===[TASK]=== Differentiating Britons and Gauls

[Lion.Kanzen]

Is good very good mr Good. Hahaha.

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What is the helmet that have this gauls?

Edited September 26, 2013 by Lion.Kanzen

[LordGood]

Excellent! I'm not the best with props,

they confuse me

Brit_tower_barracks.zip

[LordGood]

You think we could get a Brythonic temple by the twelfth?

I figure if we can go all-out, why not? ahaha

[Mythos_Ruler]

You think we could get a Brythonic temple by the twelfth?

I figure if we can go all-out, why not? ahaha

What would you do to differentiate it from the Gallic one? Let's not make *everything* for the Brits round.

[LordGood]

well maybe perhaps a new structure, doesnt HAVE to be round
but that would be fun

the barracks roof I made was fun to make, but there arent a lot of other buildings that carry posts out of the thatch. Maybe something with that?

[Ansuz]

I've found the reconstruction of the Corent Oppidum on this website :

http://com.cg63.fr/com/Corent/

This is maybe "Nemossos", capital of the Arvens

It's in French, but the most interesting things are the views...

English / French

Sanctuary = Sanctuaire

Market = Marché

Habitations = Habitations

Crossroad = Croisement

Also for the Wonder I suggest the Sanctuary/Trophy of Ribemont-sur-Ancre ! After a famous battle between two gallics faction, the winners choose to build two trophy (that why I think it fits perfectly). One for them and another dedicated to their opponent. We can just take one of these.

I'm seeking for some picture right now.

The corpses of the losers (without the head) were put on a platform, in 4 or 5 rows. In arms. Waiting to be eat by the vultures (like the persians they think that their souls have to be brought in the air). After that the long bones were put in 4 cubic ossuary covered with dir and cob (1.60 meters of hight !! Thousand of bones !). These ossuary were drilled on the top, and the hole reach the ground. In the hole, a lot of crushed bones for the chtonics divinities.

The rectangular enclosure is dedicated for the god, they burn the bones of the losers in the ossuary. The circular enclosure is for the casualties of the winners, there they put the corpse of the winners in the ditch, its also for the vultures.

Edited October 21, 2013 by Ansuz

[Rodmar]

I'd like to support and complement Ansuz's post.

The current artwork is really really pretty good as compared as what we find on the Internet.

But you should really check the official website about the Corrent oppidum.

I-) The Corrent Oppidum (Arverni): Gauls (Cèltes)

http://com.cg63.fr/com/Corent/
(official website from the Puy-de-Dôme department (code 63))

I translated the text of the 3D recreation into English (forgive some barbarisms and when I wrong the tenses!).

See also the research website in English:
http://www.luern.fr/index.php?mod=homepage&act=welcome

Circa 70 hectares (0.7 square kilometer)
Ideas for housing, temple, painted coatings

• The crossroads:

In the city's very heart, at the crossing of two alleys, this place is a junction between the sanctuary, in front of which a great esplanade lies, the housing and the market square.

From north, clockwise:

• Alleys:

Center-town is structured by alleys and streets. With a width of 5-6m, they allow for circulation between buildings.

They are cleaned on a regular basis. Shortly before the oppidum's evacuation, some of them are completed with a stone gutter to drain rain and used water away.

• Cistern:

Wells and cisterns, used to collect and store water are the only Gallic building made out of stone (except the city walls). Corrent's cistern is made with close-fitting volcanic stone facings.
Its location and dimension argues in favor of a public use. A 6 cubic meter capacity, it was used to store rain water, in complement to natural springs, out of the city.

• Esplanade:

At the oppidum center, the space in front of the sanctuary's entrance is characterized by the total absence of buildings. It corresponds to a 50m long, paved area, totalizing 2,500 square meters. [The wiki page speaks about an area twice as large as the sanctuary, to a total of 4,000 square meters]
Obviously, this is a result of a public agreement. This central square allows for religious, political or commercial crowd gathering.

• Amphoras:

Even when amphorae are found in mass on some Gaulish archaeological delves, they do not sign a common consumable.
The exotic Tyrrhenian wine comes from across the sea and is transported by river barges (smoother travel for an amphora), then by chariots.
It is sold a hefty price by Roman merchants.

• Painted coating:

This rendering is purely speculative. Only red coating fragments were found, along with raw Egyptian blue pigments.
The motives evocate the Arverni pottery's and some vestigial painted coatings still visible in a few farms in central and northern France.

