The Human Body in Early Iron Age Central Europe: Burial Practices and Images of the Hallstatt World

348 Pages·2017·26.876 MB·English

by  Katharina Rebay-Salisbury

The Human Body in Early
Iron Age Central Europe
Identities and social relations are fundamental elements of societies. To approach
these topics from a new and different angle, this study takes the human body as
the focal point of investigation. It tracks changing identities of early Iron Age
people in central Europe through body-related practices: the treatment of the body
after death and human representations in art.
The human remains themselves provide information on biological parameters
of life, such as sex, biological age, and health status. Objects associated with the
body in the grave and funerary practices give further insights on how people of the
early Iron Age understood life and death, themselves, and their place in the world.
Representations of the human body appear in a variety of different materials,
forms, and contexts, ranging from ceramic figurines to images on bronze buckets.
Rather than focussing on their narrative content, human images are here inter-
preted as visualising and mediating identity. The analysis of how image elements
were connected reveals networks of social relations that connect central Europe
to the Mediterranean.
Body ideals, nudity, sex and gender, aging, and many other aspects of women’s
and men’s lives feature in this book. Archaeological evidence for marriage and
motherhood, war, and everyday life is brought together to paint a vivid picture of
the past.
Katharina Rebay-Salisbury received her PhD in prehistoric archaeology from
the University of Vienna (Austria) in 2005 and subsequently worked as a researcher
at the Universities of Cambridge and Leicester (both UK). Her research within
the Leverhulme Trust funded project ‘Tracing Networks’ centred on studying
human representations, identities, and social relations in the late Bronze and Iron
Age of central Europe. She currently investigates motherhood in prehistoric
Europe at the Austrian Academy of Sciences (Austria).

