When we three boys, crammed in the back seat of Father’s Alfa Romeo GTV 1750, drove past the gasometer at Voltaplatz, we made bets on how high the gasometer level would be that day – top, middle or bottom? “This is because of the pressure required to distribute the gas to the buildings. And by the way: There are many Celtic bones underneath the gasometer.” – “Who were the Celts?” – “Read Caesar, De bello Gallico: Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres, quarum unam incolunt Belgae, aliam Aquitani, tertiam qui ipsorum lingua Celtae, nostra Galli appellantur,” laughed Father, as he put his foot down and we sped over the Dreirosenbruecke.

In his De bello Gallico, Julius Caesar called “the peoples who described themselves as Celts” on the left bank of the Rhine “Gauls.” However, these were not only Gauls as we know them from Asterix & Obelix. Instead, the Celts were a group of linguistically, religiously, mythologically, culturally, and genetically related peoples, whose settlements reached from the British Isles to Spain, France, Central Europe, and Anatolia. They left almost no written testimonies. Our knowledge about them comes from archaeological finds and the writings of mainly Roman historians.

The Celts traded via an extensive network of roads with the peoples known at that time, such as the Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans. Unlike the Romans, Egyptians, and Greeks, they had no concept of state, but lived in clans led by high-ranking figures. Their tombs, the so-called princely tombs seen mainly from the first Celtic period of the Hallstatt era from around 750 to 450 BC, were richly furnished as a result.

During this time, they also founded towns and castles such as the Heuneburg on the upper reaches of the Danube with up to 5,000 inhabitants. However, towns were more the exception than the rule. Hamlets and villages were the usual forms of settlement, which were abandoned after several generations in favor of a new, suitable place.

The “Basel-Gasfabrik” settlement

“It was not unusual for the Celts to abandon settlements after a certain period of time,” explains Norbert Spichtig, deputy cantonal archaeologist of Basel-Stadt and excavation director of the Celtic settlement “Basel-Gasfabrik” – as the sites on the Novartis Campus are officially known. “People back then did not settle in the way we have come to know it since the Middle Ages. The construction of the site between 180 and 160 BC followed a plan. All the houses were laid out in the same way, with small trenches separating the residential units and the surrounding area just like on modern plots,” explains Spichtig, who has been examining the archaeological site for around 30 years. “The sites are spread over an area of around 150,000 square meters, almost a city by the standards of the time.” The settlement on the Novartis Campus did not have protective ramparts, ditches, or palisades – it was an open, safe place.

A few days after quoting from Caesar’s work, Father handed each of us an Asterix book. “Here, learn something about the Celts,” he said. “As a kind of introduction to De bello Gallico.”

“The archaeological findings suggest that the people on Campus made their living mainly from trade and craftsmanship. Fibulae, jewelry, glass, amber, ceramics, amphorae, everyday objects, and tools are evidence of lively and extensive trading activity,” says Spichtig. The researchers also assume that it was a regional trading center, as it was located at a junction of the Rhone–Saône–Doubs–Belfort Gap–Rhine long-distance trade route, as indicated by the countless wine amphorae from Italy. Hundreds of coins were also found, which were probably used for trading. They come both from the Mediterranean region and possibly from their own mint.

Shipments were made via river and on the well-developed road network that connected the approximately 200 Celtic tribes and the peoples of the Mediterranean. “It can be assumed that the settlement supplied the surrounding region with imported goods such as raw glass, amber, wine, dried fruits, jewelry, and other luxury goods, while exporting iron goods, weapons, tools, prisoners of war as slaves, processed wool, and even fine ceramics. There were many specialist craft businesses. This is evidenced by several kilns in which fine ceramics were fired on a large scale, and evidence was also found of iron forges and non-ferrous metal foundries,” says Norbert Spichtig, commenting on the regional importance of the settlement.

Most of the countless objects were found in over 500 pits. The Celts used these as grain silos, cellars, or workplaces. When they were no longer needed, they were backfilled with excavated material, demolition debris, and municipal waste. All the pits contain extensive material such as shards of vessels, coins, jewelry, tools as well as animal and human bones.

