Endovelico

[Ultimate Aurelian]

2 hours ago, Duileoga said:

-Si , esas mismas armas, en forma de triángulo, pensé que como se usaban en el periodo anterior , las habría en el siguiente pero hechas de hierro.

¿Qué es un "Picks"? el traductor dice una cosa muy extraña jajaja.

 

Disculpen las molestias*

Quise decir que se parecen más a picos  o hachas.

 

Edited 20 hours ago by Ultimate Aurelian

[Ultimate Aurelian]

2 hours ago, Duileoga said:

¿Puede desarrollar más esa idea? por favor ,me ha dado curiosidad .

Some who argue for Irish using chariots believe they were used in a similar way to the chariots of the Britons (transporting elites to battle).

From Caesar's gallic wars

Quote

“Their manner of fighting from chariots is as follows. First of all they drive in all directions and hurl missiles, and so by the mere terror that the teams inspire and by the noise of the wheels they generally throw ranks into confusion. When they have worked their way in between the troops of cavalry, they leap down from the chariots and fight on foot. Meanwhile the charioteers retire gradually from the combat, and dispose the chariots in such fashion that, if the warriors are hard pressed by the host of the enemy, they may have a ready means of retirement to their own side. Thus they show in action the mobility of cavalry and the stability of infantry; and by daily use and practice they become so accomplished that they are ready to gallop their teams down the steepest of slopes without loss of control, to check and turn them in a moment, to run along the pole, stand on the yoke, and then, quick as lightning, to dart back into the chariot”

 

[Thalatta]

4 hours ago, Duileoga said:

¿Qué es un "Picks"? el traductor dice una cosa muy extraña jajaja.

Puede significar muchas cosas. Como verbo es "seleccionar" (lo que tal vez te indica primero el traductor). Como sustantivo puede ser desde la "púa" para tocar la guitarra, hasta la herramienta "pica", o el arma "pica" (ambas similares, pero una optimizada para minar, la otra para combatir). No te quedes solo con lo primero que devuelve un traductor.

 

50 minutes ago, Ultimate Aurelian said:

Some who argue for Irish using chariots believe they were used in a similar way to the chariots of the Britons (transporting elites to battle).

I think it hasn't been mentioned, but apparently British horses were smaller (yet sturdy), enhancing the utility of chariots when compared with just mounting them (https://www.shadow-of-the-wall.co.uk/bone_evidence.html). There's also the idea of that being ritualistic for elite warriors. On top of all this, Celtic vehicles seem advanced, since "the Roman Empire benefited from the contributions of Celtic technology (Schonfelder 2002), as the specialized Latin vocabulary tends to show. A rich terminology for land vehicles borrowed from Celtic-including henna, carpentum, carruca, carrus, cisium, covinus, currus, petoritum, pilentum, plaustrum, sarracum, and triga-is indicative of the growing functionality of Roman vehicles", from The Oxford Handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World, by J. P. Oleson, and "the Latin word carpentum mentioned in Isidore – from which the English word "carpenter" descended – in fact was borrowed by the Romans from the Celtic word for a special type of cart. Perhaps because of the plentiful supplies of high-quality wood in Gaul, the Gallic woodworkers were particularly skilled in the production in wood of sophisticated vehicles and machinery such as force pumps and water mills", from Greek and Roman Technology, by A. N. Sherwood.

[Ultimate Aurelian]

7 hours ago, Genava55 said:

There is no consensus. Experts have been debating this subject for a long time without reaching a consensus. The problem is that it is difficult in any case to explain the presence of chariots in early medieval Irish myths if we assume that they did not exist during the Iron Age. Experts are sometimes disingenuous, going so far as to claim that the chariots never existed and that the myths were fabricated from scratch by Christians, drawing on Roman writings. Objectively speaking, that’s complete rubbish, but I don’t feel like debating the issue. 

Is it possible they had blades on their chariots?

I think scythe chariots show up in some Irish myths and Roman accounts about the Britons.

But ive also read those only existed in the near east.

[Genava55]

14 minutes ago, Ultimate Aurelian said:

Is it possible they had blades on their chariots?

No I don't think so. Pomponius Mela is the first to mention this implausible description but he was a notorious armchair geographer. Later on, several poets mentioned the scythed chariots but they were fabricating things. Thus, no scythed chariot.

The reliable primary sources do not mention scythed chariots.

Edited 17 hours ago by Genava55

[Genava55]

2 hours ago, Thalatta said:

I think it hasn't been mentioned, but apparently British horses were smaller (yet sturdy), enhancing the utility of chariots when compared with just mounting them (https://www.shadow-of-the-wall.co.uk/bone_evidence.html). There's also the idea of that being ritualistic for elite warriors. On top of all this, Celtic vehicles seem advanced, since "the Roman Empire benefited from the contributions of Celtic technology (Schonfelder 2002), as the specialized Latin vocabulary tends to show. A rich terminology for land vehicles borrowed from Celtic-including henna, carpentum, carruca, carrus, cisium, covinus, currus, petoritum, pilentum, plaustrum, sarracum, and triga-is indicative of the growing functionality of Roman vehicles", from The Oxford Handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World, by J. P. Oleson, and "the Latin word carpentum mentioned in Isidore – from which the English word "carpenter" descended – in fact was borrowed by the Romans from the Celtic word for a special type of cart. Perhaps because of the plentiful supplies of high-quality wood in Gaul, the Gallic woodworkers were particularly skilled in the production in wood of sophisticated vehicles and machinery such as force pumps and water mills", from Greek and Roman Technology, by A. N. Sherwood.

Furthermore, the Old Irish carpat (ˈkaɾ.bəd̪) for chariot can only be derived from a Celtic language. A borrowing from Latin would have resulted in a completely different form and pronunciation.

