Horses

The placement of horses in this design within a wheel is symbolic of man's earliest relationship
with horses as a means of transportation.  Going back 3,000 years to when they were first
domesticated on the steppes of Eastern Europe, the relationship was foundational to the develop-
ment of overland transportation and the spread of Celtic culture beyond the riverbeds of Europe and
the Near East.

Le Tene

The Le Tene art form gets its name from a site in ancient Switzerland from which thousands of
unique Celtic art objects were recovered.  They had been deposited in a lake over several
centuries as sacrificial offerings.  The term Le Tene has come to define Celtic art from the 5th
century B.C. until the Roman period in Europe and as late as the 5th century A.D. in Ireland,
Scotland and Wales.

In the artistic sense, Le Tene was expressive and interactive, often three-dimensional and
cross-cultural.  Yet it was functional, decorative, portable and closely integrated into daily life.
It balanced naturalism with abstraction, but sacrificed both to pattern and form.  Above all,
it was highly spiritual, often amuletic or talismanic.