Well, indeed my first stage appearance as a student at Edinburgh was as
Banquo and Ruth and I now feel somethiing like unwanted guests at the
(un)Celtic feast.
Like Sara Champion, we have been 'off-line' for some considerable time. We
were allerted to the present old/new debate by one of our post-graduate
students and frankly nothing we have read encourages us to sign back on.
We have done our stint in drawing fire from both the 'pro' and 'anti' sides
of the debate and, as Simon James wrote to us after our 1998 ANTIQUITY
end-note, 'We will have to agree to differ'. And so we do; we are
delighted for Simon's bank balance to hear that 'The Atlantic Celts' is
selling like the poverbial Scottish bannocks; but then we have a sneaking
suspicion that ANY book with a half-decent cover and the word 'Celt' in the
title would so do.
We are truly sorry to see how the discussion is becoming even more
polarised than it was a couple of years ago - 'we' and 'you' seem to appear
in every line and 'of course' is the standard opening/closing phrase.
However, we note, now as before, that there is still no clear evidence of
the real pros and cons having been taken into account as admirably
presented by Patrick Sims-Williams in his revision of the critique which
formed the basis of his 1996 Aberystwyth Inaugural Lecture as Professor of
Celtic Studies ('Celtomania and Celtoscepticism' = Cambrian Ned. Celtic
Stud. 36, 1998, 1-35). Sims-Williams concludes:
'. . . We have Celtic language and Celtic ethnicity, which . . . often go
thegether, and also Celtic archaeology and Celtic art, which must be placed
further off. All these uses of "Celtic" have some historical valaidity and
are far too useful to abandon.'
May we humbly suggest that, as far as this Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum
battle goes, everyone goes off-line if only so that a few at least might be
confronted by the true issues and real evidence. Until then, as we
contemplate returning to live in a new almost- independent Scotland, we
shall disappear . . . like Banquo's ghost.
Vincent (and Ruth) Megaw
Professor J. V. S. Megaw MA DLitt FAHA FSA FRAI MIFA
Head
Department of Archaeology
Flinders University
GPO Box 2100
Adelaide 5001, S.Australia
Phone: + 61 8 8 201 2593
Fax: + 61 8 8 201 3845
See Archaeology at Flinders on our website at
http://adminwww.flinders.edu.au/Archaeology/Home.html
or
http://www.cc.flinders.edu.au/Archaeology/
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