Luxury home or shabby hut?

When archaeologists excavate Iron Age houses, of course, they don't find much, just a few holes of the wooden upright beams, maybe evidence of a fireplace. Nobody knows what exactly the houses looked like - did they have windows? If so, how big? What did the doors look like? The furniture? Were they multi-story?

For a long time it was common practice in Celtic museums to furnish the interior of the houses very spartanly. A straw bed in the corner, a fireplace in the middle, small openings in the clay-plastered wicker walls.

But fortunately this is slowly changing. Because if you look at how elaborately the Celts designed their jewelry, how many inventions go back to them (the scythe, the grain mill, the beer barrel, the metal-rimmed wooden wheel), then it seems illogical that they should have lived in their private rooms as in the Stone Age.

Of course, it makes sense to be cautious with interpretations when one has few facts from the find situation, but nevertheless, this cautious barrenness shapes the image the world has of the Celts.

In this respect, those models now that say "we are not sure, but this is how it might have been" are very positive development.

Artists like the Celts certainly had ornately carved furniture, as can be seen in the Celtic village of Mitterkirchen, or some with burned-in pictures, as in the Celtic village of Schwarzenbach. In some museums, the clay plastered buildings may seem clammy and damp, but if a fire was burning in them every day for cooking, they were certainly cozy, dry and warm, because clay is an excellent material to regulate the climate in a building, as it absorbs and releases moisture very well (unlike stone buildings, which take a long time to heat up and on which moisture condenses quickly).

We know from the garment remains found in Hallstatt, for example, that Celts were very skilled at weaving, so why wouldn't there have been wall hangings to decorate the room? Cozy pillows filled with straw or husks?

At least the richer Celts, like the warriors, craftsmen and artists, must have lived very comfortably. A cool earthen pit on the north side of the house as a refrigerator, wicker partitions, shelves and chests for all the possessions of ornate vessels, jewelry, utensils ...

It's time to change the images in our head.

More "glamping" (glamorous camping) instead of survival tent ...