''The Celts'' ( cy, Y Celtiaid) is a 2000 television documentary series produced by Opus Television for the Welsh channel

S4C S4C (, ''Sianel Pedwar Cymru'', meaning ''Channel Four Wales'') is a Welsh language free-to-air public broadcast television channel. Launched on 1 November 1982, it was the first television channel to be aimed specifically at a Welsh-speaking ...

. A book adaptation of the same name by John Davies was published in the same year by Cassell & Co. Also in that year, the programme was sold to the American cable network Celtic Vision.

Synopsis

The series examines who the Celts were, where they came from and what made their culture distinctive from other

European peoples Europeans are the focus of European ethnology, the field of anthropology related to the various ethnic groups that reside in the states of Europe. Groups may be defined by common genetic ancestry, common language, or both. Pan and Pfeil (2004) ...

; with dramatizations of major historical events and visits to modern Celtic lands. A number of archaeologists and scholars of Celtic studies are featured in the documentary, such as ,

Peter Connolly Peter William Connolly FSA (8 May 1935 – 2 May 2012) was a British scholar of the ancient world, Greek and Roman military equipment historian, reconstructional archaeologist and illustrator. He was a regular contributor to such periodicals as ...

Barry Cunliffe Sir Barrington Windsor Cunliffe, (born 10 December 1939), known as Barry Cunliffe, is a British archaeologist and academic. He was Professor of European Archaeology at the University of Oxford from 1972 to 2007. Since 2007, he has been an Emeri ...

, , Michel Egloff,

John T. Koch John T. Koch is an American academic, historian and linguist who specializes in Celtic studies, especially prehistory and the early Middle Ages. He is the editor of the five-volume ''Celtic Culture. A Historical Encyclopedia'' (2006, ABC Clio). He ...

Barry Raftery Barry Raftery (16 August 1944 – 22 August 2010) was an Irish archaeologist and academic. He is best known for his pioneering work in wetland archaeology and Iron Age hillforts in Ireland. He was Professor of Celtic Archaeology in University Col ...

Colin Renfrew Andrew Colin Renfrew, Baron Renfrew of Kaimsthorn, (born 25 July 1937) is a British archaeologist, paleolinguist and Conservative peer noted for his work on radiocarbon dating, the prehistory of languages, archaeogenetics, neuroarchaeology, an ...

, Peter Reynolds, , Bryan Sykes, among others.

Episodes

# "In the Beginning": Tracing the origin of the Celts. # "Heroes in Defeat": Examining La Tène era, heyday of the Celtic culture. # "The Sacred Groves": Looking at ancient Celtic religion, especially

Druid A druid was a member of the high-ranking class in ancient Celtic cultures. Druids were religious leaders as well as legal authorities, adjudicators, lorekeepers, medical professionals and political advisors. Druids left no written accounts. Whi ...

ism. # "From Camelot to Christ": This episode claims that, after the

collapse of the Roman Empire The fall of the Western Roman Empire (also called the fall of the Roman Empire or the fall of Rome) was the loss of central political control in the Western Roman Empire, a process in which the Empire failed to enforce its rule, and its vas ...

, Vortigern,

King of the Britons The title King of the Britons ( cy, Brenin y Brythoniaid, la, Rex Britannorum) was used (often retrospectively) to refer to the most powerful ruler among the Celtic Britons, both before and after the period of Roman Britain up until the Norma ...

, invited the Anglo-Saxons into Britain to help fight the Picts. Christianity was established during the Anglo-Saxon era. # "Legend and Reality": From the 8th century onwards Celtic lands were invaded by the Vikings and then the Normans. Following the 16th-century Protestant Reformation, Celtic communities in Wales, Ireland and Brittany were marginalized in the push for political and religious unity. # "A Dead Song?": Examining the meaning and threats to the

Celtic identity The modern Celts (, see pronunciation of ''Celt'') are a related group of ethnicities who share similar Celtic languages, cultures and artistic histories, and who live in or descend from one of the regions on the western extremities of Europe ...

. The struggle to define an identity still continues today.

DVD

The series has been released on DVD by

Kultur International Films Kultur Video is a film company that specializes in the distribution and production of performing arts, history, literature, theater, and other genres on DVD, Blu-ray, and Streaming Video. The company has issued famous television programs by such a ...

in 2010.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Celts, The 2000 British television series debuts 2000s British television miniseries 2000s British documentary television series 2000s Welsh television series English-language television shows S4C original programming Celtic studies

Synopsis

Episodes

DVD

See also

References

External links