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A Bronze Horse Figurine found near Birkwood, Lesmahagow, Lanarkshire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2011

Summary

The bronze horse figurine found at Birkwood, Lanarkshire, Scotland, is described, and found to compare closely with horse figurines from Hallstatt, Upper Austria. These in turn relate to figurines decorating bronze vessels in Etruria, and in Greece, especially at Olympia in late Geometric contexts. Considerations bearing on horse-trading along the Adriatic, and the dissemination of ideas about racing trophies, are discussed. The occurrence of Hallstatt exotics in Scotland is summarized, but it cannot be established that the Birkwood figurine was an ancient import as it was a stray find.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1969

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References

page 118 note 1 National Grid reference NS 7942. Greenshields, Annals, p. 37, and frontispiece, no. 4. Greenshields further records that the same labourers ‘about the same time’ picked up a small bronze square-mouthed and four-footed bell: ibid., p. 37, and frontispiece, no. 3. However, although the two objects were clearly found in proximity, it is not necessary to assume any association.

page 118 note 2 J.B.A.A. xxi (1865), 82Google Scholar and pl. 3, fig. 3.

page 118 note 3 Catalogue: Scottish History and Archaeology Section, p. 29, no. 213.

page 118 note 4 Palace of History (Catalogue of Exhibits), ii, 865, no. 6.

page 118 note 5 Reg. no. LA 618d. Our thanks are due to Lady Scott Mackirdy for agreeing to the publication of this note.

page 120 note 1 Kromer, K., Das Gräberfeld von Hallstatt (1959)Google Scholar, pl. 147, 15a and b; Kromer, K., Hallstatt, Prähistorische Kunst (1963)Google Scholar, pl. 41. At about the same time as our first discussion of the Birkwood horse in the Glasgow Museum, Dr. Morna Simpson had independently recognized its Hallstatt affinities which she subsequently recorded in her Edinburgh Ph.D. thesis.

page 120 note 2 Our thanks are due to Professor Karl Kromer for correspondence on these figurines, and for information on a further figurine from Hallstatt, now only known from an old illustration, that closely resembled the Birkwood example. We are also indebted to Professor Gotbert Moro, Director, Landesmuseum fur Kärnten, Klagenfurt, for photographs and kind permission to publish pl. xxix, and to Mrs. M. E. Scott for the drawings of the Birkwood figurine and other text figures. Also to Miss N. K. Sandars, Mr. Vincent Desborough, Dr. Hugh Hencken, Professor R. J. Hopper, and Mr. R. W. Hutchinson, for many helpful comments and references.

page 120 note 3 K. Kromer (1959), pl. 127, 4; (1963), pl. 51; Powell, T. G. E., Prehistoric Art (1966), pl. 171Google Scholar.

page 120 note 4 Piggott, S., Ancient Europe (1965), pp. 179Google Scholar, 210, n. 35 for collected references.

page 120 note 5 K. Kromer (1959), pls. 55, 75, 92, 2; (1963), pls. 44 and 38 respectively,

page 120 note 6 Ibid., pls. 137, 222; (1963), pls. 42, 43.

page 121 note 1 K. Kromer (1959), Text Bd. pl. 6. In addition on chronology v. W. Dehn and O.-H. Frey, Atti VI Congr. Scienze Preist. e Protoist. (Roma), i (1962), 197–208.

page 121 note 2 Schmid, W., Der Kultwagen von Strettweg (1934)Google Scholar; Piggott, S., Ancient Europe (1965)Google Scholar, pls. xxvi, xxxi; Sandars, N. K., Prehistoric Art in Europe (1968), pp. 214–15Google Scholar, for important new evaluation with link to seventh century B.C. bronze figurine from Olympia.

page 121 note 3 Pallotino, M. et al. , Mostra dell'arte delle Situle dal Po al Danubio (1961), p. 107Google Scholar, pl. 35; J. Kastelic et al., Situla Art (1965), pl. 64; S. Bökönyi, ‘Data on Iron Age Horses of Central and Eastern Europe’, Amer. Sch. Preh. Res. Peaiody Mus. Bull. 25 (1968), distinguishes ‘Scythian’ (taller) and ‘Celtic’ (shorter) horses, but neither type seems represented in the Hallstatt-Birkwood figurines.

page 121 note 4 Pallotino supra, pl. 47; F. Starè, Vače (Arheološki Katalogi Slovenije, i) (1955), pl. i.

page 121 note 5 E., and Neustupný, J., Czechoslovakia before the Slavs (1961), p. 119Google Scholar; W. and B. Forman and J. Poulík, Prehistoric Art, n.d., pl. 117.

page 121 note 6 Thomas, E., ed., Archäolaogische Funde in Ungarn (1956), pl. facing p. 132Google Scholar.

page 121 note 7 Pittioni, R., Urgeschichte des österreichischen Raumes (1954)Google Scholar, fig. 443; Modrijan, W., ‘Das hallstattzeitliche Gräberfeld von Frög, KärntenCarinthia, ser. i (1957), 342Google Scholar.

page 122 note 1 Fogolari, G., ‘Sanzeno nella Anaunia’, Civiltà del ferro (1960), pp. 267321Google Scholar.