• Trophy:

This military trophy, a wooden mannequin with real armament, commemorates some past victory. I will be destroyed and buried in some symbolic ritual when the sanctuary is abandoned.
The reconstituted trophy uses metallic items found directly below the sanctuary's wall.
In a space as small as 1 square meter were found: a complete mail (perfectly preserved), two couples of shields (that is four umbos and one handle in iron),
a metal plate from a sword sheath, and the bronze crest of a boar ensign. The umbos bears marks from the trophy's ritual dismantlement: torsion, perforation and cutting by an iron scissor.

[it is the only trophy found, and it is because this habit had disappeared in the area at the time the sanctuary was redesigned, in the early 1st century B.C.]

• Building A:

The main building north to the sanctuary is build around a large courtyard closed by a wooden fence.
To the east, the entry porch is build with mighty posts. At this place and on the court's ground are found many items such as:
armament pieces, banquet wares, human skull and tools, that point this building out as linked to the nearby sanctuary; a meeting or ceremonial place or even the priests' housing.

• The sanctuary:

At the beginning of the 1st century B.C. [in 80 B.C.], the sanctuary was completed with a large portico directly inspired by Greco-roman sanctuaries.
Its covered gallery and central yard witness sacrifices, banquets and libations offered to the gods by the aristocracy.
Maybe this can be linked to the Poseidonos' relation of Luernos, king of the Arverni's famous banquets.

[Maybe, there were trophies at first, but already, this warlike habit was declining in Central and Southern Gaul, so there only remained those feast sacrifices]
The complex was a 60m square.

Outdoor, from west, clockwise:

• The butchery pergola:

In front if the entrance, this wooden structure decorated with animal skulls is used to hang and burn (cook) sacrificed animals.

• The colonnade:

This mighty wooden post structure is closed to the Greco-roman architecture, and use Greek standard.

• Iron cauldron:

More than a cooking tool, it's a symbol, so strong many are found in aristocratic graves.

• Jaw garlands:

Those mutton jaws are hung on the religious buildings' walls in a testimony of the number of animals sacrificed and eaten during the banquets.

• Wine vats:

Four pits are dug at the sanctuary's entrance, clad in wood and surrounded with amphorae. Like in other cultures, such pits are destined to receive offerings to chtonian divinities.

• The pen:

In a corner, a pen keep ready the animal in store for sacrifice.

Indoor, from west, clockwise:

• Preparation for banquet:

The feast is directly prepared in the kitchen under the portico.
Meat is grilled, hung by iron hooks, or boiled in earthenware or large iron cauldrons.
Other food that are stored and processed under the portico are: fish, backery, etc.

• Sacrifice (ESRB-12):

As in other ancient civilizations, animal sacrifice is THE religious act.
The throat cut with a large knife made of iron or bronze, one chosen animal (mutton, sheep, pig, cow) is consecrated to the divinity.
Its blood is collected and then poured in a pit, as an offering to chtonian divinities.
Wastes (head, legs) are also offered: skulls and jaws are hung on the buildings and allow to count the number of sacrifices.
Noble pieces of meat are taken away to be processed and eaten by the faithful during the banquet.

• The monetary workshop:

(...)

• The amphorae slashing:

A costly drink imported from Italia by several hundred thousands of liters, wine comes to the sanctuary in great quantity.
The amphorae used for the travel are "popped" out with a sword and the spilled wine is then not unrelated to the blood spilled during a sacrifice.
It is then poured in small wooden vats dug in the ground (not unlike barrels). Part of the liquid is naturally and symbolically "drunk" by the earth, while the other part
is consumed during the banquet in a shared vessel.

• The housing:

In the neighborhood of the sanctuary, the public esplanade and the marketplace are several housing blocks.
One housing is often one main building, a courtyard and annexes (pen, cistern, dryer, granary, harvest store, small workshops, lean-to...).
So far, ten such units or so have been found. This regular city street map originates from the city foundation (no changes).
These units' plans show a mere transposition into the city of the rural housing model.

• Courtyard:

The ground is hard-clay, often cleaned. Solid- or wattle-fence separates it from the city alleys.

• Domestic architecture:

The housing is a large main building, which superficy may reach several hundreds square meters.
Posts and beams are used, linked by earth walls. Red painted coatings are used.
The whole is sturdy enough to get an upper floor.
As early as the 80s B.C., Greco-roman architectural elements are borrowed: paved indoor floor, tile roof, entry porch.

