The Enigma of the Celtic Tomb (L'énigme de la tombe celte)

In the little town of Lavau

in the Champagne area,

an archeological excavation

has shed light on the grave of an illustrious character,

dormant underground for over 2,000 years.

This is an exceptional discovery.

When he was found,

the deceased was surrounded

by a bronze banquet service.

Certain items of Greek and Etruscan origin

had traveled hundreds maybe thousands of kilometers.

The archeologists had discovered a princely tomb

from the era of the Hallstatt Celts,

dating back to the 6th and 5th centuries before Christ.

Such tombs can be found throughout Central Europe.

The burial of important figures of the community

among an abundance of jewels and objects of great value

was a customary tradition in Celtic societies.

What of the society that buried its dead with such splendor?

Where did these magnificent objects come from?

How did they get here?

Who were these Hallstatt Celts

and where did their opulence come from?

The Celts were first mentioned in writing by the Greeks.

Indeed, as the Celtic people

did not have a written tradition,

they have left no written testimony of their civilization.

We don't even know the name they gave themselves.

The name Celts was found in the texts of Herodotus,

a Greek historian who was the first to write about them.

Stephane Verger is an archeologist

who specializes in the relations

between the Greeks and Celtic societies.

Amongst the travelers

that visited the sanctuary during the 5th century BC

was Herodotus, the first Greek historian.

Herodotus is responsible for the transformation

in the way we understood geography in Europe.

He reestablished the location

of the Hyperboreans to the northeast,

and in their place at the source of the Istros River,

he located a people that we knew nothing about,

the Celts, keltoi in Greek.

There was a well known phrase of his on the subject

which constitutes the first mention of the Celts.

The Istros River begins in the land of the Celts,

near the town of Pyrene,

and crosses Europe through the middle.

The Celts are beyond the pillars of Heracles,

and beside the Cynesians,

the last people of Europe on the side of the setting sun.

The Istros River meets the Pontic Sea

where the Istrians are.

The Pontic Sea, where Herodotus

situates the Greek settlement of the Istrians,

corresponds to the Black Sea.

The Istros River,

which meets the Black Sea, is now the Danube.

Today if one were to follow the Danube

upstream to the source,

to the place where Herodotus placed the Celts,

one would reach the southwest of Germany.

There in the Bade-Wurtemberg,

one can find the site of the Heuneburg.

During the Celtic area,

the plateau was inhabited

and surrounded by imposing graves.

Some homes of the Heuneburg

have been reconstituted by the archeologists.

Dirk Krausse is amongst those

who have worked there many years.

Here below we can see the Danube.

Herodotus mentions in "Book 2" of his "Histories"

that the Istros River,

that is to say the Danube,

has it's source on Celtic land near the city of Pyrene.

This is the first mention ever made of a place

or a city outside the Mediterranean sphere.

Everything seems to indicate that the Heuneburg is Pyrene.

In Lavau, the digs continue.

The deceased was a contemporary of Herodotus's description.

He was found in the center of a necropolis

that was used for thousands of years.

However, none of these graves equal the sumptuousness

of the princely tomb.

They were buried beneath an immense funerary monument

measuring almost a hectare.

Bastien Dubuis is in charge of the excavation.

At his side is Emilie Millet,

a specialist in metal objects

whose job is to unearth a large bronze cauldron.

So right now I'm clearing

the fourth handle of the cauldron.

You can see the submittal part of the handle

with Achelous' head, the Greek god of rivers,

with his horns, his mustaches, and his beard.

Each of these segments is decorated with animal faces,

felines, cheetahs, and leopards.

The few fragments

that have already been revealed

testify to the exceptional nature of the object.

The figures of the Achelous god

point to the distant origins of the cauldron,

which was probably made in Etruria or Magna Graecia.

Inside the cauldron,

an object emerges little by little.

It's really quite amazing.

Pieces like this, heightened with gold,

it's really very rare.

This object is called an oinochoe,

a Greek jug that is typical of the Athens region

and is often decorated with well-know Greek myths.

There we are we have the bottom section,

and it's also decorated with gold.

For the archeologist,

the presence of this large cauldron

and of the oinochoe confirm that they are looking at

one of the most sumptuous princely tombs

ever to be discovered.

This grave does indeed

date back to the time of the Hallstatt Celts.

The Hallstatt territory extends to the Alps at the south,

over part of today's France in the west,

up to the Seine and the Loire rivers.

Finally in the east, it reaches the Danube.

The Lavau grave is representative

of what is often called the princely phenomena.

The Hochdorf grave in Germany

already met the qualifications for princely tombs,

the presence of a cart,

of imported pottery from Greece and Italy,

and golden finery mostly made by the Celts themselves.

Then the Vix grave was unearthed

with its large Greek krater and a golden torc,

an incredible piece of jewelry.

Let's go back in time.

The startling revelation

of these sumptuous funerary deposits

began in the 19th century.

In 1846, in the Burgundy region,

scholars unearthed the beautiful.

Liebes cauldron from Anatole.

A few decades later in Germany near the Heuneburg site,

funerary deposits were discovered

in the grave of the Giessubel-Talhau.

They clearly testified to a very prosperous culture.

German scholars then suggested the idea

of a princely civilization.

Then in 1953,

in the French region of Burgundy,

a Vix grave was discovered.

It contained among other things, a large vase,

one meter 65 high and one meter 20 wide.

It is the largest Greek vase known to mankind.

During almost two centuries of archeological research,

the princely phenomenon has manifested itself

in hundreds of graves.

However, it is the Vix grave, the Hochdorf grave,

and now the Lavau grave

that are considered the most remarkable.

The Lavau site rests by the river Seine,

70 kilometers downstream of the village of Vix.

It is in this village that the grave

of the Lady of Vix was discovered.

Archeologist Bruno Chaume

has been searching this plateau for over 20 years.

2500 years ago, inhabitants covered the Lassois hill,

and the Lady of Vix was buried in the valley below.

We're on the top of the burial mound

of the Lady of Vix.

Underneath our feet was the central grave.

The Lady of Vix was buried

under an important mound,

a tumulus elevated over her grave

in order to mark its place in the landscape.

Surrounded by objects of great value

including the renowned vase of Vix,

she rested upon a cart covered in jewelry and a golden torc.

Princely tombs are often discovered near rivers.

It would seem that these rivers played an important role

in the thriving situation of the Celtic civilization.

The Seine, which flows at the foot of the Mont Lassois,

has it source upstream

and flows towards the Channel 700 kilometers downstream.

This privileged position can easily be linked

to the wealth of the Celts of Vix.

Much like the Vix site,

the Heuneburg site in Germany

is perched atop a plateau

that overlooks a river, the Danube.

What part did the river play

in the development of the Celtic city?

We are at the foot of the Heuneburg.

Here the Danube has already run about 80 kilometers.

It takes its source in the west, in the Black Forest,

and continues over 2500 kilometers towards the southeast

to join the Black Sea where at the time,

there were great colonies.

The Heuneburg is at an important crossroads

between various rivers snaking through Europe.