- The Nature and Function of Celtic Art -
Figure 10.10 Bronze brooches found in female inhumation grave 70/2 at Diirrnberg bei
Hallein, Ld. Salzburg, Austria. Length of brooch in form of a flying bird. 3. I em. Fifth century
Be. (Photo courtesy Dr Ing. Fritz Moosleitner.)and fragile. In the Early Style period, little fine pottery comes from rich Rhineland
graves, and the pottery of the Champagne-Ardennes area of France shows forms
derived from Greek pottery and geometric designs related to those of the preceding
Jogassian period (Charpy and Roualet 1987: 26-69; Roualet 1991; Charpy 1991). We
have already mentioned the fine painted pottery of the Marne which developed in
the fourth century Be (Figure 20. 11 a) (Bataille-Melkon and Charpy 1985; Charpy
and Roualet 1987: 70-86; 1991b; Kruta 1991a; Corradini 1991). In Bohemia indeed,
the introduction of the potter's wheel seems to have made pottery distribution even
more localized (Gosden 1983). Several centuries later, pottery workshops associated
with the regional defended centres or oppida of the late La Tene period were estab-
lished in the Massif Central of France, the Swiss plateau, southern Germany and
western Hungary (Maier 1970; Charpy and Roualet 1991a: 173-294). While these
oppida pots kept decoration in the main to simple geometric designs, a few vessels
exhibit the long-lasting tradition of vegetal-based designs and others have friezes of
painted animals (Figure 20 .IIb).
One group of decorated pottery, mostly made in the Early La Tene period, used
stamps to build up repeating patterns mainly found on shallow bowls and fine
slender-necked wheel-turned flasks with a distribution from the Rhineland to western
Hungary (Schwappach 1973a, 1973b, 1974, 1977). The discovery of a number of kilns
in the region of a major settlement at Sopron and the close comparison of the stamped
motifs used in their decoration have allowed detailed plotting of the local trading
networks which exported vessels from this region across into eastern Austria Gerem
1984). Further fabric analysis has also indicated that the so-called 'Braubach' bowls
of the area around Bonn in western Germany were the subject of local trading net-
works. The designs employed most commonly on such stamped pottery include com-
binations of concentric circles, S-or lyre-like forms, arcs and double-petalled floral
motifs. The petalled motifs are really simplified lotus-flowers and these and other
stamped designs are adapted versions of the palmettes and lotus-buds found
on metalwork of the western Early Style, and the arcs and petals also reflect the use of
compasses in a different medium (Figure 20. I [2)). In slightly later Brittany there is a