Anthropomorphised warlike beings with horned helmets: Bronze Age Scandinavia, Sardinia, and Iberia compared

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.

La apropiación local de ideales guerreros en la Europa de la Edad del Bronce Final: una revisión del sitio de arte rupestre de Arroyo Tamujoso 8 y la estela de Cancho Roano (Badajoz, España)

“…In this context of involvement of local communities in long-distance connections, also attested by artefacts that can be related to other areas of Europe and the Mediterranean (Harrison 2004), it is not surprising to find warrior iconographies in interior regions which are depicting motifs and compositions that are broadly shared, not only within Iberia but also beyond, as far away as the Aegean or Nordic Europe (Vandkilde et al 2022). But, as the case studies illustrate, as well as local communities' involvement in the extraction and circulation of metals (Senna-Martínez et al 2011), and probably other resources, they were actively involved in the appropriation and reinterpretation of ideas and objects that had broad circulation (Vilaça 2013: 22), such as the warrior archetype and related gear.…”

“…Additionally, lead isotope and chemical analysis of Scandinavian and British bronzes indicated that copper with an isotopic signature matching southern Iberian ores (most probably the Alcudia valley and the Ossa Morena region) was used to manufacture artefacts from around 1400 BC (Period II, 1500-1300 BC), but more intensely in Periods IV and V (1100-700 BC) including swords and shields (Ling et al : 121-129, 2019. Thus, we must therefore consider an Atlantic route that connected the terminus zones of Atlantic Europe, Iberia and Scandinavia (Ling & Uhnér 2014) in addition to the aforementioned 'amber route' (see also Vandkilde et al 2022).…”

“…As part of the 4-year project 'Rock Art, Words and Warriors' (RAW) funded by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet), we are conducting a systematic comparative analysis between Iberian warrior stelae and Scandinavian rock art. One of the key aims of the project is to reveal the diversity of local responses to this Europe-wide warrior ideology and its associated ideals by investigating the commonalities and differences between the warrior iconographies documented in these two regions (for comparable work see Vandkilde et al 2022, which is exclusively focused on depictions of horned warriors from Scandinavia, Sardinia and Iberia). While some general comparisons will be made in this paper, it aims to present some key preliminary findings of this project which lay the ground for a forthcoming, more detailed and systematic comparison between Iberian warrior stelae and Scandinavian rock art.…”