The ancient world consisted of civilizations known to all: Egypt, Rome, Greece and China, about which much has been written. The study of antiquity is a separate branch of archeology. But little is known about the tribes that populated the vastness of Europe, for example, the Celts. They are considered barbarians, but it is worth looking at the
Celtic patterns - these knots and curls, an involuntary question arises: how could the barbarians create something like that?
Who are the Celts?
The Celts are a people who inhabited the territory of Northern Europe in 500-250. BC, namely - the territory of Ireland, Scotland, Wales and part of Northern France. Unfortunately, there are very few monuments of Celtic culture today, and those that are are scattered around their former habitats. These include the famous crosses of the original form and various jewelry made of gold and silver, each of the finds is decorated with a unique ornament, the variations of which are known to us as Celtic patterns. These intricate intricacies of lines, forming a single picture, were a reflection of a person’s life path, all the trials and events that fate will bring him. The Celts did not believe in the finiteness of life, they believed that a person endlessly goes through a series of deaths and births. These beliefs are reflected in ornamental culture, because any Celtic patterns have no beginning or end.
Pattern ValuesA huge number of types of ornaments are striking, and each of them is unique and has its own semantic load, saturated only with its characteristic magical power. One of the favorite symbols is a maze, all the threads of which are directed to the center. This means a person’s spiritual desire for a higher beginning. The aforementioned Celtic cross has a circle in its center, which indicates the unity and interconnection of Heaven and Earth, and the expanding ends symbolize the desire of man and his consciousness to perfection. Three spirals forming a triangle in the center is a triskel, a sign of unity of the three main elements: Air, Water and Fire. It also symbolizes joy and well-being. Very often in the intricacies of the threads that form the Celtic patterns, you can find images of birds and animals, each of which has its own meaning. For example, a heron represents alertness, a partridge represents cunning, but a dove represents love and spiritual development. Snakes occupy a special place in Celtic culture, they had the meaning of wisdom and healing powers, and they were also the guardians of the secret knowledge granted by the gods. The hare was considered sacred among the Celts, which was at the same time a symbol of good life, immortality and deceit; in the wake of this animal, the Celts predicted their fate. Almost every animal has its own image in the patterns of this glorious people, even the fish were not left without attention: they became a symbol of divination.
Despite the relative antiquity, Celtic patterns look modern thanks to abstractness and graphic. This feature makes them popular all over the world, but, naturally, people from these tribes are especially reverent about their heritage. Now these symbols are used to decorate jewelry, to border pages. However, most people prefer tattoos based on Celtic patterns. Sketches of such tattoos can be found in any salon and choose the right one, but you should pay attention that each of the ornaments carries a powerful semantic load.