Enclosures of Death in the Early Iron Age

This article focuses on the study of the Early Iron Age necropolis of Esfola, taking into account the burial rituals of the site (the architecture, the funerary objects and the human skeletal analyses are dealt with in the context of ‘burial ritual’ studies). This research will contribute to the body of knowledge on Early Iron Age necropolises with enclosures, typical of the Beja and Ourique regions in southern Portugal, i.e. Vinha das Caliças 4, Monte do Bolor 1–2, Cinco Réis 8, Carlota and Palhais. All these sites identified in the southern Iberian Peninsula allow us to characterize the funerary rituals practised in this region during the Early Iron Age.

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Early Iron Age ‘black’ glass in Southwestern Iberia: typology, distribution, and context

Zephyrvs ◽

10.14201/zephyrus202187125144 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 87 ◽

pp. 125-144

Author(s):

Francisco B. Gomes

Keyword(s):

Iberian Peninsula ◽

Iron Age ◽

Compositional Data ◽

Glass Beads ◽

Early Iron Age ◽

Glass Technology ◽

Black Glass ◽

The Past ◽

Southern Portugal

In the past few years, deeply colored black-appearing glass has garnered a growing interest in the context of research on Iron Age glass technology and trade. The numerous ‘black’ glass beads found in Early Iron Age contexts of Southern Portugal have not however been considered in this discussion, and they remain largely unsystematized. In this contribution, a typological survey of these objects is presented which highlights their unusual concentration in a well-delimited area of Southern Portugal and their relatively circumscribed chronological setting. This is particularly striking when compared with other groups of beads, namely blue beads of various types, which are much more widespread and long-lasting. The global position of these beads is also considered, with typological comparisons and the few available compositional data suggesting that they may be the product of Punic, and perhaps specifically Carthaginian trade with the Western Iberian Peninsula. Finally, the possible specific historic context in which these beads arrived in Southern Portugal is considered.

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Astronomy, culture and landscape in the Early Iron Age in the Ebro Basin

Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union ◽

10.1017/s174392131101283x ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 7 (S278) ◽

pp. 382-389 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Manuel Pérez Gutiérrez ◽

Jordi Diloli Fons ◽

David Bea Castaño ◽

Samuel Sardà Seuma

Keyword(s):

Iberian Peninsula ◽

Iron Age ◽

Golden Ratio ◽

Early Iron Age ◽

Ebro Basin ◽

Cultural System ◽

Measurement Units ◽

Complete Series ◽

Materials Used ◽

Archaeological Excavations

AbstractArchaeological excavations carried out at Turó del Calvari (Tarragona, Spain) have revealed a protohistoric building interpreted as one of the earliest enclosures of power operating during the Early Iron Age in the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula. The structure is exceptional in several respects: the techniques of construction, the materials used, and the topographic situation. The building is perfectly integrated in the landscape and has an exquisite geometrical design, with measurement units based on the Iberian foot. The intended beauty in having used the golden ratio in its construction and an orientation that is both stellar and solar demonstrates the existence at that time of a complete series of mechanisms of representation and territorial control. This was based on the use of rituals and feasts as elements of political cohesion by an emergent elite within a process that reproduced a scaled-down Mediterranean cultural system in an indigenous space.

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Microanalytical Study of Ancient Gold Jewelry: Mediterranean Impact on the Early Iron Age Technology in Southwestern Iberia

Microscopy and Microanalysis ◽

10.1017/s1431927619014582 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 25 (4) ◽

pp. 1061-1073

Author(s):

Pedro Valério ◽

Rui J.C. Silva ◽

António M.M. Soares ◽

M. Fátima Araújo ◽

Lídia Baptista ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Iron Age ◽

Alloy Composition ◽

Early Iron Age ◽

Gold Alloys ◽

Fully Integrated ◽

X Ray ◽

Gold Jewelry ◽

Different Types ◽

Production Techniques ◽

Southern Portugal

AbstractThe gold technology in Iberia underwent an important development during the Early Iron Age (EIA) following the arrival of new technological skills from the Mediterranean region, including the use of filigree, granulation, and brazing. This work presents the microanalytical study of EIA gold jewels (22 spherical beads and four tongue pendants) recovered from three graves in southern Portugal. The set of jewelry, showing an extraordinary stylistic resemblance, was characterized by optical microscopy, micro energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometry and scanning electron microscopy with X-ray microanalysis to establish the alloy composition and production techniques. The pieces show a close technological relation, making use of artificial gold alloys with different amounts of silver (c. 40 and 25%). The decorative styles include different types of filigree (solid wires and hollow wires), while the joining techniques comprise brazing with Au-Ag-Cu solders and, probably, sintering. In spite of those technological and stylistic features, clearly pointing to a Mediterranean influence, the absence of granulation suggests an indigenous workshop where exogenous technologies/decorations were not yet fully integrated in the manufacture of such luxury items.

