Explaining the Celt

I’ve had to stop translating for a while to check all the information contained in that document.  I’ve spent days checking histories of Gaul and as far as I can tell, everything related by Cuchulain is true.  The Celts really did have an empire that ruled most of Europe long before the Romans.  To my huge surprise, they really did conquer Rome, around 360 BC and were punished for it in 295 BC when Rome destroyed their city of Senones and began a pogrom to systematically destroy the Celtic nation.  This means we have a dateline.  The Celt claimed 400 years ago, which would put their tavern conversation around the year 30 AD.  Not an exact date, but we’re definitely in the right century. 

He claims his name is Cuchulain, which is the name of an ancient Irish Celtic hero from the year 200 BC.  He refers to Hannibal and Spartacus and those dates match.  His tale of the fall and fate of Carthage has been well known and well documented for years.

This treasure trove of scrolls is becoming more and more important with every text I translate.  It’s opening up the first century and times before like nothing else has ever done.  It’s telling us that they knew much more about their history and heritage than we’d ever believed possible.  The Celt’s recollections cover more than a millennium of his own history.  He even talks of the ancient traders of Briton and Iberia, which is the old name for Spain.  Surely those can only be the Beaker Traders!  How they managed to keep that depth of memory alive for more than a thousand years is astounding.  These scrolls could confirm or refute the hundreds of theories proposed about the centuries and cultures before Christ was born.

The way he mentions Alexander and being there when they built the city confirms they’re in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, at the mouth of the Nile.  But who are they and what are they doing there?  Yoshai sounds like a Jewish name.  He sounds like a fairly young man.  Was he a merchant, a priest, maybe a scribe?  Who is she?  Her demeanor and education seem to be Jewish, but with an odd, almost cosmopolitan attitude mixed in.  Hopefully the rest of the scrolls will explain.

Hey, I’ve just realized!  We have an exact date!  The Celt said “with Vircingetorix at Alesia, only 72 years ago.”  His other dates seem to be using the Roman calendar, AUC, which means ‘ab urbe condita’, dating zero from the foundation of Rome, though that still leaves us a bit fuzzy.  Best estimates are that Rome was founded somewhere around 753 years before the birth of Christ, give or take a few years depending on which author you read.  They’re all around the same timeframe though.  But Alesia!  That was the last great battle of the united Celts of Gaul against the Roman armies of Julius Caesar.  They lost the battle and as Cuchulain laments, that was pretty much the end of Gaul.    It’s very well documented that Alesia took place in 52 BC, which places the storyteller in the year 19 or 20 AD, twenty years after the birth of Christ and some fifteen years or so before he was crucified! 

I asked for something stupendous in these scrolls.  I guess the Gods heard me!