The Hohensalzburg head is a Celtic marble head which was spolia in Hohensalzburg Fortress, Salzburg in Austria until 1956. The head is tentatively dated to the 1st century AD.
The Hohensalzburg head is a Celtic marble head which was spolia in Hohensalzburg Fortress, Salzburg in Austria until 1956. The head is tentatively dated to the 1st century AD.
The head was first known as spolia, built into the wall above the Rosspforte (lit., "horse gate") of Hohensalzburg Fortress. It was known here as the Romerkopf (lit., "Roman head"). It was removed in 1956 during repairs and put on display in another room of the castle. [1] [2] The head is currently in the collection of Salzburg Museum. [3]
The head is carved from local Untersberg marble. The total height of the block is around 50 cm and the height of the head is 17 cm. [1] The pedestal-like lower part of the stone suggests that this head once surmounted a herm or pillar. [2]
The head is male and life-sized. The cheeks are hollow. The nose, which comes down from the brows, is wedge-shaped except for two flared nostrils. The chin is rounded and broad. The eyes are protruding and oval, with pupils indented. The mouth is peculiarly twisted, like a circumflex. In place of hair, crowning the head, are deep, vertical ridges in a wave-like pattern. [2] [4] : 232
Several features identify this head as Celtic: the oval eyes, wedge nose, and hollow cheeks. [2] In the circumflex mouth and almost flat chin, the Hohensalzburg head can be compared to the Janus head from Roquepertuse. [4] : 231 The wave-like pattern on the head has been interpreted by T. G. E. Powell as hair, and likened to the much more detailed pattern on one head from Entremont. [4] : 231–232 Kurt Willvonseder interprets this pattern as a knit cap and compares it to a figure on the Gundestrup cauldron. [2]
One question with regards to the Hohensalzburg head is its relationship to the 16 BC Roman occupation of Austria (called Noricum by the Romans). [2] Celtic art survived this occupation, so no stylistic features exclude a date after its commencement. [1] Willvonseder suggests that the dot-like pupils were not a feature of Celtic art before the Roman occupation; [2] however Vincent Megaw has pointed out these are in fact a very archaic feature, featuring on such early La Tène artefacts as the Dürrnberg beaked jug . [1] The analogues to the wave-like hair pattern, the head from Entremont and the Gundestrup cauldron, both predate this occupation. However, Celtic art this early rarely renders the nose with such detail. [1] Willvonseder favours a date after 16 BC, [2] and Megaw conjecturally dates the stone to the 1st century AD. [1]
In ancient Celtic and Gallo-Roman religion, Cernunnos or Carnonos is a god depicted with antlers, seated cross-legged, and is associated with stags, horned serpents, dogs and bulls. He is usually shown holding or wearing a torc and sometimes holding a bag of coins and a cornucopia. He is believed to have originally been a Proto-Celtic God. There are more than fifty depictions and inscriptions referring to him, mainly in the north-eastern region of Gaul.
The La Tène culture was a European Iron Age culture. It developed and flourished during the late Iron Age, succeeding the early Iron Age Hallstatt culture without any definite cultural break, under considerable Mediterranean influence from the Greeks in pre-Roman Gaul, the Etruscans, and the Golasecca culture, but whose artistic style nevertheless did not depend on those Mediterranean influences.
The Horned Serpent appears in the mythologies of many cultures including Native American peoples, European, and Near Eastern mythology. Details vary among cultures, with many of the stories associating the mystical figure with water, rain, lightning, thunder, and rebirth. Horned Serpents were major components of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex of North American prehistory.
A torc, also spelled torq or torque, is a large rigid or stiff neck ring in metal, made either as a single piece or from strands twisted together. The great majority are open at the front, although some have hook and ring closures and a few have mortice and tenon locking catches to close them. Many seem designed for near-permanent wear and would have been difficult to remove.
Repoussé or repoussage ( ) is a metalworking technique in which a malleable metal is shaped by hammering from the reverse side to create a design in low relief. Chasing or embossing is a similar technique in which the piece is hammered on the front side, sinking the metal. The two techniques are often used in conjunction.
The Gundestrup cauldron is a richly decorated silver vessel, thought to date from between 200 BC and 300 AD, or more narrowly between 150 BC and 1 BC. This places it within the late La Tène period or early Roman Iron Age. The cauldron is the largest known example of European Iron Age silver work. It was found dismantled, with the other pieces stacked inside the base, in 1891, in a peat bog near the hamlet of Gundestrup in the Aars parish of Himmerland, Denmark. It is now usually on display in the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen, with replicas at other museums; it was in the UK on a travelling exhibition called The Celts during 2015–2016.
