The Amazing Celts

This entire chapter is about the Celts. I had never even heard of them before this week. They seemed to be a pretty interesting group of people. Preserved bodies of Celts were found in salt mines hundreds of years ago. These Celts were mining for salt when they were most likely trapped by a cave in. These bodies were impressive because the salt had preserved them perfectly. One thing that was found especially interesting was that the Celts wore brightly colored clothing. The Celts were considered barbarians but they did contribute valuable ideas and food.

A Celtic specialty was salted meat. They especially liked to eat boar so they invented the first salt cured ham. I am very happy about this because sooner or later this must have lead to bacon and I love to eat bacon. The Celts learned to dig the salt mines at steep angles because the salt was closer to get to that way. They also realized that bronze would not be ruined by salt so they made their mining tools out of it. They were also great iron workers. The Celts developed organized agriculture, the seamless iron rim, the barrel, and possibly the horse shoe. They also could have been the first Europeans to ride horses. The Celts are my heroes for that idea.

Basically, the Celts were great inventors. When the Romans conquered them they adopted some of the Celts' ideas and eventually thought of them as their own. That would have made me very angry if I was a Celt. The Romans thought they were barbarians but then stole their ideas and land. The Romans actually benefited a lot from the Celts (even though they would probably never admit it).