- Chapter Twenty -
site of Msecke Zehrovice, is an exception which can be dated to at least the third cen-
tury BC (Figure 20.13) (Megaw and Megaw 1988). Comparison with contemporary
or near-contemporary classical sculpture such as the well-known depictions of naked
Celtic warriors, originally commissioned by the Hellenistic rulers of Pergamon,
demonstrates most clearly the absence of anything approaching naturalistic or even
idealized portraiture in early Celtic art.
ICONOGRAPHY AND MEANING
To reconstruct the bases of pre-Roman iron age belief systems is a hazardous task. At
best we have to rely on classical descriptions which, even when contemporary with
the cultures they describe, clearly see things in terms of their own society's ideas. Use
of much later Insular, if authentically Celtic, Welsh and Irish sources also carries the
obvious dangers of projecting back in time and space concepts of probably limited
regional and chronological applicability. Such as it is, the archaeological record
suggests as much regional diversity in belief systems as in more tangible categories
of material culture. Nevertheless, there are certain symbolic common denominators
in La Tene visual art which support a view of its incorporation of ideas which are
long-lasting and widely disseminated in space. A few examples must suffice.
From its very beginnings early Celtic art is concerned to depict not the whole
human form -which in fact rarely occurs -but rather the human head either explicitly
or ambiguously, as in the Cheshire Cat-like formulations of the later fourth century
(Figures 20.1(1), 20.2, 20.6, 20.10 (below right), 20.13, 20.14). Even the insular
material, generally abstract or aniconic, shows a few fleeting faces before the more
definite first-century BC heads (Lambrechts 1954; Megaw 1965-6; Megaw and Megaw
1993). This recalls what we know from Insular tradition about the Celts' veneration
of the human head as the centre of the intellect and the spirit, the heart and soul of
the individual. Then there is the frequent depiction of a restricted range of relatively
naturalistic animals, longest lasting being the bull, the boar and the horse. It is the
boar or, as a substitute, the pig, which is frequently found as the champion's share
in early Celtic burials and which occurs right through to the Roman conquest as a
common symbol on coinage as well as in the form of free-standing figurines and
helmet crests. Cattle, in later prehistoric Europe an economic staple and, one may
again surmise from later evidence, a recognized form of wealth, are represented from
even before the early Hallstatt period, as are, if less commonly, sheep or goats and
deer (Figure 20.12). Birds -where identifiable in particular water-birds and birds of
prey - also have a long iconographic life from the bird-headed brooches of Early La
Tene onwards (Figures 20.5, 20.10, 20.15, 20.17) and the highly stylized bird's head-
comma is particularly significant in the the pre-and post-Roman Celtic art of Britain
and Ireland.
Combinations of humans and animals either in composite forms or associated one
with the other are most clearly to be found in the strange imagery of the 'Early Style'
gold rings (Figure 20.9) and the mask brooches (Figure 20.10), the latter reasonably
interpreted as talismans to protect the wearer from an uncertain world populated by
threats perceived and imagined (Pauli 1975, 1985). Imported imagery of Italo-Greek