• Indoors:

Rooms are quite spacious and adorned with painted coatings. Wooden furnitures only left prints on the ground and iron hinges.
At least one hearth provides light, heat and a cooking mean.
Small craft is usually made at home (such as milling the every day flour, spinning and every-day cloth making).

• The cellar:

Pits are dug deeply beneath the housing. Clad in wood, with small staircase, the provide a constant temperature storage place for food near the kitchen.
In one of them a human skull was found, that evocates the aristocratic habit to keep the head of vanquished foes in wooden crates.

• Dryer or granary:

Around the houses are several dryers or granaries used to store hay, grains, and other food.
Their only remains are four pots holes.

• The market:

In the heart of the city, several workshops and tradeshops are arranged around a large square.
Here one can buys meat, wine, jewels and other wares, most of them being produced in situ.
This craftsman and commercial complex is made out of four large halls build jointly and forming a 130 square meters central yard.
In those buildings are the workshops and they are completed by outdoor light porticoes.
This particular layout, so far unknown in Gallic delves, links to the Roman market (macellum) and its shops (tabernae).

• Workshops:

The building are like 20 meters long, large market halls, and are divided into several spaces by partition walls and locked doors.
They were workshops for the butcher, leather-worker, bronze-smelter, metal and bone jewelers, joiner...

• Yard:

The ground is paved with packed gravel (with a beam-like tool).
Here were found hundreds of bronze and silver Arverni coins, as well as coins from other parts in Gaul and the Mediterranean.
A vast number of cooked earth tokens were used for accountancy.

• Shops:

A long the building, on the yard's side, light porticoes provide a shelter against sun and rain to the merchants.
Their ground concentrates most of the coins and tokens, as well as remnants from beam balances (beams, weights).
For some of them, the sold wares correspond to the ones fabricated in the nearby workshop.

• The bronze-smelter workshop:

(not translated)

• The joiner workshop:

(not translated)

• The butchery:

(not translated)

• The tavern:

An atypical building lies near the market. It's a large 20m long hall build on top of a narrow cellar of the same length.
This feature is unheard so far in the Gallic world. The cellar was filled in at the same time the building crumbled.

• The cellar:

On the ground more than 5 tons of crushed italian wine amphoras were found, along with tokens and coins.
A full gallic ceramic wine set (a large vase, jugs, tumblers, bowls) and bronze italian dishes prove that wine is also drunk in the cellar.

Comments:

As you can see the Celtic temple in-game is really well designed and very similar to the Corrent sanctuary.

The Arverni tribe and federation is in contact with Mediterranean world since maybe as early as the 3th century B.C. and it could probably represent what the Central and Southern Gauls could be: on their way towards urbanization.

-168 Rise of the Arverni hegemony (read cultural, political and military supremacy, not empire!) in southern and central Gaul. They would control trade with the Greek and the Iberian.
-121 End of the Arverni hegemony, with their failure to oppose the Roman invasion of what would become the Provincia. Recognized as a "brother people" by the Senate, the Roman-allied Aeduan begin to grow as the next hegemonic federation.

The sanctuary is the first building build in the later quarter of the 2nd century B.C., maybe due to the abandon of a former capital in front of the Cimbri invasion. Until 80 B.C. and its "hellenization" (portico, stone foundations,etc.), it was surrounded by a typically ditch+fence/wall on the bottom. The city seems to have been organized around it. It is now deemed as being the Arverni capital city until the Gallic War, and thus, Strabo's Nemossos (Luernos' capital), and Werkingetorix birthplace.

Just before the Gallic War, or at its beginning, the political power seems to shift to Gergovia.

After the Gallic War, a new capital is founded in Augustonemetum in 30 B.C., Gergovia is abandoned, and only the sanctuary in Corrent remains in activity for 3 more centuries.

Given that the Arverni had 3 oppida grouped into a tiny 7 km x 7 km area, inhabited at roughly the same periode (late La Tène, Gallic War), some authors think that it could be a huge urbanized complex with a religious center (Corrent), an economic center (Gondole), a military center (Gergovia) an in between, monumental (paved) linking roads and loose housings/farms. Caesar would have thus camped inside Nemossos, facing the city's citadel, known as Gergovia!

[Rodmar]

Now, on the Belgians, always looking for pictures, models, texture ideas...

