial entertainment.
September 22, 2019
Wordy and a little old-school, unstructured and contains spelling errors, no thank you.
May 8, 2023
Quando un neopagano vuole espandere il proprio repertorio con il paradigma religioso celtico, emerge un piccolo problema: la documentazione scritta è prettamente mitologica più che filosofica, stilata da redattori già cristianizzati, e proveniente da zone periferiche quali Irlanda e Galles, mentre i contenuti e le pratiche in uso nell'epoca classica fra i Galli continentali sono andati irrimediabilmente perduti nella Tarda Antichità. Di conseguenza, il neo-druido deve fare affidamento agli studi archeologici sui manufatti sacri dei Celti continentali (e della Britannia romanizzata), e questo volumino della dottoressa Aldhouse Green è un valido compromesso fra accuratezza e accessibilità. Non si può negare che rappresenti una lettura arida, essendo che giustamente la dottoressa Green procede con metodo rigido e ripetitivo: ci presenta i reperti materiali a nostra disposizione (icone, offerte votive, installazioni sacre, depositi sacrificali eccetera) nel loro contesto di ritrovamento, ne descrive le caratteristiche di produzione e iconografia, ed estrapola da questa massa di dati le proprie ipotesi sulla funzione simbolica e l'utilizzo rituale dei manufatti, risultando in un ritmo scandito quanto ripetitivo (fate pause fra ogni capitolo, mi raccomando).
Questa inevitabile monotonia, però, è il giusto pedaggio da pagare per accedere a una trattazione saldamente empirica e rigorosamente fattuale, nella quale le ricostruzioni sulla ritualità celtica sono assolutamente pragmatiche (senza voli pindarici romantici) e ben radicate nel materiale sopravvissuto: l'autrice, infatti, categorizza per soggetto i repertori iconografici celtici e pertanto analizza in successione le raffigurazioni celesti, femminili, belliche e ctonie, idriche-taumaturgiche, zoomorfe-totemiche, e chiude con gli schemi figurativi tipizzati, corredando sempre, laddove possibile, l'opera scultorea con attestazioni iconografiche. In tal modo l'esposizione estrapola da ogni tipologia artistica gli attributi propri del corrispondente archetipo divino e (se ricavabili) le usanze cultuali correlate, restituendoci il quadro convincente di una teologia pan-celtica ove i princìpi sovrannaturali "generali" si ipostatizzano in divinità non necessariamente personalizzate e comunque iconograficamente fluide (a maggior ragione dopo il sincretismo culturale con il pantheon romano), enorme enfasi è posta sugli spiriti topografici e sugli animali fatati, e le cerimonie sacrificali enfatizzano sia l'omicidio rituale sia la consacrazione di oggetti pregiati.
Dal mio punto di vista di teurgo, qua dentro c'è quasi tutto il necessario per "riconfigurare" le tecniche greche tradizionali e venerare le deità galliche: non sarà mai come riprodurre le pratiche perdute dei veri druidi, ma è un compromesso sufficiente.
Questa inevitabile monotonia, però, è il giusto pedaggio da pagare per accedere a una trattazione saldamente empirica e rigorosamente fattuale, nella quale le ricostruzioni sulla ritualità celtica sono assolutamente pragmatiche (senza voli pindarici romantici) e ben radicate nel materiale sopravvissuto: l'autrice, infatti, categorizza per soggetto i repertori iconografici celtici e pertanto analizza in successione le raffigurazioni celesti, femminili, belliche e ctonie, idriche-taumaturgiche, zoomorfe-totemiche, e chiude con gli schemi figurativi tipizzati, corredando sempre, laddove possibile, l'opera scultorea con attestazioni iconografiche. In tal modo l'esposizione estrapola da ogni tipologia artistica gli attributi propri del corrispondente archetipo divino e (se ricavabili) le usanze cultuali correlate, restituendoci il quadro convincente di una teologia pan-celtica ove i princìpi sovrannaturali "generali" si ipostatizzano in divinità non necessariamente personalizzate e comunque iconograficamente fluide (a maggior ragione dopo il sincretismo culturale con il pantheon romano), enorme enfasi è posta sugli spiriti topografici e sugli animali fatati, e le cerimonie sacrificali enfatizzano sia l'omicidio rituale sia la consacrazione di oggetti pregiati.
Dal mio punto di vista di teurgo, qua dentro c'è quasi tutto il necessario per "riconfigurare" le tecniche greche tradizionali e venerare le deità galliche: non sarà mai come riprodurre le pratiche perdute dei veri druidi, ma è un compromesso sufficiente.
March 11, 2022
It devotes many pages to the description of archeological findings and very little space to the explanation of Celtic culture. The author highlights interesting points, such as the sun cult or the triplism in Celtic religion but she later doesn't develop further and gets lost in descriptions of statues that follow a determined pattern without getting to their symbology... It has been disappointing
February 28, 2020
This book claims to tell you about the different Celtic gods... and lies. Instead of a book on who the gods were and a little about the myths surrounding them, it was a dry dissertation on archeology and proof that the Celts worshipped gods. Very few names were actually mentioned.
Then again, the author is an archeologist, not a folklorist, so this was definitely my bad.
Then again, the author is an archeologist, not a folklorist, so this was definitely my bad.
September 3, 2018
Great content, very illuminating on religious worship of the Celts from an archaeological perspective. If you’re looking for fluffy New Age neopagan interpretations you will be disappointed. Minus one star for numerous spelling, punctuation, and editing errors (at least in my version).
January 29, 2022
A solid, if dry and somewhat rambling, overview of the important aspects of Celtic pantheon. Unsurprisingly this book relies heavily on archaeological evidence because that's almost all we have regarding the Celts, but Green interprets the evidence in a fairly rigourous way in my opinion.
July 19, 2014
Excellent foundational knowledge on Celtic religious practices. The text mainly sticks to descriptions of artefacts, with a minimal amount of interpretation about their ritual usage and the religious beliefs suggested therein. It both surprised me how little is known about the specifics of Celtic religious practices, but also how much archaeologists are able to extrapolate from the finds. A wonderful book for igniting curiosity. I'm so grateful to live just a few minutes away from the National Museum of Ireland for Archaeology in Dublin!
December 25, 2014
I found this book to be totally different to what it seemed, it was based more on what other people had found and other peoples studies, with little said about the celts, their practices or their beliefs. I see this may be meant for people interested in archeology but either way this book had little to no information that I was looking for.
January 20, 2019
Do not expect a long list of celtic Deities in "the Gods of the Celts" by Miranda Green. In stead, this book gives an overview of the important archeological finds which give us hints about the religious lives of the celts.
A well researched book, at times a bit dry and including a bonus chapter about celtic art. Only recommended for die-hard celt enthousiast.
A well researched book, at times a bit dry and including a bonus chapter about celtic art. Only recommended for die-hard celt enthousiast.
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December 31, 2012A scholarly review of the archeological finds and survey of some historians opinions of the finds. I would recommend the book to those trained to read that genre only. One caution, sensitive readers like myself will find some of the human sacrifice grave finds very disturbing.
September 3, 2018
Great content, very illuminating on religious worship of the Celts from an archaeological perspective. If you’re looking for fluffy New Age neopagan interpretations you will be disappointed. Minus one star for numerous spelling, punctuation, and editing errors.
March 4, 2010
Please read my review here: The Gods of the Celts
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews