Szabó Miklós, Petres F. Éva: Decorated weapons on the La Tene Iron Age in the Carpathian Basin. (Inventaria Praehistorica Hungariae 5; Budapest, 1992)

I. EXPERIMENTATION - Geometric ornament - The Waidalgesheim Style

I. EXPERIMENTATION According to our present knowledge — which will no doubt be modified by the discovery of new finds as well as by progress in conservation techniques — the decoration of La Tène weapons in the Carpathian Basin began in the Duchcov-Miinsingen phase, i.e. in the La Tène Bl period.

49 The title chosen for this chapter was intended to refer to the fact that the finds reviewed here are heterogeneous and often reflect diametrically opposing tendencies, some of which eventually turned out to be cul-de-sacs. Geometric ornament The socket of a spearhead found in a grave of Sopron-Bécsidomb (Cat.no. 58; Pl. 59)

50 has an engraved swastika pattern. It would be tempting to interpret this motif as a document of the eastern, conservative tendency in early La Tène art. Disregarding now that this interpretation which was based on the stamped pottery decorated in the so-called "Arc Style" has been seriously challenged recently,

51 the ornamentation in question cannot be fitted into a hypothetical schema of "eastern" development since its best parallels have been reported from the Marne region (Fig. l),

52 implying that the appearance of this pattern in the Carpathian Basin can be associated with a west to east Celtic migration.

53 It must here also be noted that on the Sopron spearhead the swastika is a filler motif of the lozenge pattern and that this pattern occurs also on spear sockets from later periods, either as a simple "skeleton" pattern (see Cat.no. 7; Csabrendek, spearhead 2;), or combined with floral patterns (Szob, Cat.no. 69; Pl. 73). Fig. 1 La Gorge-Meillet, incised geometric decoration on the helmet bronze (after EC A., Pl. 270, no. 262) The Waldalgesheim Style In his Early Celtic Art P. Jacobsthal modified his earlier idea and postulated that the emergence of the Waldalgesheim Style represented the second phase of development in the Rhineland centres of Celtic art.

64 However, most scholars now tend to agree that Celtic art of the 4th century B.C. was itself the product of the historical migration, i.e. that its formation and subsequent development can be linked to direct contacts with the Mediterranean world after the occupation of northern Italy.

55 We do not intend to review here the widely differing and strongly polarised theories concerning possible origins since in terms of the decorated weapons from the Carpathian Basin out main concern is the appearance of the Waldalgesheim Style in this region, rather than its origins. For, as P. Jacobsthal has aptly noted, this style played a decisive role in the later development of Celtic art.

56 Recent research in the Middle Danube region has contributed to a better understanding of the Waldalgesheim Style.

57 The analysis of the rapidly growing corpus of finds has brought the interesting recognition that there are in fact extremely few pieces which can be linked to specimens found in the west or in Italy, not only in terms of their ornament, but also as regards their material and their technique. In other words, beside the "import" of products manufactured elsewhere, this style appears to have been regionally copied. This would in turn imply two distinct chronological phases; it is an entirely different matter that — since most pieces are stray finds — a more accurate dating as well as a more precise definition of the relationship between possible models and their copies involves various difficulties. It would now appear that the Waldalgesheim Style spread to the Carpathian Basin primarily from northern Italy. However, we cannot entirely dismiss the possibility of eastwest contacts.

68 The analysis of decorated weapons from the Carpathian Basin in fact raises the problem of a possible dual origin. An unprovenanced iron spearhead in the collection of the Hungarian National Museum (Cat.no. 75; PI. 78) is a very high quality work. The design of opposed lyres ornamented by starshaped flowers is repeated on both sides which is best paralleled by the pattern of the gold tore of the Waldalgesheim find.(Fig. 2)

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