Ah, the boys. The scourge of that damn Roman army. Seriously though, I’ve often sat inside what’s left of their old fort on Mynydd y Gear, just a few mounds of earth now sadly, wondering what life must have been like for our Ancestors back then. Tough people, out of necessity, and surprisingly good artisans. May The Gods bless them. Nice video, Diolch yn fawr iawn.
Just looked at Silures on Wikipedia and it says that 'silures' is a word of Celtic origin. 'It is 'perhaps derived from the Common Celtic root 'silo' meaning 'seed''. It goes on to say that ' Words derived from this root in Celtic languages, e.g. Old Irish 'sil', Welsh 'hil', are used to mean bloodstock, descendants, lineage, offspring as well as 'seed' in the vegetable sense. Silures might, therefore, mean 'kindred stock', perhaps referring to a tribal belief in descent from an originating ancestor'. I always remember being told that we were the 'pure' Welsh. Perhaps that's where our self-belief comes from.
Fideo ddiddorol iawn! / A fascinating video! Daliwch ati! / Keep at it! Coming from Blaenau Gwent, I'm very interested in the Silures, but I've never really gone out of my way to research them thoroughly. Have you thought about making a general video about them? That would be very informative for a lot of people. As regards the name Silures, Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru says only: Llwyth Brythonig a drigai yn ne-ddwyrain Cymru yng nghyfnod y Rhufeiniaid ("A Brythonic tribe who lived in southeast Wales in the Roman period."). Wiktionary gives this etymology: "[Silures] Borrowed from Ancient Greek Σίλυρες (Sílures), of Celtic origin, possibly Proto-Celtic *sīlom (“seed; stock, lineage”)." When Brythonic became Old Welsh, one of the major phonetic changes was that initial *s became h, e.g. haf ("summer") from Proto-Celtic *samos. Sīlom would have given hil ("lineage") in Welsh, and is found in phrases like yr hil ddynol ("the human race"). Since the Silures thought of themselves as different to the surrounding 'tribes', could their name have meant something like 'human beings', cf. the native American tribe, the Cheyenne, who called themselves Tsistsistas (“human beings”). Just a thought.... Even though we know that classical writers, like Tacitus, noted that the Silures looked different to the other inhabitants of Britain, there's no mention of the language they spoke. They probably spoke British Celtic, which some believe was very close to Irish Celtic at the time, and this would tie in with the suggested connection to Proto-Celtic *sīlom . Italic Latin and the Celtic languages have no difficulty differentiating between /k/ and /s/, cf. W. castell ("castle") from L. castellum; W. sant ("saint"), L. sānctus.
@@phylbrake3719 glad you enjoyed! Yeah, I've tried to do a general video on them in the past, but it's so difficult to find information on one specific tribe. My ultimate goal would be to do a proper documentary on them. As in go to museums, see and film artefacts. Visit their known sites etc and tell the story. But that would be months of work and a lot of money. Both of which I can't justify doing right now. If youtube ever takes off for me, that would be the goal.. I would invest in better equipment and research and take proper time to make quality content. Right now, I'm self employed out side of RU-vid, I'm part way through renovating a house and I have 3 dogs and 2 chickens to look after. So my ability to make content is very limited. Onto your comment about the origin of the name. As you pointed out, we only really have the classical interpretation on the origin. I was just trying to give a hypothetical alternative in this video lol. It's even possible they called themselves something that sounded nothing like Silures or Cilures. I've even seen someone suggest in a comment section somewhere that they may have called themselves something like the Gwenti, Gwenta or Gwent. Because that's the modern name for the area. Seems unlikely to me because Caerleon was called Venta Silurum (pronounced Wenta)
@@mrwelshmun Pob lwc gyda'r prosiect! / All the best with the project! I remember reading a article some years ago claiming that archaeological finds show that the Silures built roads. I notice that that argument is expressed in 'Silures: Resistance, Resilience, Revival', by R. Howell, published by The History Press (2022). I haven't had a chance to read it yet. On the whole, the Romans adopted the local names of the 'tribes' they came into contact with. Take the Volcae, a continental Celtic tribe that moved from Germany to Gaul. The name, Volcae, itself is possibly from Proto-Celtic *wolkos (“hawk”). It's believed that Proto-Germanic *walhaz (“Celt, Roman”) , which eventually became Welsh in English, is derived from Volcae. The Galles in French Pays de Galles can be traced back to the same source. Why would they not follow this rule in the case of the Silures? As you say the capital of the Silures during the Roman period was Venta Silurum, which, in turn, has given us the name Gwent; the sound shift of initial *v (IPA: [β]) to *gw- is one that is usually associated with late Celtic British becoming Primitive Welsh.
The Silures, according to Roman sources, were the only tribe to defeat the invading army twice, giving them enough pause to concentrate on the area to the east for a while - hence the well-developed settlements in the Gloucester/Cirencester/Bath area across the Severn. Eventually sufficient reinforcements were assembled to conquer the area, but the fierceness of the tribe, combined with the heavy woodland and - as you say - 'Balkan' nature of the Valleys landscape definitely made them think.
tx for the link to Archwilio, very useful. Ive just finished a google earth kml file of Drove and roman archeology in Cymru. it might be of use to you?
Yeah that would be interesting! I have no imediate ideas for videos about the Silures. Going forward i'll be planning on making my content better. I may even take months to make well researched videos.
@@mrwelshmun me too, i dont post regularly, i spend more time on my map. Ive sent an email to your gmail account from my hotmail account to exchange details. i dont want to post my personal info online.
Silurian is from the Old Cymric Sili ( Chaste) Wrgi was word for Otter in Old Cymric Dwrgi Water dog, The Silurians had literally dozens of Hilllforts in what is now South Wales, but you have to rememeber that they were also in England which in those days was actually all Cymric as was Britain
I'm not sure about that, my understanding is that until the Normans came to Wales between 1066 and 1400ish people in Wales used the traditional naming system. Where, you'd be named "son of" or "daughter of". So an example would be Aled ap Rhys o(Aled son of Rhys) or Gwen ferch Rhys (Gwen daughter of Rhys). When the Normans started documenting the people inhabiting the land in Census' etc, people were required to have a surname for the records, so people either took on their fathers first name as their surname or the name of their lord on the land. So it can be if your father was William ap Gwyn, you'd take on his first name as your last and become Aled Williams for example. Another thing that happened was, people adapted the traditional "Ap" into new surnames so, Ap Rhys became Price. Ap Howell became Powell. Ab Harry became Barry etc etc etc. So to answer your question, I don't think that Williams as a name goes back that far in Wales. It's an adaptation of Guillem in Norman French as I understand. We do have a similar Welsh version of the name, Gwilym. I hope that helps :)