[Ultimate Aurelian]

1 hour ago, Genava55 said:

No I don't think so. Pomponius Mela is the first to mention this implausible description but he was a notorious armchair geographer. Later on, several poets mentioned the scythed chariots but they were fabricating things. Thus, no scythed chariot.

The reliable primary sources do not mention scythed chariots.

They are apparently mentioned in epics

https://celt.ucc.ie/published/T301035/text021.html

Quote

After Cú Chulainn had been thus distorted, the hero sprang into his scythed chariot with its iron points, its thin sharp edges, its hooks, its steel points, with its sharp spikes of a hero, its arrangement for opening, with its nails that were on the shafts and thongs and loops and fastenings in that chariot.

https://celt.ucc.ie/published/T301021/text086.html

Quote

Cuchulaind then wanted to go to the rath of Forgall. And the scythe-chariot was prepared for Cuchulaind that day. It was called scythe-chariot (carpat serrda) from the iron scythes that were from it, or again because it was first invented by the Serians.

Now those might just be exaggerations, which does bring into question how accurate other passages about chariots are.

Although i think the Irish may have actually had chariots (but probably not with blades), as you have mentioned before in the thread there is evidence in some metal fittings and their word for chariot.

 

Edited 15 hours ago by Ultimate Aurelian

[Thalatta]

1 hour ago, Ultimate Aurelian said:

They are apparently mentioned in epics

Written down in their present form in the High Middle Ages. Even if they refer to supposed events from a millennium earlier, it's hard to know by then what external influences and other anachronisms could have crept in in the story (as I've recently mentioned happens with funerary practices in the Iliad, where half that time passed).

[Genava55]

As Thalatta explained, Irish epic tales were significantly altered by external influences, in this case Christianization and the medieval historical tradition. For one thing, oral tradition is inherently timeless, oral narratives are constantly adapted to the changing realities of society. Consequently, these stories had almost certainly undergone changes before being fixed in writing. Furthermore, when monks committed the tales to writing, they adapted them even further, drawing inspiration from the Bible, the writings of Jordanes and Gregory of Tours, and other sources from their medieval context.

Irish tales contain a great many anachronisms and stories that are implausible for a pre-Christian society. It is essential to analyze them with a critical eye and sound methodology in order to extract useful information.

In this case, scythed chariots are voluntarily added to further enhance a supposed link between Ireland and the Near East. The Serians represent a conflation of the Syrians and the Seres (of Central Asia).

Edited 8 hours ago by Genava55

[Ultimate Aurelian]

6 hours ago, Genava55 said:

As Thalatta explained, Irish epic tales were significantly altered by external influences, in this case Christianization and the medieval historical tradition. For one thing, oral tradition is inherently timeless, oral narratives are constantly adapted to the changing realities of society. Consequently, these stories had almost certainly undergone changes before being fixed in writing. Furthermore, when monks committed the tales to writing, they adapted them even further, drawing inspiration from the Bible, the writings of Jordanes and Gregory of Tours, and other sources from their medieval context.

Irish tales contain a great many anachronisms and stories that are implausible for a pre-Christian society. It is essential to analyze them with a critical eye and sound methodology in order to extract useful information.

In this case, scythed chariots are voluntarily added to further enhance a supposed link between Ireland and the Near East. The Serians represent a conflation of the Syrians and the Seres (of Central Asia).

There are also mentions of bows and armor which IIRC are not really found in iron age Ireland.

I suppose chariots without scythes could still be included since there seems to be some evidence (even without finds of a whole chariot) .

[Genava55]

2 hours ago, Ultimate Aurelian said:

There are also mentions of bows and armor which IIRC are not really found in iron age Ireland.

Even though I love archaeology, we shouldn't treat it as the ultimate source of truth. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. For one thing, very few Iron Age graves have been discovered in Ireland, and what we do find inside is always subject to bias. We find bows and arrows in Celtic princely graves in Central Europe, but these are hunting weapons; objectively, we shouldn't interpret them as weapons of war.

The reason I support the Gauls having archers and not the Britons is simply because we have historical accounts of archers deployed in the battlefield for the Gauls. There is no such account for the Britons for our time period.

Edited 55 minutes ago by Genava55

[Ultimate Aurelian]

58 minutes ago, Genava55 said:

Even though I love archaeology, we shouldn't treat it as the ultimate source of truth. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. For one thing, very few Iron Age graves have been discovered in Ireland, and what we do find inside is always subject to bias. We find bows and arrows in Celtic princely graves in Central Europe, but these are hunting weapons; objectively, we shouldn't interpret them as weapons of war.

The reason I support the Gauls having archers and not the Britons is simply because we have historical accounts of archers deployed in the battlefield for the Gauls. There is no such account for the Britons for our time period.

In case of the Irish, archeology is perhaps the main source (due do the lack of Roman accounts and medieval epics not being very reliable).

Perhaps champion units could be distinguished from clothing, scabbards and jewelry.

Maybe a chance of having a horned headdress, but those might be better suited for heroes.

EB2 gave some of the Irish cavalry leather armor:

 

It's not entirely impossible they had leather/cloth armor that did not survive, although i'm not sure they would follow the same Gaulish style with shoulderpads (the leather armor of the Gauls seem to have been inspired by Greek examples).

Edited just now by Ultimate Aurelian

[Ultimate Aurelian]

On 29/09/2026 at 1:16 AM, Ultimate Aurelian said:

 

Cork horns (probably attached to a headdress)

 

Reconstructions

 

 

Drawing of similar horns from Runnabehy (ignore the helmet in the middle, it is Gaulish or Gallo-Roman)