Fitz Jenő (szerk.): The Celts in Central Europe - István Király Múzeum közelményei. A. sorozat 20. A Pannon konferenciák aktái 2. (Székesfehérvár, 1975)

J. V. S. Megaw: The orientelizing theme in early celtic art: East or West

Mention has been made of the ,Ticino’ girdle- or belthooks (Pl. VI,6—7) and the evidence for the reappearance in the princely graves of the warrior’s long sword with decorated scabbard perhaps following contact with eastern horse riding nomads. In the early Middle La Tène period the sword with decorated scabbard becomes a speciality of the central and eastern flat-grave region. Since J.-M. de Xavarro first discussed in 1959 the origins of the ,dragon-’ and ,bird-pairs’ decorating the mouths of such scabbardsţ90) (Pl. VI 1,1) a possible connection with the heraldry of the ,Ticino’ plaques has been considered only to be rejected. We now have not only the advantage of J.-M. de Navarro’s major study including all the scabbards from the type-site and most of the related pieces elsewhere(91) but the seemingly major problem of a timegap has been partially removed following the results of a number of dendrochronological estimations. It now looks as if the beginning of the Middle La Tene period in central Switzerland should be taken back to around the middle of the third century BC. Although as M. Szabó has recently fairly commented, the number of swords sith dragon-pairs in J. -M. d e Navarro’s East group indicates almost certainly some degree of local production!92), I remain less impressed by the seemingly generally accepted argument (following in the last analysis P. Jacobsthal,) that there is a link here with nomadic art and the steppeland version of the carniverous beast(93). However, should one not again consider the down-drooping muzzle of the Ostheim brooch (Pl. II, 4), the general lay-out of the Dürkheim openwork chariot mount (PI. 11,5), the Schwabsburg plaque (PI. 11,6) and the — certainly unique - urn from a chariot burial at La Cheppe, Marne(94 *) (Pl. VII,2), this last a site which produced a sword scabbard with simplified dragon-pair? It is also important to follow up M. Szabó’s citing of the related bestiary of local East European Tierfibeln(%) dated to the second half of the fourth century BC and as found in the Sopron-Bécsidomb cemetery from whence comes the well-known ,Waldalgesheim’ stamped vessel/96). These brooches certainly have nothing to do nith Thraco-Scythian forms — though the iconography of the incised decorated Middle La Tène period urn from Lábatlan, Kom. Komárom, grave 1 may have(97). But this piece seems to me in a

(90) J.-M. de Navabeo, Z

u einegen Schwertsheiden aus La, Tène. BRGK, XL, 1959,' 1960, 102 ff.

(91) A number of dragon- and bird-pair decorated swords omitted by de Navarro are referred to by J. V. S. Megaw, The decorated sword-scabbards of iron from Gernon-sur-Goole, Marne and Drna, Rimavská Sobota, Slovakia. Hamburger Beiträge zur Arch., III/2, 1973, in press.

(92) M. Szabó, The Celtic Heritage in Hungary. Budapest, 1971, 58 — 59 and fig. 25.

(93) Cf. EC A, 44 ff. ; for the seventh-sixth century

Scythian development of this motif, once again with

clear influence from western Asia, see V. A. Iliins-kaia, L’ image du carnassier félin dans la période

intitiale de l’art scythique. SA., 1971 /2, 64 — 85 —main

cultural sense not strictly Celtic and is to be related with material rather from the western Romanian flat cemeteries than from those of later La Tène central and western Europe.

Indeed, in conclusion, I should like to make a plea for our Eastern European colleagues to continue to define more clearly local — and not necessarily Celtic — stylistic groups. M. S z a b ó has made reference to the anthropomorphic two-handled amphorae from Hungary (which also found a place in P. Jacobsthal’s survey) and has related these to later Etrusco-Italic art(98). Also M. Szabó in the catalogue to the conference exhibition makes reference to the occurence of a similar form in Slovenia as for example the magnificent specimen from Novo Mesto with applied human heads and dragon- or snake-terminaled straphandles("). Slovenia, like northern Italy at an earlier date, is an area where La Tène material can be found in native, non-Celtic contexts and where, conversely, one may expect foreign elements to be available for characteristically Celtic transformation.

In a paper which has so firmly set its face westwards I hope it will not be taken as mere Celtic perversity to indicate the need to keep all our stylistic options open. To close as I began with a quotation from one whose work is still a constant inspiration and challenge :

,The Celts received the classical forms not directly from Greece . . . but by way of Italy and the East, recoined by the Italians, the Scythians, and the Persians’)100).

P. Jacobsthal may well be right but so illusive seems the proof that perhaps the time has now come to cease attempting to set territorial boundaries for more than the most circumscribed of local style groups. We should concentrate on the long-standing need for the detailed analysis, technical as well as stylistic, of the individual masterpieces in the undeniably great but tantalizingly intractable gallery of man’s aesthetic expression that is pre-Roman Celtic art (101 ).

Leicester J. V. S. Megaw

text in Russian (I owe this reference to M. S z a b Ó) See also P. Amandby, Un motif ,Scythe’ en Iran et en Grèce. J. Near Eastern Studies, XXIV, 1965, 149 — 60.

(94) EGA, no. 411; ASIA, no. 177.

(95) M. Szabó, o. c. EC, XIH:2, 1973, 753 ff. See now also Id., Contributions à L’étude de l’art et de la chronologie de La Tène ancienne en Hongrie, Fol Arch, XXIV, 1974, 71-76.

96) Cf. I. Hunyadi, Kelták a Kárpát medencében. Diss. Pann, 11/18, 1942 and 1944, 26 ff. and T. XVIII, 5; See also for Bosnia J. Todorovic, Kelti u jugoistocnoj Evropi. Dissertationes (Beograd), VII, 1968, 90 and SI. 21, 1 ; For the Celtic stamped vessel see EC A, no. 419; AEI A, no. 133; F. Schwappach, o. c., Hamburger Beiträge zur Arch., 1/2, 1971, 131 ff. and esp. Abb. 3.

(97) M. Szabó, o. c., FolArch, XXIV, 1973, 43 ff.

(98) EGA, nos. 415 — 8; M. Szabó, o. c., EC, XIII/2, 1973, 770 - 3 ; Id., Celtic art history in the Carpathian basin. Acta ArchHung, XXIV, 1972, 385 ff.

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