ALTAR

Some of the southern Gaulish altars of the Roman-Celtic period are very small. The ones that have survived are made of stone, though it is possible some were wooden. This is reminiscent of the small, portable altars used by the early Christian missionaries, who may well have borrowed this practice from the pagan Celts.

The small altars have religious symbols carved on their fronts, such as a swastika or a wheel, to show dedication to the sun god or sky god. Some have an extra symbol, a palm branch or conifer, that may be a fertility symbol.

Larger altars have carved plinths and cornices, showing classical influence, and they too have a religious symbol or two carved on them.

The altar from Tresques in the Lower Rhone Valley is of particular interest in having a seven-spoked wheel on one side and a rosette with seven petals on the other. The circularity of the two symbols and the repetition of the division into seven suggest that they were connected in some way.

Another altar from the Rhone Valley shows signs that deliberate attempts were made to deface the religious symbols; this may have been the work of Christians.

Some altars were dedicated to two gods at once, such as Jupiter and Silvanus. An altar from Alesia shows a god seated on a throne that is carved with wheels; he is accompanied by an eagle.

Altars in the Rhineland and Britain were significantly different than the Gaulish altars. They were much more Roman in style, and this is a reflection of their military character; they were set up by the legions, who were bound to be more Romanized than the civilian communities of the Celtic west. One outstanding example is the altar found at Cologne. It has a very realistic carving of a wheel below a well-carved inscription to Jupiter.

The altars found along Hadrian’s Wall in the north of England are standard Roman military monuments in every way except that they bear a Celtic not a Roman religious symbol: the wheel.