Peter Girdwood

On the Edge of History: How the Modern Reception of Etruscans and Celts has Been Shaped Througha Roman Reality

Supervisor: Dr. Louise Revell

Abstract:

Roman textual sources have had a direct and notable impact upon approaches to the study of the proto-historic peoples of Italy and Central Europe. This paper will focus on how the Etruscans and the various groups of people generally referred to in Greek and Roman sources as Keltoi, Galatai or Galli, have been perceived in light of a received and generally accepted Roman and Greek narrative. It shall also demonstrate how the paradigm that has developed from these sources has shaped our understanding of the archaeology and, in producing examples of how text had shaped interpretation, suggests tentative steps towards a unified understanding of two areas that probably had more in common than we are used to assuming.

pdg105@soton.ac.uk