A considerable share of the finest Celtic artefacts we admire in museums today was found not in graves or settlements, but at the bottom of lakes, in riverbeds and in peat bogs. These are not objects lost by chance. For the Celts, as for many peoples of ancient Europe, waters were places of contact with the sacred, and they received precious gifts: weapons, jewellery, cauldrons, coins. This article gathers the most significant evidence.
La Tène: the site that named an era
In the second half of the nineteenth century, on the shores of Lake Neuchâtel in Switzerland, a lowering of the water level brought to light at La Tène an impressive quantity of objects: swords, spearheads, shields, brooches, tools, remains of wooden structures and also human and animal bones. The style of these artefacts was so distinctive that the name of the place was given to the whole Celtic later Iron Age, the La Tène culture.
The site has been interpreted in various ways: a bridge, a battlefield, a votive deposit. Today many scholars believe that at least part of the material results from ritual depositions repeated over time.
Llyn Cerrig Bach: a sacred lake on the island of the druids
In 1942, during work to build a military airfield on the island of Anglesey in Wales, peat digging in a small bog called Llyn Cerrig Bach brought to light a series of Iron Age objects: swords, spears, chariot parts, harness fittings, cauldrons, smith's tools and two slave chains with neck rings.
Anglesey is ancient Mona, the island which according to Tacitus was the last refuge of the druids. The Llyn Cerrig Bach deposit, built up over a long span of time, shows that the bog was an important place of offering. It is one of the few cases in which archaeology gives substance to the picture of a sacred island.
The gold of Tolosa
Strabo, drawing on Posidonius, reports that the Volcae Tectosages, a Gaulish people of the Tolosa region, kept great quantities of gold and silver in sacred enclosures and above all in sacred lakes. The treasures were thrown into the waters and left there, protected by religious fear. When the Romans took control of the region, they sold the lakes, and the buyers found silver ingots and worked gold.
In 106 BC the consul Quintus Servilius Caepio seized the treasure of Tolosa, which then vanished in obscure circumstances while being transported. Caepio was soon afterwards defeated by the Cimbri at Arausio, and the Romans coined the saying aurum Tolosanum habere, «to have the gold of Tolosa», for someone who carries a misfortune bound to sacrilegious wealth.
Bent swords
A recurring feature of Celtic deposits is the «ritual killing» of objects. Many swords found in water or in votive contexts are bent, broken or made unusable before being deposited. Several interpretations have been proposed:
- the object, made unusable, passed for good from the human world to the divine one;
- it prevented the gift from being recovered and reused;
- the weapon symbolically «died», perhaps accompanying a dead person or an event.
Great objects from British rivers
The rivers of Britain have also yielded masterpieces:
| Object | Place | Features |
|---|---|---|
| Battersea Shield | Thames, London | bronze facing with red enamel decoration |
| Waterloo Helmet | Thames, London | horned bronze helmet with no evident military use |
| Witham Shield | River Witham, Lincolnshire | bronze facing with repoussé decoration |
Many of these objects are too thin or too ornate for use in battle: they were probably parade pieces or made specifically to be offered.
Springs and wells in the Roman period
The practice continued under Rome, adapting itself. Near Hadrian's Wall, at Carrawburgh, the well dedicated to the goddess Coventina has yielded thousands of coins, along with altars, jewellery and other gifts. The water deity, with a local name, received offerings in Roman forms, showing the continuity of an ancient feeling.
Why the waters?
Waters are boundaries: the surface of a lake separates the visible world from the invisible one, and a bog is neither land nor water. In Irish and Welsh literature the Otherworld is often reached by crossing water or plunging into it, and springs are dwellings of powers. To make an offering to the waters meant handing an object over to a dimension from which it could not be taken back.
The act of giving up something precious, with no possibility of return, also has an inner meaning. It is detachment that makes a gift sacred: what we hold back remains ours, what we truly hand over becomes an offering.
In short
- The Celts deposited weapons, jewellery and treasure in lakes, rivers and bogs as ritual offerings.
- The site of La Tène, on Lake Neuchâtel, gave its name to the Celtic later Iron Age.
- Llyn Cerrig Bach, on Anglesey, yielded weapons, chariot parts and slave chains.
- Strabo describes the sacred lakes of Tolosa, whose treasure was taken by Caepio in 106 BC.
- Bent swords and parade objects show that the gift was withdrawn from human use for ever.
