Iberian sculpture

Last updated July 05, 2022

Iberian sculpture, a subset of Iberian art, describes the various sculptural styles developed by the Iberians ^[1] from the Bronze Age up to the Roman conquest. For this reason it is sometimes described as Pre-Roman Iberian sculpture.

Almost all extant works of Iberian sculpture visibly reflect Greek and Phoenician influences, and Assyrian, Hittite and Egyptian influences from which those derived (specially the Phoenician one); yet they have their own unique character. Within this complex stylistic heritage, individual works can be placed within a spectrum of influences- some of more obvious Phoenician derivation, and some so similar to Greek works that they could have been directly imported from that region. Overall the degree of influence is correlated to the work's region of origin, and hence they are classified into groups on that basis.

The Levantine Group

The sculptures that comprise the Levantine group were mostly made between the 5th century B.C. and the period of Roman domination; this group is best represented in museum collections. The most famous among them is the bust known as The Lady of Elche , which displays evident Greek influence. Works in this style number over 670; though there are stylistic differences, which testify to the successive influences of conquering peoples.

More visibly oriental references, possibly influenced by the Egyptian sphinx and the Assyrian Lamassu, are evident in the various stone sculptures in the form of sphinxes, bulls, or lions found in the area of Valencia, Alicante, and Albacete. They include:

The Bicha of Balazote, or the man-bull
The Sphinx of Agost, in Alicante, and that of Salobral (Albacete), which guards the Louvre Museum, though mutilated.
The Lioness of Bocairent (Valencia), in the Provincial Museum of Valencia
The Lion of Coy in Murcia
The Lions of Baena (Córdoba), which are similar to the previous ones
The Deer of Caudete (Albacete) or the Lady of Caudete

The numerous statues of bronze (some of silver) found in two places of the region of Sierra Morena in the province of Jaén can be considered to be more indigenous derivatives of the initial, Greek and oriental- influenced, Levantine sculptural style.

In the period between the 5th century BC and the 5th century AD, sanctuaries like Montealegre used small bronze castings, rather than stone carvings, as votive offerings. These sculptures were cast from earthen molds in molten bronze in the technique of lost wax casting, but since the mold was rendered useless after only one casting, two identical works have yet to be found amongst these sculptures. Approximately 4,000 sculptures in this style have been excavated, depicting Iberian warriors, riders, religious celebrants, small horses, and body parts.

A great deal of Greek and Punic statues and busts in Terra cotta, together with various amulets in ivory, metal or carved of thin stone, have been uncovered at the necropolis of Ibiza, La Palma, and Formentera. The oldest have been dated to the 8th century B.C., and they most likely continued to be made up to the Roman domination. These include:

The Lady of Ibiza
Praying Terracotta Figurines (3rd century BC)

Pieces also considered to be of Phoenician or Punic origin but with Greek influence include the bronze heads of bulls (probably votive offerings) found in Majorca. A very early Phoenician piece from Galera depicts a seated female, perhaps Astarte, flanked by sphinxes.

The Lady of Galera

The Southern Group

The southern group is principally composed of sculptures found in sepulchers, and other funeral monuments, in the Andalusian region. Most of them display heavy Phoenician influence. They are as follows:

The sculptural set of Cerrillo Blanco
the sculptural set of The Pajarillo
The Punic stela of Villaricos (Almeria), of conical form and with Phoenician inscription
The Lady of Baza.
The plates and combs of ivory with reliefs of Carmona's necropolis.
The anthropomorphic sarcophagus carved in marble with the figure of the deceased, of the Greek style, found in Cadiz
The amulets with figurines of Egyptian style found in sepulchers of Cadiz and Málaga
several other reliefs of the Phoenician or Iberian tradition but worked already with Roman influence, discovered in Osuna (such as the Bull of Osuna)

The Western Group

The western group is composed of granite funeral stelae from Portugal and Galicia that represent foot soldiers dressed in tunics and armed with round shields. These sculptures are relatively coarsely worked. Some of them bear Roman inscriptions, which were probably added long after the figures were carved.

The Central Group

In the center of the Peninsula, between the rivers Douro and Tagus there are many granite sculptures roughly carved in the form of bulls, or perhaps some other animal. Some of these also have Roman inscriptions, which again were probably added later. The most famous of these monuments are the four known as the Bulls of Guisando . Archeologists^{[ who? ]} consider them to be works of the same culture that carved the sphinxes of the Levantine region.^{[ citation needed ]}

Related Research Articles

Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sculptural processes originally used carving and modelling, in stone, metal, ceramics, wood and other materials but, since Modernism, there has been an almost complete freedom of materials and process. A wide variety of materials may be worked by removal such as carving, assembled by welding or modelling, or moulded or cast.

