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I.—Celtic Bronzes from Lorraine

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2011

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Since the purchase of the Morel Collection in 1901 the British Museum has been able to point to the Somme-Bionne chariot-burial as a notable example of the earliest definitely Celtic art of Europe; but a still finer group is now in process of acquisition, and is shown to the Society before passing into the hands of the Trustees. These four remarkable bronze vessels were found buried together on ioth February 1928, during excavations for a cellar on the site of an old abbey at Bouzonville, Lorraine, now in the Département of Moselle. They had been heaped together pell-mell, one of them inverted, without any protection from the soil. Nothing else was found on the spot in spite of careful search, and the bronzes must therefore be regarded as a hoard or treasure, not as the grave-furniture of a Celtic chieftain. It may be a hurried deposit of loot from various sources, but there is nothing to suggest that the four vessels are anything but contemporary. Wine-vessels may be expected in the interment of a chieftain (Fürstengrab), but a single wine-jar (stamnos) normally accompanies the flagon in such cases (as Weisskirchen, Dürkheim, and Klein-Aspergle). That they were intended to contain wine is inferred from the presence of white pitch or resin (used for flavouring) in the stamnoi of Weisskirchen and Klein-Aspergle. Attention has been called to this recently by our Fellow Mr. J. M. de Navarro (Antiquity, Dec. 1928, p. 435), who quotes Virgil and Pliny in corroboration of the practice, and points out that the Celtic demand for wine, notorious in the ancient world,2 was mainly satisfied by the Rhône-Saône traffic from the Greek port of Marseilles in the sixth and fifth centuries before our era.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1929

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References

page 1 note 1 Déchelette, , Manuel, ii, 1435.Google Scholar

page 1 note 2 Déchelette, , La Collection Millon, p. 138.Google Scholar

page 2 note 1 Déchelette, , Manuel, ii, 1238,Google Scholar fig. 525, no. 1.

page 2 note 2 Déchelette, , Manuel, ii, 1066 Google Scholar; , Lindenschmit, Alterthümer, II, ii. 2 Google Scholar; Ebert, , Real-Lexikon, ii, pl. 215 Google Scholar.

page 2 note 3 Zur Kenntniss der La-Tène-Denkmäler der Zone nordwärts der Alpen (Mainzer Festschrift, 902), p. 54.Google Scholar

page 2 note 4 Siedelungs- und Kulturgeschichte der Rheinlande, i, 125.

page 2 note 5 References for the ordinary type, from sixth- to fifth-century tombs in Italy, are given by Miss Richter, G. M. A. (Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Bronzes,Metropolitan Museum of Arts, New York, 1915, p. 187)Google Scholar.

page 3 note 1 Stamnoi are also included in this list, which gives the leading references to finds before the date of publication (1914). His description of the Millon collection was published in the preceeding year, and contains coloured illustrations of the bronzes and Greek pottery from La Motte St.-Valentin, Haute-Marne.

page 3 note 2 As on the Weisskirchen clasp, said to have been filled with enamel ( , Lindenschmit, Alterthümer, II, iv, pl. 2,Google Scholar fig. 7; Déchelette, , Manuel, ii, 1238,Google Scholar fig. 525, no. 4).

page 3 note 3 Like the lid of a flagon with cylindrical spout from Le Catillon, St. Jean-sur-Tourbe, Marne ( Déchelette, , Manuel, ii, 1451)Google Scholar.

page 4 note 1 Ridder, A. de, Bronzes antiques du Louvre, ii, pls. 100, 101:Google Scholar some with couchant lions. See also Babelon, and Blanchet, , Bronzes antiques de la Bibliothèque Nationale, pp. 582–4Google Scholar.

page 4 note 2 Déchelette, , Manuel, ii, 1191,Google Scholar fig. 505; 1514, fig. 692.

page 4 note 3 A good example from the Somme-Bionne chariot-burial (Brit. Mus. Early Iron Age Guide, 2nd ed., pl. iv; Déchelette, , Manuel, ii, 1524)Google Scholar.

page 5 note 1 Other forms are sketched in Ebert, 's Real-Lexikon, iv, pl. 69 Google Scholar.