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Un conjunto de arreos de bronce de la colección Juan Cabré: aportaciones al estudio del atalaje ecuestre en la Protohistoria Ibérica = A Set of Bronze Horse Bits in the Juan Cabré Museum: A Contribution to the Study of Equestrian Harness in Iberian Iron Age

Espacio Tiempo y Forma Serie I Prehistoria y Arqueología ◽

10.5944/etfi.11.2018.21188 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 49 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Javier Jiménez Ávila

Keyword(s):

Iberian Peninsula ◽

Iron Age ◽

Early Iron Age ◽

Península Ibérica ◽

Made In ◽

The Way

Se estudia un conjunto de objetos formado por dos embocaduras de caballo y dos camas laterales de bronce conservados en el Museo Juan Cabré de Calaceite (Teruel). Corresponden a la colección que reunió D. Juan Cabré Aguiló y que, a su muerte, fue dividida entre sus dos hijos. No se conocen datos acerca de su procedencia ni sobre el modo en que llegaron los objetos a la colección, pero la calidad del material y la escasez de este tipo de productos en la arqueología peninsular elevan su interés. De su estudio se deriva su relación con un conjunto de arreos que se producen y se usan en la península ibérica a finales de la I Edad del Hierro y que cuenta con buenas representaciones en la Extremadura post-orientalizante y en la Alta Andalucía ibérica, particularmente en la zona de Jaén.An equestrian set composed by two bronze horse bits and two bit guards, also made in bronze, is studied. They are preserved in the Juan Cabré Museum (Calaceite, Spain) corresponding to the collection gathered by the Spanish archaeologist Juan Cabré Aguiló (1882-1947). Data about origin or the way that such objects came to the Cabré Collection are unknown, but their quality and the shortage of this type of objects in the Iberian archaeology underline their interest. The study shows a near relationship with a kind of bronze harnesses that were produced and used in Iberian Peninsula at the end of the Early Iron Age. This kind of bits have good references in the post-Orientalizing Extremadura and in the Iberian high Andalusia, particularly in the Jaén area.

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Objects with Attitude: Biographical Facts and Fallacies in the Study of Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Warrior Graves

Cambridge Archaeological Journal ◽

10.1017/s0959774302000112 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 12 (2) ◽

pp. 217-232 ◽

Cited By ~ 25

Author(s):

James Whitley

Keyword(s):

Bronze Age ◽

Iron Age ◽

Social Identities ◽

Early Iron Age ◽

Late Bronze Age ◽

Cultural Changes ◽

Or Practice ◽

The Individual ◽

Burial Rituals

Aegean prehistory still has to deal with the legacy of ‘Homeric archaeology’. One of these legacies is the ‘warrior grave’, or practice of burying individuals (men?) with weapons which we find both in the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age in the Aegean. This article suggests that the differences between the ‘weapon burial rituals’ in these two periods can tell us much about the kind of social and cultural changes that took place across the Bronze Age/Iron Age ‘divide’ of c. 1100 BC. In neither period, however, can items deposited in ‘warrior graves’ be seen as straightforward biographical facts that tell us what the individual did and suffered in life. Rather, the pattern of grave goods should be seen as a metaphor for a particular kind of identity and ideal. It is only in the Early Iron Age that this identity begins to correspond to the concept of the ‘hero’ as described in the Iliad. One means towards our better understanding of this new identity is to follow up work in anthropology on the biography of objects. It is argued that the ‘life cycle’ of ‘entangled objects’, a cycle which ends in deposition in a grave, provides us with indispensable clues about the nature of new social identities in Early Iron Age Greece.