page 122 note 2 Benton, S., ‘The Evolution of the Tripod Lebes’, B.S.A. xxxv (1934–5), pp. 74130Google Scholar; The Dating of Horses on Stands and Spectacle Fibulae in Greece,J.H.S. lxx (1950), 1622Google Scholar; Further Excavations at Aetos’, B.S.A. xlviii (1953), 255358Google Scholar; Willemsen, F., Dreifuβkessel von Olympia (Olympische Forschungen, iii) (1957)Google Scholar; Herrmann, H.-V., ‘Werkstatten geometrischer Bronze-plastik’, Jdl. lxxix (1964), 1771Google Scholar.

page 122 note 3 H.-V. Herrmann (1964), figs. 8,9. Inaddition to these features, note the forward sloping legs of the tripod-handle horse from Ithaca; S. Benton (1950), pl. Ivb.

page 122 note 4 Ibid., figs. 6, 10.

page 122 note 5 Ibid., figs. 12, 13.

page 122 note 6 Ibid., fig. 13; Mitton, G. D., Boston Museum Bull, lxv (1967), fig. 2Google Scholar. It is opportune to compare Mitton's fig. 8 of a Geometric bull with that from Hallstatt, Grab 507, K. Kromer (1959), pl. 219; (1963), pl. 21; T. G. E. Powell (1966), pl. 172.

page 122 note 7 Anderson, J. K., Ancient Greek Horsemanship 1961)Google Scholar. Anderson (p. 17) being opposed to the use of the term ‘Arab’ except for horses out of Arabia, the term ‘Levantine’ is here favoured for the likely parent stock that had been bred to run under chariots since the mid second millennium B.C.

page 122 note 8 Ibid., p. 37.

page 122 note 9 F. Willemsen (1957), especially pl. 90: B 1301; H.-V. Herrmann (1964), figs. 1, 2, 6, 7,13.

page 123 note 1 J. A. H. Potratz, Die Pferdetrensen des Alten Orient (Analecta Orientalia, 41) (1966), pls. lxv, 153, Ixvii, 157.

page 123 note 2 von Merhart, G., ‘Studien über einige Gattungen von Bronzegefäβen’, Festschrift Rom. Germ. Zentralmus. Mainz, ii (1952), pls. 14, 15Google Scholar, for range of handles; 69 and pl. 18, 4, Frog bucket.

page 123 note 3 K. Kromer (1959), pi. 220; (1963), pls. 48, 49; Piggott, S., Ancient Europe (1965)Google Scholar, pl. xxviiia.

page 123 note 4 F. Willemsen, 1957, passim.

page 123 note 5 Ibid., fig. 10.

page 123 note 6 Hencken, H., ‘Horse Tripods of Etruria’, Amer. J. Arch, lxi (1957), 14Google Scholar.

page 124 note 1 H. Hencken, op. cit., fig. 10.

page 124 note 2 Frey, O.-H., ‘Der Ostalpenraum und die antike Welt in der frühen Eisenzeit’, Germania, xliv (1966), 4866Google Scholar. Parducz, M.Acta Arch. Hung, xvii (1965), 137231Google Scholar), in publishing the Archaic Greek bronze hydria from a ‘Scythic’ grave at Ártánd, south-east of Debrecen, has adduced reasons for a route from the Adriatic, rather than from the Black Sea, for this vessel.

page 124 note 3 Boardman, J., The Greeks Overseas (1964), 232–6Google Scholar.

page 124 note 4 Frey, op. cit., recognized the chronological value of this allusion for the archaeology of the East Alpine region.

page 125 note 1 Antiq. Journ. xxxviii (1958), 254–5Google Scholar, in reviewing Willemsen.

page 125 note 2 Coles, J. M., ‘Scottish Late Bronze Age Metalwork’, Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot, xciii (1959–60Google Scholar), 16–134. His ‘Duddingston’ and ‘Adabrock’ phases respectively. Map 8 for Hallstatt finds in Scotland.

page 125 note 3 Ibid., p. 25 and fig. 3; p. 48 and fig. 5. Coles rightly related the Inveraray (recte Killeonan, Kintyre) ‘flesh-hook’ to that from Dunavemey, Antrim, Ireland, which is illustrated inter alia: Piggott, S. and Daniel, G. E., A Picture Book of Ancient British Art (1951)Google Scholar, pl. 3 6; British Museum, Later Prehistoric Antiquities of the British Isles (1953), pl. iv 4; T. G. E. Powell (1966), pl. 168. We would regard the Dunavemey piece as another Hallstatt import, falling within G. Eogan's ‘Dowris B' phase (Proc. Preh. Soc. xxx (1964), 320–5Google Scholar), and draw attention to the similarity of its birds, especially the crows, to certain Olympic figurines (e.g. Willemsen, pls. 40, 61, 66). On these ‘fleshhooks’ as stimuli for horse-driving v. Mariän, M. E., Trouvailles du champ d'umes et des tombelles hallstattiennes de Court-Saint-Étienne (1958), pp. 115–17Google Scholar.

page 126 note 1 J. M. Coles (1960), maps 1–7 and 9; Scott, J. G., South-West Scotland (Regional Archaeologies) 1966), pp. 4854Google Scholar.