Post by Mik M'HaffieFucking extraordinary.
Post by Séimà mac Liamhttp://www.staffordshirehoard.org.uk/
By the style of some of these objects, SAOTI will need to do some
redefining of 'Celtic'. That or this isn't a Saxon find at all. One
does hope this was handled using proper archeological methods.
Damn extraordinary! So much for Dark Ages Barbarian 'backwardness.'
I'm sure the metalwork was done in a Celtic shop, probably Irish.
After all, these people had been practicing metallurgy for over a
thousand years by then.
There is an industry in English academia to recategorise everything
once thought Celtic as Anglo-Saxon.
The Sutton Hoo horde was at one time ascribed almost entirely to
Viking, Celtic and Roman origins with very little designated A-S.
Over the years that has shifted markedly in the A-S direction.
Various illuminated manuscripts which were once considered Celtic in
origin have in recent years acquired English origin theories, even the
Book of Kells (theory - made in Northumbria- taken to Iona and thence
to Kells Abbey). These theories are still not accepted as the most
likely in international academia and I doubt they evwer will be, but
they are slowly but surely working their way up the league table.
Likewise for hitherto designated Celtic metalwork, e.g. the
Hunterstone brooch and the Tara brooch.
The term 'Hiberno-Saxon' art has been coined (how long before it
becomes 'Saxon-Hibernic'?). Scotland doesn't get a look in as
usual ;).
There is even an attempt to usurp Pictish stone art for the A-S cause.
And of course, Celtic legend, in the form of the Arthurian Cycle, has
long been Anglicised.
All of this flies in the face of contemporary accounts which have the
invading A-S as being illiterate, pagan savages whose only claim to
cultural influence (aside from de-christianising parts of Eastern
Britain for a short while) was the gutteral Germanic language they
spoke. That they were rendered literate, Christianised and generally
civilised by the indigenous Romano-Celtic people of Britain.
It is all part of the need for an origin mythos for the English people
which excludes any Celtic influence.
Another example of this is the willingness to ascribe their
Christianisation to St Augustine even though after his very short-
lived tenure in Britain the Southern A-S 'he' converted, reverted back
to paganism as soon as he left. They were finally Christianised by
Celtic Monks and those who had been converted by Celtic monks from the
North.
Another example is the ability to ignore the influence on the
development and even possibly existence of English from the North
(Scotland and Northumbria).