It's all fun and games until somebody gets hurt: images of sport in early Iron Age art of Central Europe

Abstract

Physical, competitive activities played an important role in social life in early Iron Age Central Europe. In this paper, the iconography of the most common forms of sport competitions – dumb-bell fighting, chariot racing and horse racing – are followed across temperate Europe. Although these ‘barbarian’ images remain linked to Mediterranean models, differences in materials, technologies and details in the way persons are depicted reveal local variations and divergent cultural connotations of what might have been understood as ‘sport’ in the European Iron Age.