Folia archeologica 24.

Tibor Kovács: Representations of Weapons on Bronze Age Pottery

WEAPONS ON BRONZE AGE POTTERY 27 The three representations of weapons, hitherto known from Hungary, are therefore relics of the same people from about the same period (14th century B.C.), incarnating a peculiar artistic style. How far is this style to be named local and to what extent "European"? The subject of the representation - man with weapon - is not an isolated feature in the figurai art of Europe during the second millennium B.C. Rock engravings of the Western Mediterraneans and Scandinavia in this period show weapons as daggers, hatchets and halbards in rather great numbers."

5 Stone stelae with a closed composition of man and weapon occur in a smaller number, they are, though, very characteristical of the Bronze Age art of South Europe (the Iberian peninsula and Italy.)

6" It would need a special study whether the thematic similarities or identities, emerging roughly at the same time in the arts of peoples living in different areas and having no direct contacts, were merely the results of a converging evolution or the expression of artistic or religious waves, embracking large areas, whose expansion - on the way of migrations - and radius of action are at best but partly known. Regarding the arts of the above regions and those of the peoples of the Carpathian basin we can speak here more of a convergence of arts of people on an approximately equal economic-social level, though rooted in different precedents and emerging in different environments and different forms."

7 Elucidating eventual inner contexts between Bronze Age rock drawings of Italy, being the nearest of the areas mentioned, and the Hungarian representations of similar subjects is a hard task as we cannot define the real meaning or sacral function of our representations. As for the Aegean area the situation is quite different. Though from the 16th century B.C. on we find here rather a great number of representations of daggers or swords, we cannot bring our specimens in direct connection with the stelae of the mentioned Tomb V of Mycenae,"

8 nor with the armed figures of the seals,"

9 or with similar scenes on vases either,

7

0 for this possibility seems to be excluded 6

5 Anati, E., Chronology of the art of Valcamonica. IPEK 21(1964-65) 49-55, Pl. XXVI 1, 3; XXVII 1-2; Id., L'arte rupestre di Boario Terme-Darfo: relazione preliminare. Valcamonica Symposium (Capo di Ponte 1970) 189sqq; Marstrander, S., Felsbilder von bronzezeitlichem Typus in Norwegen. IPEK 21(1964-65) 62-63; Pasot/i

, M

., Nuove incisioni rupestri del Lago di Garda. Valcamonica Symposium (Capo di Ponte 1970) 151sqq; Figs. 71, 73; Kühn, H., Die Felsbilder Europas. (Stuttgart 1971) 87-103. 6

6 Ribeiro, F. N., О bronze meridional Portugues. (Beja 1965) 25-27, Pis. XXI-XXV. Stacul, C., La Grande Madre. (Rome 1963) 104, Figs. 104-115; Barfield, L., Northern Italy before Rome. Ancient Peoples and Places 76. (London 1971) 67, Fig. 32. e

7 With the expression "in different environments and different forms" we should like to underline the difference between the representations of weapons in Hungary (especially the Dunaújváros one, coming from a burial), which were made for a special occasion and buried thereafter, whereas the Valcamonica rock drawings e.g. were produced in valleys (cult places?), used by a community continuously or periodically, where the "artist" might have been in physical contact with the works of previous generations. e

8 Marinatos, Sp., op. cit. Fig. 147; Vermeide, E., Greece in the Bronze Age. (Chicago 1964) 90-94, Fig. 17a-b. e

s Sakellariou, A., Die minoischen und mykenischen Siegel des Nationalmuseums in Athen. CMS I. (Berlin 1964) 9, 11-12, 16, 165. (Mykene), 290 (Pylos); Id., Die mykenische Siegelglyptik. SMA IX. (Lund 1964) 3-5. 7

0 Sjoqvist, E., Problems of the Late Cypriote Bronze Age. (Stockholm 1940) Fig. 20, 1, 3.