II-) A Gallic village (Remi): Gauls (Belgians)

http://www.gaulois.ardennes.culture.fr/en#/en/annexe/intro/t=Introduction

This 20 hectares village was integraly dwelves, which is quite rare.
Click on the upper right image to start the virtual visit in English.

This website is awesome and contains plans (post holes), drafts and rendering.
For the hurry, here's the 3D plan:

The non-flash version, more convenient in my opinion, is in French only, sadly.

Translation of the village's foundation:

Around 180 A.D., like in other places in the area, a human group settles on the plateau, 40 m higher than the nearby Aisne river (celt. Axonna) meander.
The site was abandoned since 400 A.D. All the surrounding area seems depopulated (or at least its inhabitants dispersed in small communities) and this could be linked with the expedition into Italia.
The necropolis' biggest Bronze Age tumulus, surrounded by a 20 meters diameter circular ditch, is preserved and isolated; a grove is kept here and an ancestor cult is set on.
On the highest place, lies the communitarian square, completely fenced, lined by the religious complex on the west (the several 2-floor buildings in the 3D visit).
Its only entrance, on the south is materialized by a ten meters long fenced path that penetrates the square until a small grove.
The square is 3,500 square meters, enough to round a thousand of people up, even if the village's population never reached that number.
Now that the social and religious complex is set, the area can be geometrically organized around three vast, one hectare, rectangular yards.
Around each yards, temporary houses are build at first (4 circular raw pot holes each), and then replaced by solid housings (houses and annexes) (several squared pot holes), those plots divide the initial space.
(a bit like we would do in modern days).
The division into plots shows a very hierarchic society. For example, the craftsmen plots are identical, and the "nearly" the same buildings are build on each of them.
A housing (or domestic unit) is typically made of a large building (45 m2) with a round end (apse), two rectangular smaller buildings (9 and 13 m2), two buildings with 2 apses (17 m2 in total) (nearly circular), one granary and one pit.

In the same website, a large sacred site, dated from the 2nd century:

To keep with Gallic sanctuaries, it was used to see the fanum as a Gallo-Roman temple, but this was because stone fana were first found.
Firstly, their plan doesn't fit with Greco-Roman temples (no pronaos, square form);
Secondly, nowadays, several older wooden temples are found beneath Gallo-Roman temples.

[Rodmar]

III-) Gallic noble estates: Gauls (Belgians)

http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/aerien/imgs/12017.jpg

When Caesar uses the word "aedificia" for such isolated, country noble estates, whereas he could had used
"tugurium" (hut) or "casa" (single house), it seems that they are sophisticated housings. They laid "amidst the wood to protect against summer heat", but that more probably means behind tree hedges.
It happens that such housings or derivatives were still in use in some place by the 20th century in northern France.
In short, the land just outside the buildings was divided and arranged into lots, whith a "courtil" or farmyard, and a "plant", maybe for vegetables, fruits and medium herd. The division were materialized by tree hedges which supplied further resources. Such estates would support horse(s) and henchmen.

Here are 3 pictures from a model.

I din't find pictures about the:

3rd/2nd century B.C. aristocratic estate (lat. Aedificia) at Monmartin (now Picardy).

A rich domain that could be characteristic of what Caesar calls the "Equites" warrior class.
Several buildings, a private fanum with enclosure, a public square (in which corpses were prepared).
From a research report (extract):

Ceramic:
Dishes from La Tène C2 to beginning of La Tène D1.(200-100 B.C.)
A few italian amphorae: poor trade relations with the Mediterranean.

Animal remains:
Dog and pig are treated the same in the housing.
From the final La Tène on, great horses are imported from the Mediterranean world.
Some horse remains witness hippophagia.

Other:
No coins, hence the last occupation should be around 100 B.C.

The sacred enclosure:
Large empty space, beamed fence, ditch that receive the wastes but also ritually destroyed armament, human prepared remains, and what fell from the wall when the whole was destroyed by fire.
Altar-pit (a pit in which sacrificed animals are thrown and led to rot).

[sanderd17]

Some reconstructions of buildings (from the first settlements in the region to the Gallo-Roman period): http://www.archeosite.be/reconstitutions.php?lang=en

I think the Gallic buildings in game are rather good.

[Rodmar]

An idea for the Gallic Wonder: the Sanctuary.