Celtic art is associated with the peoples known as Celts; those who spoke the Celtic languages in Europe from pre-history through to the modern period, as well as the art of ancient peoples whose language is uncertain, but have cultural and stylistic similarities with speakers of Celtic languages.
The ancient carnyx was a wind instrument used by the Celts during the Iron Age, between c. 200 BCE and c. 200 CE. It was a type of trumpet made of bronze with an elongated S shape, held so that the long straight central portion was vertical and the short mouthpiece end section and the much wider bell were horizontal in opposed directions. The bell was styled in the shape of the head of an open-mouthed boar or other animal.
Hohensalzburg Fortress is a large medieval fortress in the city of Salzburg, Austria. It sits atop the Festungsberg mountain at an altitude of 506 m. It was erected at the behest of the prince-archbishops of Salzburg. The fortress is 250 m (820 ft) long and 150 m (490 ft) wide making it one of the largest medieval castles in Europe.
Iron Age Scandinavia was the Iron Age, as it unfolded in Scandinavia. It was preceded by the Nordic Bronze Age.
The Gauls were a group of Celtic peoples of mainland Europe in the Iron Age and the Roman period. Their homeland was known as Gaul (Gallia). They spoke Gaulish, a continental Celtic language.
The Waterloo Helmet is a pre-Roman Celtic bronze ceremonial horned helmet with repoussé decoration in the La Tène style, dating to circa 150–50 BC, that was found in 1868 in the River Thames by Waterloo Bridge in London, England. It is now on display at the British Museum in London.
Celtic mythology is the body of myths belonging to the Celtic peoples. Like other Iron Age Europeans, Celtic peoples followed a polytheistic religion, having many gods and goddesses. The mythologies of continental Celtic peoples, such as the Gauls and Celtiberians, did not survive their conquest by the Roman Empire, the loss of their Celtic languages and their subsequent conversion to Christianity. Only remnants are found in Greco-Roman sources and archaeology. Most surviving Celtic mythology belongs to the Insular Celtic peoples. They preserved some of their myths in oral lore, which were eventually written down by Christian scribes in the Middle Ages. Irish mythology has the largest written body of myths, followed by Welsh mythology.
The Mšecké Žehrovice Head is a male sculpted head from c. 150–50 BC found at the double Viereckschanze site in Mšecké Žehrovice, about 65 km northwest of Prague, Czech Republic. It is one of the best known works of Celtic art from Iron Age Europe, and, along with the Glauberg "Prince" and the Warrior of Hirschlanden, one of the few large representations of the human figure. After its discovery in 1943, the sculpture became one of the most photographed, reproduced and published La Tène objects ever.
Prehistoric art in Scotland is visual art created or found within the modern borders of Scotland, before the departure of the Romans from southern and central Britain in the early fifth century CE, which is usually seen as the beginning of the early historic or Medieval era. There is no clear definition of prehistoric art among scholars and objects that may involve creativity often lack a context that would allow them to be understood.
The Green Caesar is a portrait of Gaius Julius Caesar made of green slate kept in the Antikensammlung Berlin, which was probably made in the first century AD.
The Bon Marché head or Gloucester stone head is a limestone sculpture of a human head unearthed during construction on the Bon Marché building in Gloucester, England. The head is now at the Museum of Gloucester.
The Euffigneix statue or God of Euffigneix is a Celtic stone pillar statue found near Euffigneix, a commune of Haute-Marne, France. The statue has been dated to the 1st century BC, within the Gallo-Roman period. The statue is a human bust with a large relief of a boar on its chest. The boar was a potent symbol for the Celts and the figure has been thought to represent a Gaulish boar-god, perhaps Moccus.
The God of Bouray is a Celtic bronze statuette dredged from the River Juine within Bouray-sur-Juine. The statuette is of a cross-legged human figure with an oversized head and hooved feet. It is thought to represent a Gallic god, perhaps the stag-god Cernunnos.
The Tarasque of Noves is a Celtic statue of a seated monster with its paws over two human heads. Found in the 19th century, the statue itself has been dated to between the 3rd and 1st centuries BCE. It was deposited in the 1st century BCE, not far from Noves, Bouches-du-Rhône. The precise meaning of the statue, and nature of the monster, are unknown, but it has been conjectured that the niche in its torso was intended to hold a severed human head.
