Cernunnos is the conventional name given in Celtic studies to depictions of the "horned god" of Celtic polytheism. Over 50 examples of his imagery have been found from the Gallo-Roman period, mostly in north-eastern Gaul as well as among the Celtiberians. Cernunnos is depicted with antlers, seated cross-legged, and is associated with stags, horned serpents, dogs, bulls, and rats. He is usually holding or wearing a torc.
The Helvetii, anglicized as Helvetians, were a Celtic tribe or tribal confederation occupying most of the Swiss plateau at the time of their contact with the Roman Republic in the 1st century BC. According to Julius Caesar, the Helvetians were divided into four subgroups or pagi. Of these Caesar names only the Verbigeni and the Tigurini, while Posidonius mentions the Tigurini and the Tougeni (Τωυγενοί). They feature prominently in the Commentaries on the Gallic War, with their failed migration attempt to southwestern Gaul serving as a catalyst for Caesar's conquest of Gaul.
The Old Italic scripts are a number of similar ancient writing systems used in the Italian Peninsula between about 700 and 100 BC, for various languages spoken in that time and place. The most notable member is the Etruscan alphabet, which was the immediate ancestor of the Latin alphabet currently used by English and many other languages of the world. The runic alphabets used in northern Europe are believed to have been separately derived from one of these alphabets by the 2nd century AD.
Caturix was the war god of the Helvetii.
Ogmios was the Celtic deity of eloquence. He looked like an older version of Heracles who would use his powers of persuasion to bind men to himself.
In Celtic polytheism, Sirona was a goddess worshipped predominantly in East Central Gaul and along the Danubian limes. A healing deity, she was associated with healing springs; her attributes were snakes and eggs. She was sometimes depicted with Apollo Grannus or Apollo Borvo. She was particularly worshipped by the Treveri in the Moselle Valley.
Helvetia is the female national personification of Switzerland, officially Confoederatio Helvetica, the Swiss Confederation.
Lepontic is an ancient Alpine Celtic language that was spoken in parts of Rhaetia and Cisalpine Gaul between 550 and 100 BC. Lepontic is attested in inscriptions found in an area centered on Lugano, Switzerland, and including the Lake Como and Lake Maggiore areas of Italy.
The Celtic calendar is a compilation of pre-Christian Celtic systems of timekeeping, including the Gaulish Coligny calendar, used by Celtic countries to define the beginning and length of the day, the week, the month, the seasons, quarter days, and festivals.
The Praeneste fibula is a golden fibula or brooch, today housed in the Museo Preistorico Etnografico Luigi Pigorini in Rome. The fibula bears an inscription in Old Latin, claiming craftsmanship by one Manios and ownership by one Numazios. At the time of its discovery in the late nineteenth century, it was accepted as the earliest known specimen of the Latin language. The authenticity of the inscription has since been disputed. However a new analysis performed in 2011 declared it to be genuine "beyond any reasonable doubt" and to date from the Orientalizing period, in the first half of the seventh century BC.
Romandy is the French-speaking part of western Switzerland. In 2018, about 2.1 million people, or 25.1% of the Swiss population, lived in Romandy. The majority of the romand population lives in the western part of the country, especially the Arc Lémanique region along Lake Geneva, connecting Geneva, Vaud and the Lower Valais.
The Coligny calendar is a Gaulish peg calendar or parapegma made in Roman Gaul in the 2nd century, giving a five-year cycle of a lunisolar calendar with intercalary months. It is the most important evidence for the reconstruction of an ancient Celtic calendar. It is written in Latin inscriptional capitals and is in the Gaulish language. The restored tablet contains sixteen vertical columns, with 62 months distributed over five years.
Gobannus was a Gallo-Roman god, whose name, denoting "the smith", is normally taken to identify him as patron of smiths.
The Continental Celtic languages is the now-extinct branch of the Celtic languages that were spoken on the continent of Europe and in central Anatolia, as distinguished from the Insular Celtic languages of the British Isles, Ireland, and Brittany. Continental Celtic is a geographic, not a linguistic, grouping of the ancient Celtic languages.
Icovellauna was a Celtic goddess worshiped in Gaul. Her places of worship included an octagonal temple at Le Sablon in Metz, originally built over a spring, from which five inscriptions dedicated to her have been recovered, and Trier, where Icovellauna was honored in an inscription in the Altbachtal temple complex. Both of these places lie in the valley of the Moselle river of eastern Gaul in what are now Lorraine in France and Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany. One such inscription was, somewhat unusually, inscribed on a copper tablet in Roman cursive letters.
The term "Gallo-Roman" describes the Romanized culture of Gaul under the rule of the Roman Empire. This was characterized by the Gaulish adoption or adaptation of Roman culture, language, morals and way of life in a uniquely Gaulish context. The well-studied meld of cultures in Gaul gives historians a model against which to compare and contrast parallel developments of Romanization in other, less-studied Roman provinces.
Common Brittonic was a Celtic language spoken in Britain and Brittany. It is also variously known as Old Brittonic, British, and Common or Old Brythonic.
Gaulish was an ancient Celtic language that was spoken in parts of Continental Europe before and during the period of the Roman Empire. In the narrow sense, Gaulish was the language spoken by the Celtic inhabitants of Gaul. In a wider sense, it also comprises varieties of Celtic that were spoken across much of central Europe ("Noric"), parts of the Balkans, and Anatolia ("Galatian"), which are thought to have been closely related. The more divergent Lepontic of Northern Italy has also sometimes been subsumed under Gaulish.
Latin and Greek were the official languages of the Roman Empire, but other languages were important regionally. Latin was the original language of the Romans and remained the language of imperial administration, legislation, and the military throughout the classical period. In the West, it became the lingua franca and came to be used for even local administration of the cities including the law courts. After all freeborn inhabitants of the Empire were universally enfranchised in 212 AD, a great number of Roman citizens would have lacked Latin, though they were expected to acquire at least a token knowledge, and Latin remained a marker of "Romanness".
Moselle Romance is an extinct Gallo-Romance dialect that developed after the fall of the Roman Empire along the Moselle river in modern-day Germany, near the border with France. Despite heavy Germanic influence, it persisted in isolated pockets until the 11th century.