IV-) Gallic sanctuaries: Gauls (Belgian)

Since the 1970s, the modern vision of the Gallic religion has radically changed.
Formerly only known from the Roman point of view (Caesar, Pliny, Lucanus),
it was a matter of secret rituals performed in some deep primal forest, wild animals and human sacrifices.
No places of worship near the towns.
Paradoxally, Caesar, Diodorus and Strabo tell about "sacred enclosures", "temples", "propylea".

IV-1) Sanctuary of Gournay-sur-Arondes (Bellovaci):

http://www.gournaysuraronde.com/histoire.html

Dated from the 3rd century B.C., probably the 280s, build over a smaller Second Iron Age fortified sacred enclosure.
The Bellovaci, upon their arrival in the area and subsequent settlement, will re-use an old worshiping place from the Second Iron Age.
A hypothesis is that when the Bellovaci decided to settle, they were already charged with the remains of those they had fought against to come here.
They now would honor their chtonian God of War (and Hell) with a large founding sanctuary.

The Gournay-sur-Aronde's finding revolutionized the way archaeologists thought Gallic (and Celtic) "temples".

It gave the basic elements of a Gallic sanctuary, that now are found "everywhere" in the forest-free, few inhabited, open plains of Northern France and Belgium, thanks to aerial photography.

• The enclosure

The solid fence, made out of wood and cob, is to duly separate the sacred ground, the property of a given divinity, from the mundane world.

The Greek called this the temenos
A ditch reinforces the symbolic and physical separation.

• The porch

The entrance faces outwards east the rising sun at Summer Day.
An ornate porch and a bridge would act as a ritual vestibule.
Given it has 8 plots, an upper "floor" and a roof, it could really be the Strabo's propylea, instead of the later Gallo-Roman gallery fanum.
On it, several hundreds of arms, as well as human and cattle skulls were found.

• The altar

At first, the inner area is free of any building, except the altar pit (that is, the altar is the pit).
During the 2nd century B.C., a building is build over it, a simple roof and nine plots (maybe walls between the plots?).
The inner area was used for ceremonies and banquets.

• The grove

Near the altar, an artificial (grown) grove of trees and shrubs represents the divinity.

Pre-Roman Celts don't represent their gods with anthropomorphic figures.
Neither statues nor icons are found. The "nemeton" (fucus) or sacred grove is both the temporary residence
and the visiting room of the divinity, and something material the faithful could easily conceive and approach.

The findings:

• The trophies

During a century and a half, more than 300 complete warrior panoplies are laid down, for a total of 2,000 weapons.
The panoplies were hung to the entry porch or to the enclosure walls, until they fell down, because of corrosion, and that could take many tens of years.
Then they would be ritually broken and thrown away in the surrounding ditch.

• The sacrifices

The animal sacrifices were two kind:
- the commensal one (feast, as in town temples); note that like the Greek and the Roman, they only offered herd animals, not wild ones, because the wild ones would already belong to the divinities (it's a few percents at most).
- the chtonian cult: far more uncommon (the Greeks used it too, cf. "Zeus O'the many flies", and also the early Romans). Cattle (Bulls, cows and oxes in equal parts) were offered in their whole. Their blood quenched the ground and they were left to rot in an open pit near the altar, and that could take 6-8 month. At least 50 cattle were slain for this purpose.

Nowadays, we know that the Gournay-sur-Aronde sanctuary belongs to the most important cult centers and sanctuaries in Gaul and those possibly structured the territory.

One may ask why it was carefully closed at the end of the 2nd century B.C.
It is probably because of the first Germanic invasion, such as the Cimbri invasion.
The Bellovaci are the only Gauls to be successful in their resistance to the invader. But there might have been a price, such as a territorial shift.
A few decade later, a new sanctuary opened 6 km south from Gournay. After the Gallic War, the sanctuary reopened but on a smaller scale and without its warlike character. A small Gallo-Roman temple was then build and used until the 5th century.

IV-2) Sanctuary of Ribemont-sur-Ancre (Ambiani):

http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/aerien/fr/decou3-pg9.html
Maybe one of the largest in Gaul: a complex plan (terraces, houses, therms, theater... sanctuary), 800m long, this site is known from the 1960s, and considered at first as a large Gallo-Roman villa (farm estate).
http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/aerien/imgs/4067-a.jpg
The sanctuary proper is as complex as a villa.

But in the last 20 years, delves have revealed... many, many prepared corpses. As the site is not wholly studied yet, some numbers are extrapolations (as when you delves 12m of a 40m ditch).

