Authorities do not all agree about the definition of civilization. Most accept the view that “a civilization is a culture which has attained a degree of complexity usually characterized by urban life.” In other words, a civilization is a culture capable of sustaining a substantial number of specialists to cope with the economic, social, political, and religious needs of a populous society. Other characteristics usually present in a civilization include a system of writing to keep records, monumental architecture in place of simple buildings, and an art that is no longer merely decorative, like that on Neolithic pottery, but representative of people and their activities. All these characteristics of civilization first appeared in Mesopotamia.
Celtic Myth 17: King Arthur’s Death, Returning Excalibur to the Lady of the Lake, and the Boat to Avalon For all its glories, King Arthur’s life ended in betrayal and tragedy. Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte D’Arthur described Arthur’s final confrontation …
Celtic Myth 16, the Knight of the Cart: Lancelot, the most famous of King Arthur’s Knights Chretien De Troyes’ account of how Lancelot rescued the abducted Queen Guinevere, launched the knight’s career as the most popular of Arthur’s followers, and …
Celtic Mythology 15: Gawain and the Green Knight; Tales of King Arthur’s Court In this tale, New Year is when the supernatural and natural worlds mingle, as on the Celtic Feast of Samhain. The Green Knight may derive from Cernunnos, …
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Celtic Myth 14, Gawain and Dame Ragnell: Original Arthurian Legends from Wales One of the most humorous Arthurian tales features an unlikely marriage between the courteous knight Gawain and Dame Ragnell, a Celtic style hag of a type commonly referred …
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Celtic Myth 13, The Hunting of Twrch Trwyth (pronunciation twerch twythe) An archetypal Celtic hero, Culhwch was the central figure of Culhwch and Olwen, one of the stories collected in the Mabinogion of Charlotte Guest. This Welsh story is thought …
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