page 5 note 2 Riegler, , ‘Ente als Seelenvogel’, in Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, xxiii, Heft 1/2, 1925, p. 164,Google Scholar emphasizes its importance in folklore; and Déchelette dealt with it archaeologically in Revue Archéologique, 1909, vol. xiv Google Scholar (‘Le culte du soleil aux temps préhistoriques’).

page 5 note 3 , Lindenschmit, Alterthümer, 3,Google Scholar 3, 2, 7, figs. 5 a and b.

page 5 note 4 Revue Celtique, xx (1899), 13,Google Scholar 117; Revue Archéologique, 1905, vol. vi, 309 Google Scholar.

page 6 note 1 Lindenschmit, , Alterthümer, v, pl. 56,Google Scholar no. 1035 (seventh cent. B. c).

page 6 note 2 Déchelette, , Manuel, ii, 787.Google Scholar

page 6 note 3 Mainzer Festschrift, 1902 Google Scholar [La Tène Denkmäler, &c, p. 72). The illustration is from his pl. fig. 1; but another, with the beaked flagon restored, appears in , Jacobsthal and , Langsdorff's Die Bronzeschnabelkannen (published since this paper was written)Google Scholar.

page 8 note 1 Ebert's, Real-Lexikon, vi, 266,Google Scholar cf. vii, pls. 6, 7.

page 8 note 2 Chantre, E., Recherches anthropologiques dans le Caucase, ii, pls. VIII–XIII, XX bis, LV, LIX.Google Scholar

page 8 note 3 L'Anthropologie, x (1899), p. 686.Google Scholar

page 8 note 4 L'Anthropologie, xiii (1902), p. 71.Google Scholar Flavigny is dated La Tene II by Déchelette, , Manuel, ii, 1022 Google Scholar.

page 8 note 5 Ebert's, Real-Lexikon, iii, 92.Google Scholar

page 8 note 6 Arne, T. J. in Studier tillägnade Oscar Montelius, 1903, p. 121.Google Scholar

page 9 note 1 Déchelette, , Manuel, ii, 758 Google Scholar is the reference most accessible. He considered this and the Vogelgesang ring due to commerce with Scythia (p. 1576).

page 9 note 2 Festgabe für G. Kossinna (Mannus, Ergänzungsband vi), p. 271,Google Scholar giving a map of Scythian finds in East Germany (p. 273): see also Schlesiens Vorzeit, neue Folge, ix, 11; and , Reinecke in Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 1896, p. 1 Google Scholar; Schlesiens Vorzeit, vii (1898), 339 Google Scholar (Vogelgesang ring and map).

page 9 note 3 Déchelette, , Manuel, ii, 1248,Google Scholar fig. 533, no. 1; Prähistorische Blätter, xiv (1902), pl. 1 Google Scholar.

page 9 note 4 See Antiquaries Journal, vi, 412,Google Scholar fig. 5; , Minns, Scythians and Greeks, 251,Google Scholar fig. 172; Borovka, G., Scythian Art (trans. Childe, V. Gordon), pl. 60,Google Scholar E and G; pi. 72, B (Chinese jade).

page 9 note 5 In Strzygowski's, J. Der Norden in der bildenden Kunst Westeuropas—Heidnisches und Christliches um das Jahr 1000, p. 69.Google Scholar

page 9 note 6 Dalton, O. M., Archaeologia, Iviii, 250, 254Google Scholar; Cat. Oxus Treasure, 2nd ed., nos. 11, 44, 45.

page 10 note 1 Ebert's, Real-Lexikon, iii, 161 Google Scholar; and more fully in Vorgeschichte von Deutschland (1928), 211 Google Scholar.

page 10 note 2 Archaeologia Hungarica, iii.

page 10 note 3 Manuel, vol. ii, p. 1015.

page 10 note 4 Map of barrows and flat graves of this period in Ebert's, Real-Lexikon, iv, pl. 68, see p. 74 Google Scholar.

page 11 note 1 Map in Siedelungs- und Kulturgeschichte der Rheinlande, pl. 8; see also his article in Ebert's, Real-Lexikon, viii, 266 Google Scholar.

page 11 note 2 Mehren is south of Daun, between the Alf and Lieser.

page 11 note 3 The Treasure of the Oxus, 2nd ed. (British Museum, 1926).Google Scholar