Iron Age Britain

Celtic Art

Iron Age, c. 300 BC, Hammersmith, London, England.

'In the third century BC, dragon-pairs appear on scabbards across Celtic Europe as far east as Romania.'

'Interconnecting spiral designs running up the length of a Celtic Iron Age scabbard sometimes end in a pair of snakes’ heads, or dragons’ heads,' said Quintin. 'This one, for example, was found in river deposits near the River Thames at Hammersmith in London in the nineteenth century. It dates to the third or fourth century BC.' He passed Miranda a sheet of paper he had just taken from the printer.

'Conservation work has done wonders in bringing out the detail. I’ve scanned a line drawing of the reconstruction work into the computer, vectorised it and made the snake design look like a sort of ornamental replica. Some dragons are little more than an 'S' with an eye and an ear,' read Quintin, 'or so it says in this beautifully illustrated British Museum publication: In the third century BC, dragon-pairs appear on scabbards across Celtic Europe as far east as Romania.

Stead, Ian, 1985 reprinted 1996. Celtic Art: In Britain before the Roman Conquest. The British Museum Press.

Image redrawn from: Stead, Ian, 1985 reprinted 1996. Celtic Art: In Britain before the Roman Conquest. The British Museum Press. Art Styles, p 28. Upper part of an iron scabbard with dragon-pair ornament, from Hammersmith [River Thames, London]. Width of scabbard 51mm.

See for yourself

La Tène culture – Wikipedia

British Iron Age – Wikipedia

Celtic Art – British Museum Publication by Ian Stead, beautifully illustrated, unfortunately not now available from the British Museum website but well worth obtaining if you can