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Page: Profile: Wren's Nest News Local
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Article: 9053
[Culture]
Date Posted:
1/29/2004
4:14:39 pm EST
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Views: 7,394
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Comments: 8
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Austrians Lay Claim To Tartan
Author: Marc Horne Source: Aberdeen Evening Express (UK)
Title: AUSTRIANS LAY CLAIM TO TARTAN
Tartan-barmy Austrians are ditching lederhosen to make a claim on our national dress.
Cheeky alpine archaeologists claim they started wearing tartan 1,000 years before the Scots.
The Tyrolean tall-tale has led to the kilt becoming the most fashionable outfit around the bierkellers and cafes of Vienna.
Austrian kiltmaker Thomas Rettl claims fragments of an ancient tartan kilt were found near Carinthia.
Herr Rettl said: "The tartan sample was dated to at least 320 years BC - over 1,600 years earlier than the oldest Scottish tartan which was made in 1,300 AD.
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Community Thoughts: There are 8 comments posted | Reverse Sort |
| Kilts | Jan 30th. at 2:09:47 pm EST |
by Raven (NJ) - wc_xemail
Of course people wore kilts before the 16th century - worldwide, it was one of the most popular forms of men's dress. You see it in ancient Rome, Greece, the Middle East, Africa, China, Europe...
This reminds me of the uproar in Scotland when the EU defined the kilt as a skirt. Which it is. But Scots got all wound up and went on about how a kilt is male clothing and not a skirt. Newsflash: skirted garments have been worn by humans since they worked out how to make clothes. No one nation or gender gets to lay sole claim on skirts/kilts.
Now, the wearing of "clan" tartan kilts, that's different. Wasn't it an English tailor working for Scots nobles at the Court of King James who came up with the idea of differentiating clans and nobles by tartan?
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| Just A Thought | Jan 30th. at 9:32:25 am EST |
by Sarah (Boston, USA) - wc_xemail
While people on both sides have made good points for and against the Austrians claiming to have the oldest kilt in the world, and bully for them if it is, but I think that we are forgetting an important piece of history. Long before Ceasar and his mighty Roman armies swept across Europe, most of the European population was of Celtic origin. They had many similar gods, weapons, styles of jewlery, and I'm sure, of dress. As Rome advanced into northern Europe the Celts were forced further and further West until they ended up on the British Isle where the Celtic traditions were carried on into modern times. If the Austrians want to claim back their Celtic Culture then we Scots, and Irish should welcome them as "Celtic Cousins". Just a thought.
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| Just Comments... | Jan 30th. at 12:13:30 am EST |
by A. Bork (nasionnaich) (Stanchfield, MN, U.S.A.) - wc_xemail
First, it was the Greeks that spelled it "Keltoi", so I can see how some people would think it is spelled "keltic"...
Second, until the Nationalist movements in Scotland in the late 18th and early 19th centuries there were no "clan" tartans, only tartan designs - "setts" - offered by the local weaver (it is coincidental that the local weaver just happened to be someone in the family, since most families had to provide their own weaving skills) . The idea of the "clan" tartan came about when tartan cloth began to be produced in mass quantities and the public was able to legally wear tartan again (i.e., the Davidsons were once allied with the Comyn family and switched their allegiance to the Mackintoshes. The Davidsons were a "sept" of the Mackintoshes, a part of the Mackintosh "clan", yet the "Mackintosh Tartan" has never been associated with the Davidsons..) . The plaid shirt so often associated with lumberjacks just happens to be a type of tartan, but it is not Scottish in origin.
Just a small history lesson.
----nasionnaich
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| Nanny-nanny Boo-Boo | Jan 29th. at 11:42:02 pm EST |
by A. Bork (nasionnaich) (Stanchfield, MN, U.S.A.) - wc_xemail
The part of this article that grabbed my attention was the comment about how tartan can't have originated in Austria:
"Tartan-barmy Austrians are ditching lederhosen to make a claim on our national dress. Cheeky alpine archaeologists claim they started wearing tartan 1, 000 years before the Scots. The Tyrolean tall-tale has led to the kilt becoming the most fashionable outfit around the bierkellers and cafes of Vienna. Austrian kiltmaker Thomas Rettl claims fragments of an ancient tartan kilt were found near Carinthia."
Well, I have some bad news for the author of this article. There is this place in Austria called Hallstatt - it is the site of an ancient salt mine - where some tartan wool cloth was found; the cloth from Hallstatt, Austria has been dated to sometime between 1200 and 400 B.C. -- at least 80 years before the date of the cloth found at Carinthia and at least 1000 years before the verifiable presence of any tartan cloth in the area now known as Modern Scotland. And the real kicker in this is that the cloth found at Hallstatt is of a twill weave, which is the exact weave used to make every modern traditional kilt in Scotland.
So, cry about it all you want, but the idea of decorating a twill-weave cloth of wool with stripes and checks - known as "tartan" - did NOT originate in Scotland at all.
----nasionnaich
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| Ah, But . . . | Jan 29th. at 7:38:38 pm EST |
by KarEEna (Perth, Australia) - wc_xemail
Ok, so Austria might have the oldest fragment found of tartan but what difference does that make? They have no idea *how* the tartan was worn during the time period it was found in and they also have no idea which tartans represented what family . . . unlike Scotland. In other words, Scotland still has more of a claim on the "national dress" and tourist attractions relating to tartan and kilts.
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| Also | Jan 29th. at 7:26:11 pm EST |
by Richard Urquhart (Martin) - wc_xemail
Might I suggest that Shottengasse may be named because The Scots that came to Continental Europe gained the same reputation for money lending and such as Jewish people did. In many countries the words regarding trade have the root of Scot. By the way Celtic is spelled with a "C" not a "K"
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| Just One Problem | Jan 29th. at 7:21:10 pm EST |
by Richard Urquhart (Martin) - wc_xemail
As someone not only has ancesters from several parts of Scotland including The Highlands, but also as a Celtic Reconstructionist who happens to own a kilt, I must point out that the Kilt was not worn by anyone before at least the 16th century. The Austrian sample may be tartan but not part of a kilt. For those that claim a more ancient origin for the kilt, in either Breacan Faile or Filli Beg forms, I suggest looking in book about kilts.
PS-For any one who want to wear A kilt I recomend "So Your Going to Wear the Kilt" by Charles Thompson
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| Kelts, Krauts & Magyars | Jan 29th. at 5:06:28 pm EST |
by Grendor (Indianapolis) - wc_xemail
I just had to drop in my two groshen. Haveing spent some considerable time in Osterreich, and as I'm a Historian, I must point out that contemporary Austrians are predominatly decended from Germans, Czechs, and Magyars, a direct result of the histoical Hapsberg monarchy. But long before these peoples found their way into Europe the region that now includes the traditional lands of Austria, Bohemia, and Hungary were all populated by keltic peoples. The contemporary Scots are decended from Keltic and Scandinavian peoples, so the possibility that kilt wearing ansestors of the scots fonud their way from mitteleurope to Scottland is perfectly reasonable. Besides, the connection of Scottland and Austria is an old one none the less, as evident by a major street in Wien, [Vienna] the Shottengasse. [Scotstreet]
Blessed Be All, Grendor
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