The texts tell that from the 7th century BC, Scythian horsemen pushed out from their central Asian strongholds, leaving, as their calling card, some particularly gruesome practices - echoed later in Julius Caesar's Commentaries on the Celts - including tearing off the bloody heads of their defeated enemies, thus ensnaring their strength as the foe's lifeblood ebbed.įour centuries later, the Scythians were forced further west by the mysterious Sarmatians, who also temporarily halted in the Caucasus, pausing to mix with the Scythians to become the forefathers of today's Ossetians before continuing their westward pilgrimage in the great migration of peoples, a journey which involved brawling with the Roman Empire and founding Alani states as far afield as Orleans in France and North Africa.įrom this ancient history, the Ossetians survived in their mountain isolation, their distinct identity and Indo-Iranian language intact, but its influence traceable. It is a theory supported by some of the big names in Celtic history, such as Gerhard Herm, author of the seminal work, The Celts, and Celtic art writers Lloyd and Jennifer Laing.

Her assertion of kinship follows the theory that modern-day Ossetians are a mix of warlike, horse-mad Scythians and another, more peaceful tribe, the Sarmatian-Alans, who later drifted, or were thrust westward, their blood mingling with that of the Celts. They are, she maintains, of the original Celts. Larissa is Ossetian, one of an ancient tribe that has lived in the soaring Caucasus mountains on the Russian-Georgian border for thousands of years. 'But we are cousins,' insists Larissa, on learning of my Irish roots. Even though the pin is now 2,100 years old, and I'm looking at it in a remote town in southern Russia, just 50 miles from Chechnya, the trail that may link us is not yet cold. Was she my cousin? The pin is certainly most familiar, its two concentric Celtic spirals like anything you'd buy from the hawkers on O'Connell Street bridge.

Belinda Jackson visits the homeland of thisancient race who may be the original Celts. Deep in the Caucasus mountains of southern Russia, near war-torn Chechnya, a tribe known as the Ossetians share many cultural and social similarities with the Irish.

Scythians celts