Like in Central Asia, fallen enemies were buried to feed the gods, while the heroes were left to the carrion feeder (birds) and rotting in the open so that their soul could quickly go to the sky... (to correct Ansuz's assertion, above)

Here is the site map (see also Ansuz'z picture).

You see the inner square sanctuary to the vanquished, then the large trapezoidal esplanade at the center of which lies a smaller circular sanctuary, probably to the victor themselves.

This is currently the largest Celtic trophy-sanctuary known in Europe.

Description:

• The sanctuary to the vanquished

The usual square enclosure (fenced and ditched), porch and altar, and maybe a grove.

This drawing represents the porch as it could have been.

60 beheaded corpses were found with weapons, and their posture suggests they could have fallen from a height, such as the porch's wooden upper floor where they were hung in display.

Several odd ossuaries are also found, they are the cubic dots on the map.

Outside the enclosure, and in the ditch, several deposits and a path made of swords lead to a "mass grave" or maybe another ossuary.

• The ossuary

The main ossuary: weapons and 2000 sorted bones: 501 femurs, 246 humerus, iliac bones
5-6m diameter../ the remain of a 1,6mx1,6m cubic ossuary made out of walls of woven long bones and floors made out of coxal bones.
At the center, a vertical 3m long, 1 foot diameter post was buried 90 cm into the ground.
The inner cavity was filled with charred bones from human (and some horse) members.
The armament's typology allow a quite precise date. The weapons could have been placed on top of the ossuary.

• The esplanade

Trapezoidal in shape, 1 square kilometer, enclosed by a fence.

• The sanctuary to the victor

Circular in shape, and probably ditched with a high fence at its bottom. This would isolate the 30 corpses of the Ambiani heroes who were left to rot on the ground and to the carrion birds. This is suggested by the fact that the corpses were not prepared the same, and that their armament was different.

Related translations:

Context: what happened?

In the 3rd Century, war is very important among the Gauls and even more among the Belgian, a new warlike people that is considered to have notice-ably settled northern Gaul around 280 B.C.

Northern Gaul is less densely inhabited than central and southern Gaul, and it's maybe because they only were Bronze and Early Iron communities, more or less celticized (Culture of the charioteers). The newcomers suddenly exhibit more settlements, more necropolis, use cremation and build sanctuaries. They came in waves rather than as a huge migration.

The economy was mainly centered on the war (how to forge weapon, how to feed horses).
In 260 B.C., one of the greatest battles in Gaul was fought between the Belgian Ambiani and Armoricans.

The Ambiani came from the Rhine valley between the 4th and the 2nd century B.C. in several waves. But as they went closer to the Channel coast-land, they may have disorganized the local trade routes and the nearby Kéltes looked upon them. Strabo tells that the Armorican tribes had a monopoly over trade and transport across the Channel. According to the gold coins found in Ribemont, either the Lexovii or the Cenomanni (or both) marched north to defend their commercial interest. At least 650 of their fallen spearmen (and some horsemen) were brought to and ritually prepared at the sanctuary the Ambioni built to celebrate their crushing victory. This is the most important mass grave from this period found in Europe ever. Remember also that "Ar-mor" means "land by the sea" and that could apply also to the Channel coastal area.

In the 30s B.C., Gallo-Roman Ambiani cleaned the site and build a richly decorated temple (fanum), which will be enlarged (colonnades, porticos) in the following centuries.

About prepared corpses:

No skulls (and jaws and teeth) at all: they must have been personal trophies taken on the battle field and brought back to home, as it is now well known.
Mean data about the vanquished: 1m74 tall, young and muscular men. They should be well trained warrior.
A few pubescent boys (13-14 years) and pre-pubescent ones (10-12 years), the later seeming odd in such a place.
These could have been led to battle by their father, as was not unusual in such cultures.

The Gauls considered that the warrior (enemy and friend alike) was favored by the gods and thus sacred.
Violent death on the battle field was a door opened to the paradise or the reincarnation. This explains why the Celts did not bury nor incinerate their dead warriors, but had rather them left to the carrion birds. (only the other dead were buried/incinerated).
This horrified the Greek out of disgust.

But maybe the enemy should be denied the possibility to return and haunt the living, and be reserved a special ritual (at least, symbolically for a few of them).

The preparation of the enemy could have been the following: the corpses are first laid on the ground just enough time for the articulations to become easy to separate.
Then they are dismembered and fleshed out for their long bones and iliac/coxal bones. Some ritually repeated strikes on the femur bones are spotted, but it's not sure whether this does only mean that a leg is relatively difficult to cut off when you are an unexperienced druid.

