found in northern Europe, and northern European art has
been found in Mycenae. One of the most interesting paint-
ings of the era is a mural from the Mediterranean island of
Th era in the 1500s b.c.e. that depicts what appears to be a
boat from Scandinavia.
Numerous rock paintings and carvings from 2000 to
500 b.c.e. were created in Scandinavia, by Germanic peoples
sometimes called Nordic by anthropologists. Th ese paintings
and carvings have been found in Norway, Sweden, and Den-
mark, and they number in the hundreds of thousands. Th e
artworks appear on broad rock faces. First they were carved
by using an unknown tool to punch chips out of the surface.
In the earliest examples a color lighter than the rock was add-
ed into the carved lines, giving the fi gures greater defi nition.
In later examples ocher—a mineral with iron oxide, colored
red, brown, or yellow—was added into the lines. Th e subject
matter is varied, showing people dancing, hunting, and even
making love, but pictures of ships predominate. Th e interest
in ships is indicative of oceangoing trade, perhaps into the
Mediterranean, which would help explain the Mycenaean in-
fl uence in Britain and northern Europe as well as central Eu-
rope. Among the rock carvings from the fi rst century b.c.e.
are studies of chariots, depicting various kinds of harnesses,
and of spoked wheels, sometimes apart from the pictures of
the chariots. In European art of the period wheels with spokes
oft en represented the sun. Chariots oft en indicated the pres-
ence of an elite warrior class.
By 1500 b.c.e. Mycenaean metalwork, especially in cop-
per and gold, had spread across western Europe. A scepter
buried with a British chieft ain duplicates one found in My-
cenae, dated at about 1600 b.c.e. Mycenaean armor was in
central Europe by the 1500s b.c.e. and may have infl uenced
the development of helmets and body armor among the Celts.
Golden cups from about 1500 b.c.e. that imitate Mycenaean
styles and techniques for working gold have been discovered
in Britain and in far northwestern Germany. Th e spread of
Mycenaean infl uence in Europe cannot be explained fully by
oceangoing traders and must have included overland trade
routes. Th e Mycenaeans set up trading posts in the Balkans
and perhaps farther north to Germany, and they had trading
posts in Britain. When the Mycenaean culture abruptly ended
in about 1200 b.c.e., their traders may have been stranded in
those trading posts, and their artists may have ventured into
central Europe to fi nd employment. Th ey brought with them
their techniques for metalwork, which may help to account
for the fl owering of Celtic metal sculpture that followed.
Th e Celts loved jewelry, and Celtic sites that have not
been plundered yield a rich assortment of jewelry. Beads were
well loved, and even Egyptian glass beads have been found
not only in central Europe but also as far as northern Ger-
many, probably imported into Europe through trade routes
established by the Mycenaeans. A necklace from Britain from
1500 to 1000 b.c.e. shows the use of shale beads and faience
beads. Faience is brightly colored glazed pottery. Bones and
antlers also were worked, mostly for decoration. Amber was
mined in Jutland in modern Denmark and exported through-
out Europe, where it was used to make beads and strung on
necklaces. Eastern Europe, especially Hungary and the Czech
Republic, has yielded bracelets and pendants from 1500 to
1000 b.c.e., many with designs that echo Mycenaean ones, yet
some show the intricate interlacing of curves and lines as well
as the three-pointed swirls, which would set apart Celtic art.
It is in metal that Celtic art from this era fully captivates
the imagination. Much of the metalwork seems to have served
ritual purposes, sometimes given in sacrifi ce to a local god. For
the Celts the world was full of gods; lakes, rivers, mountains,
stones, and more had their own gods. Th is means that rivers
such as the Th ames in England have yielded fi nely sculpted
gold and bronze. Early examples that hint at what was to follow
come from the Únĕtice culture, from what is now eastern Ger-
many. Th ey produced armlets (bands worn around the arm),
earrings, beads, and pins of gold from 1500 to 1000 b.c.e. Th eir
designs were simple, sometimes just a winding of strands of
gold into circles of wire to form tightly wound beads. Even so,
there are hints of what would come. For example a grave in
Germany has yielded an armlet from about 1500 b.c.e. that has
lines along its length and a twisting design between the lines,
somewhat like a simple version of the twisting and looping of
lines in later Celtic armbands and torques (neck rings).
Of particular interest are the many model cart sculp-
tures of the era. Th e earliest ones tend to be ceramic. For
instance, in the National Museum in Belgrade, Serbia, is a
three-wheeled wagon pulled by what look like ducks, dating
to the 1300s b.c.e. Archaeologists fi nd this cart interesting
because of the three wheels, which indicate experimenta-
tion in the design of carts; from the point of view of art,
the interest is in the ducks, which are portrayed only from
the breast up, and the very plain human-shaped fi gure,
which may represent a god. Th e sculptor emphasized the
basic shapes of his or her subjects without providing details.
Th e theme of waterbirds pulling a cart seems to have been
an important one in the Balkans. From Romania circa 800
b.c.e., but housed in Naturhistorisches Museum in Vienna,
is a bronze four-wheeled cart with a cauldron in the middle.
It is surrounded by abstractions of ducklike birds, facing
forward and backward in continuous lines. Housed in the
same museum is a bronze four-wheeled cart from the 700s
b.c.e. found in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Th is wagon is car-
rying the birds instead of being pulled by them. Th ere are
two ducks, with one as a receptacle and the other riding on
its back and capping the receptacle. Th e birds were cast in
multiple pieces and then fused together by hammering, and
they are more realistic than the earlier pieces.
From Denmark, from about 1300 b.c.e., comes a bronze
sculpture well known to both archaeologists and art histo-
rians: the Sun Wagon. It has six wheels with spokes. At that
time these could have represented the movement of the sun.
On a wire chassis (the framework attached to the wheel ax-
les) are a horse and disk. Th e disk is elaborately decorated
with swirls and circles. Some of the gold leaf that covered its108 art: Europe