纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 028巴斯伊于特酒壶（1）

028： EPISODE 28 - Basse Yutz Flagons 巴斯伊于特酒壶

Basse Yutz Flagons (made around 2,500 years ago). Bronze; found in North-astern France

This is the sound of a Saturday night out ... we're in Scotland and, as you can hear, people are having a really good time. Ever since someone discovered how to make alcohol, and that's at least seven thousand years ago, we humans have been partying. And Celtic northern Europeans, so the story goes, party harder than most, and they consume a great deal of alcohol in the process.

It's a stereotype that goes back over two and a half thousand years, and it still shapes the way Mediterranean Europe thinks about the north - and even the way the north thinks about itself.

"There's an undoubted bias against the culture of northern Europe; it's not seen as ideal, in the way that the culture of the Mediterranean was for many years." (Jonathan Meades)

"There's been a revolution in our understanding of who the Celts really were; the revolution makes us aware just how complicated the situation is." (Barry Cunliffe)

There are no written records from the people of northern Europe of two and a half thousand years ago; they're mentioned briefly and disparagingly by the Greeks, but we've got nothing written from them, and so the only way we can really get to know these people - our close neighbours and, for some of us, indeed our ancestors - is through the things they've left behind. Luckily, we've got a good deal to go on. Here I've got a pair of spectacular wine jugs, which are key objects in helping us understand the society of early northern Europe.