A long history of excavations

“No sooner had a building been demolished or an excavation started somewhere on site than white tents were seen over it the next day,” explains Felix Raeber, Novartis spokesman at the beginning of the 2000s. When the Campus was planned, people knew about the Celtic settlement. In 1911, workers had come across several pits while building another gasometer, where the clay backfill contained conspicuously large amounts of ash, bones, and shards. Karl Stehlin, the archaeologist in charge at the time, immediately recognized the importance of the find, gradually leading to the systematic exploration of the site.

“We had a very good collaboration with the cantonal archaeological research department and, of course, it was extremely exciting: New finds were made almost every day, and an entire block weighing several tons was even excavated once. The archaeologists regularly gave lectures on the findings, which our employees were also able to take part in,” says Felix Raeber, looking back at the initial phase of the Campus. “When the pit with human bones was found, the tabloid press was all over it. The Celts were said to have offered human sacrifices to their gods. The combination of Novartis and human sacrifice was just what Swiss daily Blick was waiting for,” laughs Felix Raeber. However, it remains unclear why the human bones were arranged so clearly in the pit.

Since the finds of the Celtic settlement were not accessible in the 1970s, Father dragged us to the Roman ruins of Augusta Raurica and showed us the theater, the water pipes, the underfloor heating of the houses – bringing all things Roman to life vividly in front of our eyes. Since then, no antique stone has been left unturned.

“Fortunately, Novartis was very cooperative, otherwise we would never have been able to secure so many finds in a reasonable amount of time,” says Norbert Spichtig. In total, well over a million artifacts have been excavated. Not all of them have been evaluated yet. As a result, many were still unable to tell their stories, such as the bone disk used as the lid of woven baskets for transporting dried figs and apricots from the Mediterranean.

Move to a “fortress”

It is easy to imagine that the issue of whether and when the settlement should be abandoned in favor of a more protected location was the subject of heated debate among the Basel Celts between 100 and 90 BC. After all, people had lived in peace on the banks of the Rhine for a good three or four generations. The children were able to romp around unsupervised, the cattle were free to roam, the Rhine had plenty of fish, and the place had established itself as an important trading center and hub of fine craftsmanship. So why move to a rocky spur like the Muensterhuegel, as we now know it? Life up there would only be more arduous. Everything would have to be dragged back and forth.

“The finds on Campus stop at around 100 to 90 BC,” says Johannes Wimmer, archaeologist and specialist in fibulae and chronology at the cantonal archaeological research department for Basel-Stadt. Johannes Wimmer examined countless fibulae – Iron Age “safety pins” that held clothes together – from the “Basel-Gasfabrik” settlement, and compared them with fibulae from other sites dating from 150 to 30 BC. “The fibulae were both everyday objects and a piece of jewelry. Like today’s jewelry, they were subject to fashion trends. Changing fashions and styles allow for classification by age further down the line, which gives us a time period for a certain epoch of a region. It is therefore highly probable that the “Basel-Gasfabrik” settlement was abandoned between 100 and 90 BC,” says Johannes Wimmer, explaining this dating method.

The settlement was abandoned in favor of an oppidum, a fortified castle-like structure built on the spur of today’s Muensterhuegel. The Celtic oppidum was secured by an imposing wall.

The Basel “Murus Gallicus” – as Caesar called these fortifications – was a rampart about 6 meters high and 12 meters thick made of a wooden framework connected with iron nails and stabilized with stones and earth. In front of it was a trench about 25 meters wide and 8 meters deep. The ramparts and trench protected the overland route to the Muensterhuegel, while natural protection was offered on the other sides by the steep slopes to the Rhine and Birsig.

“Caesar was here, here in Basel. He saw the wall. He drove the Germanic tribes across the Rhine here, you can read about it in De bello Gallico,” said Father as we went for a walk on the Muensterhuegel. “If one of you goes to high school here, you’ll even read Caesar in Latin.” Well, none of us three read Caesar in Latin, and Caesar never made it to Basel.

