HISTORY · OPEN COLLECTION

Celtic worlds

Mining wealth and Alpine routes help explain the emergence of Hallstatt elites and centres. These are part of the archaeological background to a diverse cultural landscape later associated with Celtic peoples.

29 complete records · free to read, no account needed

Explore the records ↓Enter the 3D museum →

Read freely here. A free account saves your visits inside the museum.

Before you begin · Celts

Before the Celts: salt and the networks of Europe

The Celtic world is better understood by following regional exchanges and changes than by seeking a single date of birth.

Bronze Age
Working under the mountain
Salt mining in Hallstatt requires tools, transport, and cooperation, and connects the valley with other territories.
From c. 800 BCE
The Hallstatt horizon
Burials, metallurgy, and exchanges characterise a broad world of the early European Iron Age.
From the 5th century BCE
The La Tène horizon
New styles and objects circulate among societies that participate in different ways in the Celtic world.

Read the introduction

Prehistoric origins

Before Iron Age societies, Europe was traversed by farming, herding, and artisan communities. In the Alps, the salt deposits of Hallstatt attracted specialised activity during the Bronze Age. Extracting and transporting salt required knowing the mountain, making tools, and organising work in underground spaces.

The earliest cultures

Salt, metals, and other products connected valleys and regions. From approximately 800 BCE, the name Hallstatt also designates an archaeological assemblage of the early Iron Age. Its burials and objects allow studying social differences and long-distance contacts. The exceptional conservation of the mine also returns textiles, wood, and traces of everyday work.

How this history is formed

During the 5th century BCE, the La Tène horizon develops, recognised by new artistic repertoires and object forms. The names used by Greek and Roman authors, the Celtic languages, and these archaeological assemblages provide distinct evidence. Together they help understand related societies, but with their own trajectories and political organisations.

From the past to the museum you are about to explore

In the museum, weapons, adornments, and ritual objects can be read alongside this history of work, mobility, and relations.

Interpreting these traces. Hallstatt and La Tène are archaeological categories: their distribution does not exactly equate to a map of Celtic peoples or languages.

Sources for further exploration

Explore the earliest cultures

Celtic Worlds

≈800–500 BCE · EUROPE AND THE AEGEAN

Access to the museum brings together the atlas and the background of Celtas. Afterwards, seven areas order the historical context, culture, architecture, characters and society, treasures and equipment, beliefs and curiosities, and four historical doors to other museums. Each file preserves narrative layers, cautions, and differentiated sources.

The room combines a specific visual catalog with an audited thematic dossier. Separates facts, interpretations and cautions; the 3D volumes continue to be replaceable markers until models with provenance and license are incorporated.

Central Europe and Alpine arcs, with focus on the salt mines of Hallstatt

Mineral wealth and Alpine routes help understand the emergence of elites and Hallstatt centres, one of the archaeological roots of the cultural mosaic that later sources will associate with Celtic peoples.

Hallstatt is first an archaeological category. It does not demonstrate that every Bronze Age miner spoke a Celtic language or that a homogeneous Celtic people existed.

Read the background and its sources →

EXPLORE THE COLLECTION

The museum, section by section

Follow the museum’s curated order or go straight to a section. Every record includes its full public documentation and sources.

01 · COLLECTION

Museum Access

All sections ↑

Consult the maps and initial context sheets to situate this museum in time and territory; then choose the areas that interest you most.

01 · INITIAL ATLAS · DIVISIONS AND REGIONS

Map of Celts

Explore Hallstatt, La Tène and related communities, without confusing them with a single country.

Celtic worlds

Working under the mountain

The Hallstatt horizon

The La Tène horizon

Prehistoric origins

The earliest cultures

How this history is formed

From the past to the museum you are about to explore

Celtic Worlds

Central Europe and Alpine arcs, with focus on the salt mines of Hallstatt

The museum, section by section

Museum Access

Origins and context

Culture, music and words

Architecture and places

People and their stories

Treasures and evidence

Beliefs and curiosities

Connected cultures

Continue exploring

books

Play through history

Visit the real places

Objects with a story