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Phytomorphic carnelian pendants in the Late Bronze and Iron Ages of the Iberian Peninsula: origin, distribution, and significance

Complutum ◽

10.5209/cmpl.76447 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 32 (1) ◽

pp. 29-47

Author(s):

Francisco B. Gomes

Keyword(s):

Iberian Peninsula ◽

Bronze Age ◽

Iron Age ◽

Geographic Distribution ◽

Eastern Mediterranean ◽

Significant Part ◽

Early Iron Age ◽

Late Bronze Age ◽

Prestige Goods

First highlighted as possible markers for early, 2nd millennium BCE contacts between the Iberian Peninsula and the Eastern Mediterranean, phytomorphic carnelian pendants have become a significant part of the discussion on that subject. However, a number of new finds which have taken place in recent years have transformed the available image regarding both the geographic distribution and the chronological setting of these pieces. An updated overview is presented here, which suggests they should now preferably be considered as part of the array of prestige goods introduced in the Far West by Phoenician trade between the later stages of the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age

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Review of the Monograph: Likhacheva O.S. Weaponry and warfare of the population of the Forest-Steppe Altai in the Early Iron Age (8th–1st centuries B.C.). Barnaul: Publ. IP I. A. Kolmogorov, 2020. 320 p. ISBN 978-5-91556-710-7

VESTNIK ARHEOLOGII ANTROPOLOGII I ETNOGRAFII ◽

10.20874/2071-0437-2021-55-4-21 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 248-253

Author(s):

N.N. Golovchenko

Keyword(s):

Central Asia ◽

Long Range ◽

Iron Age ◽

Short Range ◽

The Body ◽

Early Iron Age ◽

Forest Steppe ◽

Considerable Part ◽

Topic Area ◽

Different Types

The paper presents a review on a monograph by O.S. Likhacheva, concerned with the analysis of different types of weapons and reconstruction of some aspects of the warfare of the tribes of the Forest-Steppe Altai in the 8th–1st centuries B.C., which contains a representative album of illustrations, including photographs and drawings of artifacts, artistic interpretations of weapons and images of warriors, made by the author. O.S. Likhacheva carried out a meticulous analysis of numerous categories of weapons and their fragments. However, in the opinion of the author of this review, for a considerable part of the presented inventory there is a lack of context description of the finds in the ceremonial burial complexes. This leads to the description of the votive weapons as combative, ceremonially broken items as intact, and fragmentary separate armor-clad plates as a complete armor suit. Certain selectivity of the author in writing the historiography section narrows the attention of the researcher on only one region under consideration, thus ignoring the trans-cultural nature of some types of the weapons of short-range and long-range combat among the nomads of the Central Asia in the 8th–1st centuries B.C., as well as the body of the material from the monuments of the Novosibirsk Ob region which fit in the topic area of the research. The author recommends the book of O.S. Likhacheva to all interested in the history and archaeology of Altai Krai and Upper Ob region.

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Beyond the Indigenous/Phoenician divide: Spheres of Interaction and Scales of Integration in the Early Iron Age of Southern Portugal (8th–5th centuries BCE)

Revista do Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia ◽

10.11606/issn.2448-1750.revmae.2019.169250 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 15-27

Author(s):

Francisco João Bentes Gomes

Keyword(s):

Bronze Age ◽

Iron Age ◽

Early Iron Age ◽

Late Bronze Age ◽

Archaeological Record ◽

Group Interactions ◽

Political Landscape ◽

Southern Portugal ◽

Multiple Levels ◽

Identity Discourses

The arrival of the first Phoenician merchants and colonists in the Iberian Far West tipped off the delicate balance of the regional Late Bronze Age networks, setting in motion a far-ranging process which completely changed the socio-political landscape of Southern Portugal. However, the growing volume of available data seems to show that far from being a linear, straightforward process, the ensuing restructuration was complex and dynamic. In this contribution, it is argued that “traditional” models based on normative views of culture are no longer suited to explain the diversity of the archaeological record, and that new, more nuanced approaches are in order. It is suggested, in particular, that this diversity is the reflection of specific representation discourses in which “traditional” and innovative, often exogenous elements were combined according to variable, situational and socially negotiated identity discourses deployed on multiple levels, from the microregional context of inter- and inter-group interactions to the transregional, Mediterranean level.

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