“We think the 180-meter-long wall and trenches were completed in one to two years, depending on the workforce deployed. Houses were still to be built, and a new harbor was probably built in St. Alban. It is safe to assume that the some three-to-five-year construction project was preceded by thorough planning,” explains Johannes Wimmer. The question of why the open settlement at the site of Novartis Campus was abandoned in exchange for massive fortifications may be revealed by historical events.

A time of turmoil

For over a decade, the Basel Celts must have received such disturbing news that they decided to build huge fortifications. This undertaking would tie up large resources in terms of manpower, money, and materials for years to come. But what kind of threats led to this decision? After all, it had been deemed unnecessary to protect people, houses, livestock, and property with defensive structures for half a century.

“The Celts here weren’t Helvetians, they were Rauraci,” Father explained as we ate lunch with Grandfather in the legendary “Popote” on Voltaplatz. “We are Rauraci, mixed with Romans, with an international outlook – that’s something us Basel natives still are to this day. Always remember that, boys.”

The Roman expansion was not yet a threat to the Upper Rhine. The constant conflicts between Celtic tribes in Gaul were also nothing new. The Basel Celts, on the other hand, may have listened attentively to news from the Germanic tribes on the other side of the Rhine. Three Germanic tribes – Cimbri, Teutons and Ambrones – moved from Jutland, Denmark, southeast to Moravia and to present-day Austria, where they defeated the Romans at the Battle of Noreia (Carinthia/Styria) in 113 BC. According to ancient sources, about 300,000 people then migrated further west. Coming over the Swiss plateau, they invaded the south of France, where they defeated the Romans at Agen. They marched on over the Pyrenees to northern Spain, returned and moved via northeastern France to present-day Luxembourg. There they split into two groups of about 150,000 people each. One went to southern France, where it was crushed in battle by the Romans near Aix-en-Provence in 102 BC. The other met the same fate in 101 BC near Vercelli in Piedmont.

But then there were the Helvetians, just beyond the Jura. These restless contemporaries joined the German migration to southern France around 110 BC. At the Battle of Agen, they played a major role in the victory over the Romans. Caesar remembered this some 50 years later. In July, 58 BC, he faced up to them close to Bibracte near Autun as they were moving south, annihilated them and sent them back. Caesar wanted to install the Helvetians and Rauraci – including the Basel Celts – as a buffer between the Germanic tribes on the right bank of the Rhine and the Roman territories. But things were not over with the Germans yet. Caesar moved his troops from Burgundy to present-day Alsace, where he defeated the Germanic leader Ariovist – who plundered and burnt the territories of Celtic-Gallic tribes allied with the Romans – at Mulhouse and sent the Germanic tribes back across the Rhine for the next few hundred years.

Roman Empire

During this time, the Romans took over the oppidum on the Muensterhuegel. Caesar’s confidant Lucius Munatius Plancus founded a Roman colony in 43 BC, but it was not until Augustus from around 15 BC on that this was realized in Augusta Raurica – today’s Augst. The Muensterhuegel soon played only a marginal role, as Augusta Raurica quickly developed into a city with 15,000 inhabitants. Celtic locals from the Muensterhuegel and the surrounding area also moved there and gradually became Romans over time.

“This can be clearly seen,” says Barbara Pfaeffli, archaeologist and research associate at the Augusta Raurica historical site. “Most of the people documented as living in Augusta Raurica bore names of Celtic origin. These can be found, for example, on inscriptions that address a request, a thanksgiving, or a vow to a deity – or on tombstones. In this way, they showed pride in their Celtic roots and passed on the memory of them.” Isn’t it still the case today that the second, third, or fourth generation of immigrants often carry names that are typical of their countries of origin? Sometimes these names are actually of Celtic origin, such as Meryl, Lynne, Gwyneth, Eileen, Allan, Bran, Arthur, or Fynn. Some of the staff on the Novartis Campus may also have them too – names that may have been used by some of the people who moved to the same location over 2,200 years ago.

My father’s first name was Urs, by the way. “Ursus the bear, a typical Roman name,” he claimed.