> The Celts > Frequent questions

Did the Celts know how to write?: The Celts belong to "Protohistory", a period during which some people write and others don't. As a matter of fact, the Celts did not write down their own history: they considered that their knowledge must be transmitted orally. They have left us a few inscriptions, but these do not give us much information on their society.

Pork or wild boar for dinner?: Pork! As the Celts were mainly farmers. In their farms, we find most of the animals of our own farms: cows, pigs, goats, sheep, horses, poultry and dogs. Hunting is only an extra, or even just a sport, and game is rarely on the Gallic menu, whatever Obelix may say. The wild boar, however, has an important place in the Celtic imagination, as it symbolizes strength and combativeness.

What has this culture left us?: We find our Celtic heritage:

- in the French language, with such words as "chemin" (path), "char" (chariot), "mouton" (sheep), "ardoise" (slate), "alouette" (lark), etc., mostly names of plants and animals;

- in the toponymy and hydronymy, that is the names of places and rivers: for example cities such as Trèves, Paris, Reims, Milan, Tongres, Arlon owe their names to the Celtic language, but so do an unsuspected number of places in our Walloon villages;

- in the way the territory is organized, with the foundation of certain cities (Paris, Budapest, Belgrade) and mostly the development of an important network of communication routes;

- in the technical achievements, such as the different carts and chariots later reproduced by the Romans, the barrel, soap, the coat of mail, the sieve, the mattress, the hooded coat. The Celts, who lived in the Iron Age, are also behind the spreading and the use of new techniques and tools related to iron and steel metallurgy in our regions. Many iron objects that we still currently use today actually date back to that time;

- in the feasts of All Saints' Day, All Souls' Day and Halloween: the first two come from the Christianization of the Celtic feast of Samain, of which Halloween is the belated and Americanized transposition;

- in European art: the Celtic motifs, real, stylized or imaginary, mostly the interlaced patterns, have durably influenced artists, from the Middle Ages until today.