The Celts are an ancient people, who almost certainly came from India many thousands of years ago. After getting to Italy, they made their way north-east through France to the United Kingdom. The Gauls were dominant in France by the time the Romans got there a little more than two thousand years ago, but the Celts were rock-solid in the UK.
In those days, the Celts lived all around the UK, but the Roman invasion pushed them back into the extremities of the land. As the Romans defeated the Celts in south-east Britain, the tribes either moved to Scotland or Wales or they mixed with the Roman invaders.
British Celts were well-known for their skin modifications, which is the modern terminology for tattoos and body art. The Celts and the Picts were body painters extraodinnaire. However, that was before Christianity. After Christianity came to the UK, the Celtic Cross became an vital symbol of Celtic symbology.
However, there are other Celtic symbols as well. The Welsh dragon is a Celtic symbol too. The Celts believed in fairies, so fairies are also Celtic symbols. The legends of King Arthur and the knights of the round table are also Celtic, as is Avalon and Camelot, no matter what the English tell you.
Ireland is also a prominent Celtic country and numerous Celtic symbols come from there as well, The famous Claddagh Ring is a typical Celtic design – the never-ending strings or ropes of time. Druids are also a powerful symbol of Celtic culture and the druids held oak trees in high esteem.
Retro is a big thing in modern fashion as people are beginning to disbelieve the myth that times will always be better. Young people are searching back for a restarting point, but as that is hard to find, they are picking up on symbols of their history. For lots of people of British origin, this is Celtic.
For others, it is just the romanticism of Celtic folklore. The Mabignogion, fairies, druids, dragons, King Arthur and the knights of the round table are all powerful images in peoples’ subconscious. People like to fantasise about the supernatural in these days of the cold, calculating computers, which govern our lives.
If you want to have a Celtic tattoo, you are almost certainly of Celtic descent and so you will already have a concept of the sort of tattoo that you want to have. It may be a decent idea to look for a tattoo artist who has knowledge of Celtic traditions and Celtic tattoos. This way, you may be more certain of the authenticity of your tattoo, if you are not au fe with Celtic images or tattoos.
Celtic tattoos could be classed as tribal tattoos – north-estern European tribal tattoos, but what most people do not know is that Britain was called that because its peoples wore body art and the Scottish Picts were known as that because they wore skin paint. The Celts were among the first to use body art, but absolutely not the only ones.
Owen Jones, the writer of this piece writes on quite a lot of subjects, but is at present involved with anchor tatoos. If you would like to know more go to our web site at White Ink Tatoo.
Understanding The Chinese Lunar Calendar
Monday, March 1st, 2010Prior to their adoption of the Western solar calendar scheme, the Chinese almost wholly followed their own lunar calendar for determining the times of planting and harvesting and festival days. Although people in China today use the Western calendar for almost all business, governmental and practical matters of daily life, the old method still serves as the basis for determining many seasonal holidays. This coexistence of two calendar schemes has long been accepted by the people of China.
However, this does not only happen in China, it also happens in most other Eastern countries, like Thailand, and most Arabic countries.
A lunar month is determined by measuring the period of time needed for the moon to complete its full cycle of 29 and a half days, a standard that makes the lunar year a whole eleven days shorter than its solar counterpart. This difference is made up every 19 years by the addition of seven lunar months.
The 12 lunar months are further divided into 24 solar divisions characterized by the four seasons and times of heat and cold, all of which bear a close relationship to the annual cycle of agricultural work.
The Chinese calendar – very much like the Hebrew calendar- is a combination of the solar and lunar calendars in that it strives to have its years concur with the tropical year and its months coincide with the synodic months. It is not surprising that a few similarities exist between the Chinese and the Hebrew calendar.
For instance, an average year has 12 months, a leap year has 13 months. An ordinary year has 353, 354, or 355 days, a leap year has 383, 384, or 385 days. When working out what a Chinese year will be like, one needs to make a number of astronomical calculations.
First of all, you have to work out the dates for the new moons. In these instances, a new Moon is the completely black Moon (that is to say, when the Moon is in conjunction with the Sun), not the first visible crescent, as is used by the Islamic and Hebrew calendars. The date of a new moon is then the first day of a new month.
The reason why the majority of countries which had their own calendars had to dump them in favour of the Western, Julian calendar that we use today, is business. First the British and then the Americans ran international business and they used the Gregorian calendar. Anyone who sought to work with them had to follow suit. This is why national policy often varies from local custom in Third World countries.
The government desires to trade on the International markets, but the normal family in the country can not. So, the government took up the Gregorian calendar but the people only pay lip service to it. I live in Thailand and people here do not even use the 24 hour day divided into two halves. Their day has four sections of six hours each and the first part starts at 6AM, not midnight. Therefore, they have four 4 o’clocks a day, for example and no 7 o’clocks. They are also 543 years ahead of us, although this is more common, for example in Muslim countries.
Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with researching Franklin planner pages. If you have an interest in calendars, organizers or promotional calendars, please go over to our web site now at Promotional Desk Calendars
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