Abstract
Abstract Horned-helmet imagery continues to raise questions about what is local and what is global in Bronze Age Europe. How similar is the imagery found on Sardinia, in southwestern Iberia and southern Scandinavia in material appearance, medium of representation, and sociocultural setting? Does it occur at the same point in time? Does it spring from or transmit a shared idea? Analysis reveals intriguing patterns of similarity and difference between the three zones of horned-helmet imagery 1000–750 BC. The results point to actors and processes at the local level while also pinpointing interconnections. Across all three contexts, horns signify the potency of the helmet wearer, the quintessential warrior. Horns visualise a defined group of bellicose beings whose significance stems from commemorative and mortuary rites, sites, and beliefs – in conjunction with political processes. We suggest that the eye-catching imagery of very particular males wearing horned insignia relates on the one hand to local control of metals and on the other to the transfer of novel beliefs and cults involving embodied gigantisation. It is characteristic that the horned figure is adapted into some settings, but only sparingly or not at all in others. This imagery has a complex history, with Levantine roots in the LBA Mediterranean. The Scandinavian addendum to the network coincides with the metal-led Phoenician expansion and consolidation in the west from c. 1000 BC. A Mediterranean–Atlantic sea route is suggested, independent of the otherwise flourishing transalpine trading route.
Highlights
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution diventano elemento per identificare un preciso gruppo di individui i cui simboli, spesso legati all’ambito bellico, vengono esibiti in rituali commemorativi di frequente legati all’ambito funerario
How similar is the imagery found on Sardinia, in southwestern Iberia and southern Scandinavia in material appearance, medium of representation, and sociocultural setting? Does it occur at the same point in time? Does it spring from or transmit a shared idea? Analysis reveals intriguing patterns of similarity and difference between the three zones of horned-helmet imagery 1000–750 BC
The horned warrior occurs in these three settings, but sparingly or not at all in the rest of Europe4 – except in the Near East and the east Mediterranean region, which boast a deep history of horned-helmet figures connected with divine rulership and with warfare at the time when the longstanding Bronze Age civilisation there was in rapid transition c. 1200 BC
Summary
GREECE Late Geometric-Archaic Early-Middle Geometric Proto-Geometric Sub-Mycenaean LH IIIC LH IIIB appr. The Scandinavian horned-helmet figures date to the Late Nordic Bronze Age, NBA IV–V. The horned-helmet motif was longlived, probably with shifting meanings over time but with the 900–750 BC period especially formative When considering this motif, current chronological data suggests that Sardinia and Iberia were especially connected 1200–1100 BC at the transition to the FBA and onwards. A simple quantitative scoring has been combined with observations stating whether a particular trait is absent (0) or recorded as merely present (1), well-known (2), or dominant (3) While this may lack absolute precision, it provides a visual overview of degrees of similarities and difference when comparing the three zones pairwise (Fig. 4A-C). Scandinavia and Iberia (Fig. 4B) share horned-helmet figures on stelae/rock, with notable similarity in how the horns are shown standing upright and turned.
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