The Gauls, the prisoners and human sacrifice

What prisoners? The Gauls are not known to take war prisoners until the early 1st century B.C.: they are killed on the battle field or the living are sacrificed because they belong to the divinity not to the tribe, as do their weapons which aren't looted at that time.

A report from the Galatian Expedition:
A Hellenistic force was defeated. And killed to the last man. Basic troops where shot down with bow, maybe a shameful death? The best ones (the officer?) were sacrificed: Greek witnesses report it as if they had been throat cut and burnt (hekatomb?). The Galatian were Gauls coming from Gallia Cisalpina, and maybe Transalpina (southern Gaul).

By the end of the 2nd century B.C. however, the central and southern Gauls may have gradually abandoned the ritual of the Trophy, as their society got "peaceful" and replaced sacrifice of dead enemies (or living war prisoners) by capital executions of criminals (such as burning them in wicker cages), even if those acts of justice were most certainly still ritualized, the judges being the druids too.

IV-3) Sanctuary in Mormont (Helvetii)

Discovered by chance in Switzerland in 2008 on a terrace 30m below the top of a natural, unsearched "oppidum".
http://www.artehis-cnrs.fr/IMG/pdf/mormont_plaquette.pdf
(in French, but there are pictures)
Dated 100 B.C. by metal items and dendro-chronology, occupied during 2-3 decades at most.
This could rather be a place of cult instead of a "sanctuary".
It coincides with the Cimbri invasion and maybe a tsunami on the Neuchatel lake (as suggested by sedimentary studies).

Offerings:

Many bronze, iron and wooden tools and furnitures, clothes and animal remains, all burried in cylindrical, 0,8-2m wide, 0,8-6m deep pits.
Human remains either complete (as if burried) or prepared (incomplete, dispersed).
No weapons: not a Trophy. Iron hindrances: slaves ?
Maybe evidences of ritual butchery and cooking performed on human corpses.

What is spectacular here, compared to the whole Celtic civilization, and even beyond, is:
the mass of the furnitures offered, the number and diversity of the animals sacrificed, and overall, the seemingly narrow time windows the site was used.

[Rodmar]

Yes, all in all, I think that the building style could graduate in complexity from: Germans > Britons > (Belgians) > Gauls.

It looks like the Belgians were a few decades (a century) late compared to the other Gauls, including in warfare (and thus more fierce), but the 1st century Belgians were still able to conquer part of Britain.

It's out of topic, but I'd give the Germans First Age building style (semi underground houses, etc.)

Also, as a final note about the sanctuaries, I'd like to notice that very [few] swords were found in the Ribemont sanctuary, as if the vast majority of Armoricans were armed with spears.

Edited December 7, 2013 by Rodmar

[rastrapies]

What is about including some ítems from acropolis Roquepertuse for Gauls wonder? It would be like a Great Sanctuary

[Stan`]

We decided to go for another building see https://wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?/topic/19465-suggestions-for-the-gauls/

[wackyserious]

WIP

128 x 128 Textures - Derived/created from the dude.psd art source

What do you guys think?

[Lion.Kanzen]

The shield is very good one.

[wackyserious]

Photo-stitched 0AD unit skins (Texture files included below)

Front (Custom player colors) Back (Default 0AD player colors)

No cape prop

Zoomed-out

.PNG files

Spoiler

 

[wackyserious]

A more Northern-looking (Belgae?) Celts (Long-sleeved clothing that extends down, just above the knee)

Edited March 26, 2016 by wackyserious

[wackyserious]

Celtic Linothorax WIP, as suggested on this thread

Tunic = transparency (I used object_color below)

Edited May 11, 2016 by wackyserious

[sanderd17]

Note that Enrique is working on new units. So I wonder if editing the Celtic units is worth something now (apart from giving some inspiration).

[Stan`]

Texture space stays the same, so old textures are new meshes compatible

[wackyserious]

0AD standard unit texture size still remains 128x128 for units, right?

I'm posting it here so that if the art team approves it, I can provide them the .png and source files.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

256x256 for unit

[wackyserious]

More ideas, Gallic slingers

Basic = Undyed clothing

Advanced = Dyed clothing + Shield

Elite = Dyed clothing + Shield + Cape

[wackyserious]

The Britons will use the current slinger actor file, while the Gauls can have something similar to the image above.