The Human Body in Early
Iron Age Central Europe
Burial Practices and Images
of the Hallstatt World
Katharina Rebay-Salisbury
First published 2016
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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© 2016 Katharina Rebay-Salisbury
The right of Katharina Rebay-Salisbury to be identified as author of this
work has been asserted by him/her in accordance with sections 77 and 78
of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
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ISBN: 978-1-472-45354-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-27723-3 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
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Contents
List of figures vii
List of plates xi
Preface xii
1 Introduction 1
2 Theoretical framework 7
2.1 Approaching the Iron Age body 7
2.2 Networks 21
2.3 Identity and/as communication 33
3 The Iron Age setting 35
3.1 Unity and diversity: the regions 36
3.2 Chronology and temporality 45
3.3 Lifeways 49
3.4 The physical anthropology of early Iron Age people 54
4 Funerary practices and the body 59
4.1 The treatment of the body 59
4.2 Cremation and inhumation 63
4.3 The body and objects 74
4.4 Bodies and/as vessels 83
4.5 The internal geography of graves and the body 89
4.6 From grave architecture to burial communities 94
5 The representation of the body: images and imagined worlds 101
5.1 The multi-layered nature of art objects 102
5.2 Art as sign language and in communication 104
5.3 Art as agency 106
6 The image and the object 108
6.1 The image database 108
vi Contents
6.2 Objects 110
6.3 Materials and technologies 129
6.4 The chaîne opératoire: contexts of production, use and
deposition 136
6.5 Translating images: cross-craft interaction 141
7 The Hallstatt body in life and death 147
7.1 Reading faces 148
7.2 Gestalt: perspective, body form, proportions and bodily
ideals 150
7.3 Body parts and hybridity 156
7.4 Nudity, sex and gender 163
7.5 Sexuality 171
7.6 Age, ageing and stages of life 176
7.7 Femininity: of marriage and motherhood 180
7.8 Masculinity: war and everyday life 190
7.9 Postures, gestures and movement 208
7.10 Actions, activities and practices 223
8 Motif networks 244
9 Conclusion 249
10 List of sites included in the analysis 252
Bibliography 256
Index 307
Figures
2.1 Types of networks: centralised, decentralised and
distributed networks 23
2.2 Connecting cavemen: isolated cavemen, connected cavemen,
some local connections replaced by global connections (small-
world network) 31
2.3 Charioteers on the situla from Kuffern, Austria, and a ceramic
vessel from Rabensburg, Austria 33
3.1 Hallstatt groups and regions in relation to modern nation
boundaries 38
3.2 Absolute dating of late Bronze Age and early Iron Age
chronological phases 46
4.1 Reconstruction drawing of the central chamber at Hochdorf,
Germany 60
4.2 Cremation necessities on the situla Bologna-Certosa, Italy 62
4.3 Cremated bones and pyre remains in an experimental cremation
of a pig in Hallstatt 2006, before and after rain 64
4.4 Bi-ritual graves 56, 75 and 106 from the Magdalenenberg
near Villingen, expressing different relationships between the
inhumed and cremated body 67
4.5 Hypothetical link between seasonality and funerary activities 70
4.6 Pins arranged around the face in Grave 56 from
the Magdalenenberg 77
4.7 Grave 33 from Riedenburg-Untereggersberg, Germany 80
4.8 The location of the ceramic pessary on the skeletal remains
of a 20- to 30-year-old woman in Grave 8, Viesenhäuser Hof,
Stuttgart-Mühlhausen 81
4.9 Plan of the burial chamber of Zagersdorf, Austria 93
4.10 Settlement and access road lined with burial mounds at Sopron-
Várhely, Hungary 98
4.11 Burial mounds of Kapiteljska njiva 99
5.1 Symposia on an Attic red-figure bell kratēr, c. 420 bc and on the
situla from Kuffern, Austria, c. 475–425 bc 103
5.2 Communication models without and with art as the medium of
the message 105
viii Figures
6.1 Number of individual human representations per site
(n = 3068) 110
6.2 Figurines, nudity, sex and gender 114
6.3 Female ceramic figurine from Gemeinlebarn, Austria
(see also Plate 10), male and sexless figurine from
Langenlebarn, Austria, androgynous figurine from
Turska kosa, Croatia 116
6.4 Figurines from the Cult Wagon of Strettweg, Austria 118
6.5 Figurine from Ampass-Demlfeld, Austria 119
6.6 Pendants from Unterlunkhofen, Switzerland,
and Esslingen, Germany 124
6.7 Drinking paraphernalia on the situla from Kuffern, Austria 125
6.8 Chronological distribution of object types 128
6.9 Distribution of object types with human images 129
6.10 Chronological distribution of materials 135
6.11 Primary material of objects with human images mapped per site 135
6.12 Material, sex and gender 136
6.13 The chaîne opératoire and the interface between object
and image 138
6.14 Human image over existing decorations at Sopron-Várhely,
Hungary 139
6.15 The belt plate from Brezje, Slovenia 140
6.16 Dumb-bell fighters on a ceramic fragment from Este, Italy, and
the belt plate from Magdalenska gora, Slovenia 142
6.17 Techniques of decoration on bronze and pottery: engraved/
incised images on the belt plate from Vače, Slovenia, and the
vessel from Sopron-Várhely, Hungary; punched images at the
cist from Kleinklein, Austria and the vessel from Schirndorf,
Germany 143
6.18 Musicians playing the lyre, from Bologna-Certosa (Italy),
Kleinklein (Austria), Reichersdorf (Austria), Sopron-Várhely
(Hungary), Schirndorf (Germany), Ernstbrunn (Austria), Loretto
(Austria), Janíky-Dolné Janíky (Slovakia) and Nové Košariská
(Slovakia) 145
7.1 Eye tracking recorded during free examination of the picture
with both eyes for a minute 149
7.2 Scenic depictions of people with the triangle as underlying
geometric principle, from Grave 3, Sopron-Váris, Hungary, and
Tumulus 27, Sopron-Várhely, Hungary 153
7.3 Body parts on objects, from Statzendorf, Austria, Nové
Košariská, Slovakia, Zwiefalten-Upflamör, Germany and Brezje,
Slovenia 158
7.4 Hybrid beings from Este-Benvenuti, Appiano,
and Este-Boldù-Dolfin 160
7.5 Body parts and hybrids in the Hallstatt area 163
Figures ix
7.6 Nudity, sex and gender of human representations 164
7.7 Sites according to the percentage of dressed and naked human
representations 165
7.8 Situational nudity: dumb-bell fighters, having just taken off their
clothes before the contest on the situla in Providence 166
7.9 Situla in Providence 167
7.10 Sex and gender of human representations 168
7.11 Distribution of sites in terms of the prevailing sex 169
7.12 Distribution of sites in terms of the prevailing gender 170
7.13 Courtship, sex and birth on the situla from Pieve
d’Alpago, Italy 172
7.14 Witnessing a sexual union at Sanzeno and Montebelluna, Italy 173
7.15 Man, boy and cockerel on the situla from Kuffern, Austria, and
Zeus seizing Ganymede on a red-figure kylix, c. 475 bc–425 bc 175
7.16 Swaddled babies (?) on Cist XIII from Kleinklein, Austria 178
7.17 Children at a feast, from Bologna-Certosa and Montebelluna,
Italy, and Kuffern, Austria 179
7.18 The mirror from Castelvetro, Italy 182
7.19 Women’s dress according to images on situlae, from Bologna-
Certosa, Italy; situla in Providence, Carceri, Italy, Vače,
Slovenia and Welzelach, Austria 184
7.20 Pregnant women from Maiersch, Austria, and Turska kosa, Croatia 188
7.21 Images of childbirth from Pieve d’Alpago, Italy, and Poggio
Colla, Italy 190
7.22 Elements of masculinity in early Iron Age imagery 193
7.23 Male heads: bald, with flat and round hat, beret-shaped hat,
broad-brimmed hat, pointed hat, conical hat and long pointed
hat, from the situla in Providence (first four), Magdalenska gora,
Slovenia, Montebelluno, Italy, and Kuffern, Austria, distribution
of prevailing head types 196
7.24 Situla from Este-Benvenuti, Italy 198
7.25 Men’s dress according to images on situlae, from Dürrnberg-
Kranzbichl, Austria, Welzelach, Austria, Montebelluna, Italy,
Magdalenska gora, Slovenia, Molnik, Slovenia, and
Este-Benvenuti, Italy 199
7.26 Figurative scene on the belt plate of Vače, Slovenia 200
7.27 Weapon types in conjunction with human representations 203
7.28 The situla of Vače, Slovenia 206
7.29 Travelling with captives, on the situla from Montebelluna, Italy,
and Sopron-Várhely, Hungary 207
7.30 Orants, from Sopron-Várhely, Hungary, Schirndorf, Germany,
Langenlebarn, Austria, Frög, Austria 210
7.31 Man-eating fish at Kleinklein, Austria 214
7.32 Pointing gestures on the situla in Providence, from Kuffern,
Austria, and Dürrnberg-Kranzbichl, Austria 216