Garam Éva szerk.: Between East and West - History of the peoples living in hungarian lands (Guide to the Archaeological Exhibition of the Hungarian National Museum; Budapest, 2005)

HALL 5 - The Celts (450 B.C.-turn of the millennium) (Miklós Szabó)

In addition to reliefs, pottery was decorated also with incised patterns and figurai designs. The incised scenes on the urns recovered from the tumulus cemetery at Sopron undoubtedly represent the peak of this art. One of the urns from this site has scenes of women presenting a sacrifice, a horseman and a horse composed of geometric motifs. 10. METALWORK The metalwork from Transdanubia is closely allied to the Eastern Alpine and Central European metal workshops. As result of extensive trading contacts, weapons, horse harness, jewellery and bronze sculpture became remarkably uniform throughout the eastern Hallstatt province. The weapons deposited in the burials included iron swords, iron lances, iron battle-axes (Somlóvásárhely) and helmets (Csönge). The bits and bridle distributors from the graves at Somlóvásárhely suggest that some warriors fought on horseback. The style of the jewellery reflects a uniform fashion in the Eastern Alpine and Central European region. Boat shaped bronze fibulae with small pendants (Celldömölk-Sághegy), ribbed bronze bracelets decorated with engraved patterns (Regöly) and necklaces strung of glass and amber beads became highly popular in the 7th century B.C. The unique bronze ornaments found at Blatnica in Slovakia are magnificent creations of the skilled bronzesmiths of the Hallstatt culture. The unique form of the large pendants is testimony to ingenuity and creative powers of the craftsmen of the period. Cylindrical buckets decorated with ribbing were among the typical products turned out by the workshops of the Eastern Alpine Late Hallstatt culture. The hoard found in a peatbog on the outskirts of Kurd near the Kapos River contained fourteen such buckets; the assemblage itself was no doubt a votive gift offered to the gods. Bronze figurines depicting men can similarly be associated with religious cults. The gods, heroes and warriors evoked various mythical narratives. The bronze figurines from Nyergesújfalu (Fig. 50), evoking the artistic style of Picenum in southeast Italy during the 6th century B.C., are splendid examples of this artistic imagery. The figurine of a man blowing a double horn from Százhalombatta and the one depicting a mounted warrior from Székesfehérvár had originally been part of a domestic sanctuary. 11. MASTERPIECES IN GOLD, SILVER AND BRONZE From the mid-6th century B.C., the Illyrian culture of the northwest Balkans became dominant in southern Transdanubia. Inspired by the spirit of Greek art, Illyrian metalwork flourished during this period. The gold bracelet with two stylised snake heads from Baranya county was probably made by an Illyrian goldsmith. One of the most beautiful pieces of jewellery is the boat shaped gold fibula from Csáktornya, made in a northern Balkanic workshop. The impact of Illyrian culture is reflected in a bronze fiblua and a belt fashioned from bronze rods, found among the grave goods in a burial uncovered at Szárazd. The magnificent silver belt, profusely decorated with an engraved geometric pattern (Fig. 5J) in the style employed by Illyrian silversmiths found at Titel near the confluence of the Danube and the Tisza had no doubt adorned the costume of a high-ranking member of the elite. THE CELTS (450 B.C.-turn of the millennium) The first non-Mediterranean people to emerge from obscurity in Europe were the Celts. The ancient Greeks were the first to identify the Celts as one of the "barbarian" (i.e. non-Greek speaking) people of Europe. The Celtic civilisation of the Late Iron Age was named the La Tène culture after a site