Technologies of Enchantment? Exploring Celtic Art: 400 BC to AD 100 - Book Reviews - Final Review

Aug 28, 2026

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A critical book review of Technologies of Enchantment? Exploring Celtic Art: 400 BC to AD 100, assessing how a database of decorative metalwork and contextual, ontology-driven theory reshapes interpretations of Iron Age Celtic art in Britain. The review highlights key arguments about objects’ roles, methodological choices using contexts, distributions, and radiocarbon dating, and debates over dating, typology, and chronological gaps across the Roman conquest.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryExam

FormatPDF

Pages5

Reading Time13 min

AccessFree to download

Book Reviews

Scope and research aims

Theoretical framework and core questions

Data, methodology, and challenges

Bronze Age comparison and stylistic approaches

Chronology, radiocarbon options, and Roman transition

Life-cycle chapters and deposition focus

The Prehistoric Society Book Reviews TECHNOLOGIES O F ENCHANTMENT? EXPLORING CELTIC ART: 400 BC TO AD 100 BY DUNCAN GARROW AND CHRIS GOSDEN Oxford: Oxford University Press 2012. 376pp, 107 illus incl 30 B/W plates, 13 tables. ISBN 978-0-19-954806-4, hb, £84 Celtic art has long been a rather arcane sub-species of Iron Age studies, with international scope and importance, but poorly integrated into wider narratives – especially in Britain, where the burial groups so key to Continental social reconstructions are largely lacking. Recent years have seen various attempts to integrate the British art evidence into the archaeology of the Iron Age, and this volume presents the results of an AHRC-funded project which was conceived as a contextual study of Celtic art in Britain. The project has already had important outcomes – a very valuable set of conference proceedings (Garrow et al 2008) and a re-examination of dating evidence, including new radiocarbon dates (Garrow et al 2010) . Now this volume provides a stimulating study which sets fresh agendas in the field. Its material basis is a database of over 2500 pieces of decorative metalwork (made available online), using sensibly inclusive parameters – Garrow and Gosden note (p.55 & appendix 1) that barely 100 objects form the core of most studies, and their total has been greatly enhanced by both excavation and metal-detecting in recent years, demanding fresh study. Their intellectual basis is informed by wide reading in current archaeology and anthropology, and, has at its core, a concern with ontologies, which they define as the nature of being, and in particular the ways that Iron Age people saw and made the world, their perception of objects and the roles they played in this. Garrow and Gosden’s recurrent question is not what did art mean but what did objects do? How were they used and perceived and how did this change over time? They are firmly tied to current approaches to the Iron Age – a strongly contextual approach to interpretation, and a critique of concepts such as elites and individuality. Theirs is an Iron Age of dispersed communities making and re-making relationships – acts in which objects played a central role. Chapters 1 and 2 set out their theoretical stall, with valuable summaries of current trends in British Iron Age archaeology and approaches to Celtic art. Chapter 3 considers not only their practical methodology but also lays out the basic data in terms of contexts, dates and distributions in a series of bar charts and maps – although a few glitches may be noted. This reviewer was intrigued to note massive armlets from Roman forts and Romano-British settlements (Fig 3.8), for instance, as none are known, and while there is no sign of major problems here, future researchers should check the data before building on the detail. Garrow and Gosden stress what a wide-ranging phenomenon Celtic art is, covering these isles, thoughthis is only partly true, and the devil is in the detail: such decorative metalwork is all but unknown beyond the Great Glen, and rare in Devon and Cornwall, while the distributions of datable material by period are notably regional, as Garrow and Gosden note (Figs 3.11-12) . A number of key points are made in these early chapters. One is a telling comparison with the Bronze Age: a material culture based on quantity (repeated, essentially similar material) was replaced by one based on quality – fewer, more individual items. This contrast is seen also in styles: they rightly critique the typological approach, so successful in the Bronze Age, when applied to Celtic art.“Styles” refuse to behave in neat typological fashion, and they argue for amore accumulative approach, where new styles augmented rather than replaced older ones (supporting the arguments of Philip Macdonald 2007) . This may cause havoc with attempts to date objects by traditional art-historical methods, but their solution has been to look closely atthe association

FAQs

What central question does the reviewer emphasize from Garrow and Gosden’s approach?

The review stresses their recurring question of what objects do—how they were used, perceived, and how those roles changed over time.

How does the book’s evidence base support its study of Celtic art?

It relies on a large online database of over 2500 pieces of decorative metalwork, using inclusive parameters and emphasizing that most studies were previously based on far fewer objects.

What concerns does the reviewer raise about the book’s dating and data presentation?

The reviewer notes potential glitches in the data and argues that future researchers should verify details before building further interpretations, especially where unexpected items appear and where the late Iron Age gap remains less certain.

Aug 28, 2026

Upload by Finn