What Are Celtes?
Celtes are certain ancient instruments, of a wedge-like form, of which several have been discovered in different parts of Great Britain. Antiquaries have generally attributed them to the Celtæ, but, not agreeing as to their use, distinguish them by the above unmeaning appellation. Mr. Whitaker, however, is of opinion that they were British battle-axes, and in this he has been generally followed. Such is the statement in the eighth or last edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica.
The Welsh etymologists, Owen and Spurrell, furnish an ancient Cambro-British word celt, a flint-stone. M. Worsae (Primeval Antiq., p. 26) confines the term to those instruments of bronze which have a hollow socket to receive a wooden handle; the other forms being called paalstabs on the Continent. In the “Latin Vulgate,” our translators have rendered “an iron pen” in the book of Job, chap. xix. v. 24, there translated celte.
But the origin and application are variously explained among antiquarian writers. The Abbé Cochet states, in a letter to the French journals, 1863, that hatchets are found almost all over Europe. They are common in France, and are generally found in groups. Some of them have been analysed, and found to be composed of fourteen parts of tin and eighty-six of copper. The bronze is the same as that of an antique poniard brought from Egypt and analysed by Vauquelin, from which it would appear that the composition of ancient Gallic bronze came from Egypt. Archæologists generally attribute hatchets of this kind to the Celts and Gauls, and give them the general name of Celtic.
In opposition to this statement, it is, however, maintained that “the word is not derived from its use by the Celts or Kelts, but from the Latin word ‘celtis,’ which means chisel, or hatchet.” Dr. Smith (Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities) obtains the term from “celtes, an old Latin word for a chisel, probably derived from cælo, to engrave.” Mr. Wright (in The Celt, Roman, and Saxon) says that Hearne first applied the word to such implements in bronze, believing them to be “Roman celtes, or chisels;” and that “subsequent writers, ascribing these instruments to the Britons, have retained the name, forgetting its origin, and have applied it indiscriminately not only to other implements of bronze but even to the analogous instruments of stone.” Mr. Wright objects to the term, “as too generally implying that things to which it is applied are Celtic;” and it is now generally allowed that there is no connexion between this word and the name of the nation (Celtæ).—(Abridged from Notes and Queries, No. 203). Fosbroke (Encyclopædia of Antiquities, p. 286) has an excellent column of authorities upon the subject, which is still hotly contested. An admirable paper was read to the Archæological Institute, in 1849, by Mr. James Yates, illustrating “The Use of Bronze Celts in Military Operations,” with several woodcuts.—See the Archæological Journal, December, 1849, Pages 363-392. See also “Notes on Bronze Weapons,” by A. W. Franks, F.S.A., Archæologia, vol. xxxvi., pp. 326-331: and Papers by Mr. John Evans, F.S.A.; Archæologia, vol. xxxviii. p. 280; also, vol. xxxix. p. 57. The subject is of immediate interest in illustration of “The Antiquity of Man.”