What Were the Early Influences on Celtic Art?
What Was the First Style of Celtic Art? The earliest true Celtic idiom in the area of arts and crafts was the Hallstatt culture. This derived from the type-site situated in Salzkammergat (a salt mine region), near the village of Halstaat in Austria, and lasted from roughly 800 to 475 BCE. Although centred around Austria, the Hallstatt culture spread across central Europe, divided into two zones: an eastern zone encompassing Slovakia, Western Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria and the Czech Republic; and a western zone which included Southern Germany, Switzerland, Northern Italy, and Eastern France. The Hallstatt culture was founded on its lucrative European-wide trade in salt, and iron implements, and its prosperity was fully reflected in the burial sites of its chieftains and wealthy nobility, which contained huge quantities of finely crafted artifacts, jewellery, pottery, tools and other objects.