Tartessos Semi-mythical harbor city and the surrounding culture on the south coast of the Iberian Peninsula

Tartessos or Tartessus, was a semi-mythical harbor city and the surrounding culture on the south coast of the Iberian Peninsula, at the mouth of the Guadalquivir River. It appears in sources from Greece and the Near East starting during the first millennium BC. Herodotus, for example, describes it as beyond the Pillars of Heracles. Roman authors tend to echo the earlier Greek sources but from around the end of the millennium there are indications that the name Tartessos had fallen out of use and the city may have been lost to flooding, though several authors attempt to identify it with cities of other names in the area. Archaeological discoveries in the region have built up a picture of a more widespread culture, identified as Tartessian, that includes some 97 inscriptions in a Tartessian language.

The Iberians were an ancient civilization settled in the eastern and southern coasts of the Iberian peninsula, at least from the 6th century BC. They are described in Greek and Roman sources. Roman sources also use the term Hispani to refer to the Iberians.

The Lady of Elx or Lady of Elche is a limestone bust that was discovered in 1897, at La Alcudia, an archaeological site on a private estate two kilometers south of Elche, Spain. It is currently exhibited in the National Archaeological Museum of Spain in Madrid.

The Punic language, also called Phoenicio-Punic or Carthaginian, is an extinct variety of the Phoenician language, a Canaanite language of the Northwest Semitic branch of the Semitic languages. An offshoot of the Phoenician of coastal West Asia, it was principally spoken on the Mediterranean coast of Northwest Africa, and the Iberian peninsula and several Mediterranean islands such as Malta, Sicily and Sardinia by the Punic people/Phoenicians throughout Classical antiquity, from the 8th century BCE to the 6th century CE.

The Iberian scripts are the Paleohispanic scripts that were used to represent the extinct Iberian language. Most of them are typologically unusual in that they are semi-syllabic rather than purely alphabetic. The oldest Iberian inscriptions date to the 4th or possibly the 5th century BCE, and the latest from end of the 1st century BCE or possibly the beginning of the 1st century CE.

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The Punic people, or western Phoenicians, were a Semitic people in the Western Mediterranean who migrated from Canaan to North Africa during the Early Iron Age. In modern scholarship, the term Punic – the Latin equivalent of the Greek-derived term Phoenician – is exclusively used to refer to Phoenicians in the western Mediterranean, following the line of the Greek East and Latin West.

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The Bicha of Balazote is an Iberian sculpture that was found in the borough of Balazote in Albacete province, Spain. Carlos Fuentes has called it the "Beast of Balazote." The sculpture has been dated to the 6th century BCE, and has been in the National Archaeological Museum of Spain in Madrid, since 1910.

Lady of Galera is an alabaster female figurine, made in the 7th century BC, that probably represents the Near Eastern goddess Astarte. It is at the National Archaeological Museum of Spain, in Madrid.

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The culture of the ancient Phoenicians was one of the first to have had a significant effect on the history of wine. Phoenicia was a civilization centered in current day Lebanon. Between 1550 BC and 300 BC, the Phoenicians developed a maritime trading culture that expanded their influence from the Levant to North Africa, the Greek Isles, Sicily, and the Iberian Peninsula. Through contact and trade, they spread not only their alphabet but also their knowledge of viticulture and winemaking, including the propagation of several ancestral varieties of the Vitis vinifera species of wine grapes.

Galera is a municipality in the comarca of Huéscar, province of Granada, autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain, roughly 150 kilometres (93 mi) from the provincial capital, Granada.

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The Sphinx of Haches is an Iberian sculpture depicting a sphinx. It is exhibited at the Albacete Provincial Museum.

The Toritoof Porcuna is an Iberian sculpture depicting a bull. It shows orientalizing influences and it is also referred to as the toro orientalizante de Porcuna.

References

↑ Vuong, Quan-Hoang (2022). A New Theory of Serendipity: Nature, Emergence and Mechanism. Walter de Gruyter GmbH. ISBN 9788366675582.

VV.AA. (1990). Escultura ibérica en el Museo Provincial de Jaén. Consejería de Cultura de la Junta de Andalucía. ISBN 84-86944-04-X. (In Spanish)

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[1] Vuong, Quan-Hoang (2022). A New Theory of Serendipity: Nature, Emergence and Mechanism. Walter de Gruyter GmbH. ISBN 9788366675582.

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