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Clouter, Gregory A. “The Lost Zodiac of the Druids”. Vega, London, 2003. Pbk, 210pp, illus, bibliography, index. ISBN 1-84333-635-9. £8.99 $12.95

 The old adage about not judging a book by its cover certainly applies to this book. The cover’s style seems to suggest this is aimed at the new age market (and indeed the publishers have categorised it under astrology!) and the cover graphics feature Stonehenge, which is totally inappropriate as it is irrelevant to the subject matter and doesn’t even appear in the text of the book at all. 

Rather this should be seen as a serious attempt to recover the possible “zodiac” actually envisaged by the Celtic priestly class, the Druids, using as evidence classical and early Christian era texts; comparative texts from possibly related religious systems, archaeological evidence and artefacts, most particularly the famous Gundestrup Cauldron, the plates of which were discovered in Denmark in the late 19^th century. 

And it is with a description of the five outer plates of the cauldron that Clouter opens his discussion (and one can query the why the publishers have not included a few colour plates which show the superb craftsmanship and beauty of the cauldron) and where I had my first serious problem with the book. Clouter simply states that the cauldron is of Gaulish 1^st century BCE origin and leaves it at that. Unusually for someone who has studied archaeology, he omits any discussion of the nature of the artefact, in particular the fact that the technology used, gold enamelling on silver is apparently unknown in western Europe at this date, but well-attested to in Thrace. Also the style of the cauldron is manifestly Thracian. His description of the plates also omits any mention of the animals which include elephants and other African or Asian animals which are much more common on Thracian metalwork of this period. One could also point out that thematically much of the iconography on the plates can be just as easily fitted into a Dionysian mythos as the Celtic one. Which is not to say that Clouter is wrong but any discussion of the cauldron should really open with the ongoing debate as to its origins. Obviously if the cauldron is of Thracian origin and relates to a different set of religious / astronomical beliefs, then its relevance to the “lost zodiac of the Druids” is somewhat diminished.

Having said that, the cauldron and its plates only form part of his overall argument and much of it is taken up with a detailed textual explication of various Irish and Welsh texts of the post – Roman period together with writings from classical sources in an attempt to reconstruct what the Druidic legends / stories / myths were all about. Clouter re-interprets them in astronomical form – hence the “zodiac” of the title. Quite how persuasive his argument is will, I suspect, depend on the reader. It is quite possible that Clouter has uncovered a layer of meaning in Druidic texts that has not been seen before. Or it could be his interpretation, whilst in places possible, is too dependent on correspondences with Indian beliefs (he uses the Rig Veda quite a lot), conjecture and unproven hypotheses, to be probable. I’m quite willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on the general idea of a zodiac and some of his interpretations but others may not be so generous.

Clouter’s text is detailed but some people may find following his argument rather difficult in places. The book also lacks any form of conclusion, which would have pulled all the strands of his argument together, which is rather a pity, as it would have useful to the reader to have a summation of the argument. The illustrations are all hand-drawn and of variable quality, some quite clear, others barely rising above a series of squiggles. The bibliography is adequate but, as far as I can tell from the titles, omits anything that doesn’t support its thesis – one will look in vain for titles supporting the Thracian thesis for example. And don’t get me started on the whole question as to whether the Irish and Welsh considered themselves as “Celts” or whether we can assume that Western Europe had a homogenous religious system (Druidism) that allows for the straight-forward assimilation of the classical and post-classical texts into a coherent and unified description of that religion.

Anyway this is a cut above most of the speculative material about Celts, Druids and the like. The discussions on the archaeological evidence are sensible and the readings of the texts don’t strain plausibility too far. Readers can be reassured that there is no talk of Atlantis or aliens or such-like, and Clouter certainly makes a good fist of assembling his materials to construct his argument. However, there are enough questions over the text for me to consider it “case not proven” in its totality, even if some of his arguments are persuasive. 

An interesting read, don’t be put off by the cover. 

6/10

Richard Alexander