 |
 |
 |
|||
 |
|
|
|
|
|
(Bluefield)—When television and film producer Terry Jones, a former star of the 1970’s Monty Python TV series, envisioned a four-hour documentary to examine the civilizations and cultures of several early European nations, he invited Dr. Garrett Olmsted to journey to France to take part. Olmsted, a Bluefield State college Professor of Social Sciences, traveled to Lyon, France this summer and was interviewed in depth on film by Oxford Television in its production of the first of four one-hour programs that will be telecast on British
Broadcasting Company (BBC) and History Channel networks.
Olmsted was recently selected by “Answers.com,” an information website, as the world’s authoritative source on Celtic Religion. He has published five books and more than 30 papers on the Celts. He has detailed his research at conferences in Wales, Belgium, Scotland, Italy, France, Ireland, and Slovakia.
“At the Museum of Antiquities in Lyon, I was filmed in discussions with Terry Jones in English on the scientific, literary, and artistic achievements of the Celts,” Olmsted said. As an aspect of the projected televised program Olmsted also was filmed discussing results of his many years’ research into reconstructing the Gaulish calendar from Coligny. In the film he explains why the calendar holds major scientific interest and is much more accurate than the Roman, Greek, and Egyptian calendars. Olmsted noted that the museum staff removed the glass protective plate from in front of the calendar for the first time in 15 years for the film production.
“Before the filming began,” Olmsted stated, “I gave a lecture in French to the museum staff on the same subject.” Olmsted noted that he is fluent in French, German, and Irish in addition to reading some 20 other European languages, mostly ancient. He is a world expert in interpreting Gaulish, the language of the early Celts in France. “The early Celts have been misrepresented by many 20th century historians as a barbaric people when, in fact, they were extremely civilized,” he continued.
Olmsted cites the scientific sophistication of the Gaulish calendar as irrefutable evidence of the sophistication of the Celts. “The Gaulish calendar (discovered in the town of Coligny, near Lyon) is astronomically advanced--accurate to within one day during a 450 year period in its predictions of solar and lunar positions relative to the calendar and to each other,” Olmsted continued. “It fact, it has the same accuracy from a solar perspective as the modern Gregorian calendar, which takes no account of the moon.” The four hour documentary series, entitled “Terry Jones’ Barbarians,” in addition to the Celts also explores the cultures of the Germans, Thracians, and Persians before those peoples were conquered by the Romans. The documentary will air in 2006 in Europe and the United States.
August 24, 2005
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|
|
|