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When, during a visit to Sardinia some years ago, I was standing in front of Sardinian bronze figures (bronzetti), I was captured by their expressions of form which, in a way, I was familiar with. Soon I understood why – they were three-dimensional “copies” of our rock carvings found in Bohuslän in south-western Sweden.Today, as well as during the Bronze Age, Sardinia and Scandinavia are territories situ-ated in the periphery of Europe. What is the reason for finding nearly the same forms in rock carvings and bronze statuettes so far away from each other and made of different materials during the Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age, i.e. ~1800 – 500 B.C.?I have been working with questions and two of them are: 1. Are the similarities of the expressions of form of the bronzes and the rock carvings inspired by the cultures around the Eastern part of the Mediterranian?

2. Is the worthiness of the forms similar in Scandinavia and in Sardinia from the Middle Bronze Age into the Early Iron Age?

The bronzettiThe bronze statuettes are cast with the lost wax method and, according to Stary (1991:120) the idea of making bronze warriors arrived as a Phoenician import. There is a difference between imported and locally pro-duced bronzes. One big problem is that there are few known warrior graves in Sardinia. There are votive statuettes, but are they true images of soldiers or are they just images of upper class soldiers or perhaps gods?The bronze figurines have been found mainly at ritual places such as water temples, small sanctuaries, tombs, and holy places but also in the vicinity of dwellings, as hoards and as casual finds. About 500 findings of bronzes have been published but there might be

Scandinavian Rock Carvings and Sardinian Bronzes

Åsa Sjöholm

Were their expressions of form born in the eastern part of the Mediterranian?

AbstractExpressions of form of Sardinian bronzes and rock carvings in southern Scan-dinavia are similar during the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age. Most of them have the same origin. Although Sardinia as well as Scandinavia are situated in the periphery of the Middle East and the Mediterranian cultures, they were influenced by those cultures but expressed their offerings in differ-ent materials. The expressions of form are used for different purposes. The Sardinians asked for more water and the Scandinavians for less.

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up to 1000 findings not yet published. Up to now it has been difficult to date them, but a dozen specimens are from Etruscan tombs on the mainland of Italy from which the firmest dates of eighth-sixth centuries B.C. derive (Webster 1996:198). New finds show that the statuettes were produced around 1000 B.C. in Sardinia (Køllund 1998:91). In his book from 1966 Giovanni Lilliu has 320 pictures of votive offerings in bronze, of these are 57 % anthropomorphic forms, 40 % are zoomorphic, and the rest is a mixture of votive tools, weapons, food, ceramics and so on. The objects varied in size from 2 to 40 cms.

Webster has placed the bronzes in differ-ent groups to find out if they are sacred or profane objects. Out of 180 antropomorphic statuettes 55 % are equipped with arms and armours. All these warriors are men and of-ten with many details and 20-40 cms high. The rest are unarmed and unarmoured. Out of these six are priests or priestesses. Their dresses are well-done and the figures wear long cloaks and wide-brimmed conical hats or another form of headgear and long hair braids. The hats differ from the high Hittitic hats, which were worn by the gods (Larsson 1997:38) and the lower hats, which were the symbols of the kings (Kristiansen 1999:541).

The tribal chieftain in Sardinia often wears a headring. He also has a staff and a frame-hilted dagger. The dagger is worn diagonally across his chest (Santillo Frizell 1994a).

A priest from Abini in Sardinia and a military priest, both made of bronze, have cone-shaped hats with wide brims. They look like the hats that Randsborg has described (1993:114) from Schifferstadt in Germany.Another group is the adorers of which 47 are male and 17 female. They often keep the offerings in their outstretched palms. The shepherds carry their animals like calves and lambs, and musicians blow triple-reeded pipes or horns.In 1966 Lilliu noted 127 zoomorphic bronzes, for example oxen, bulls, one cow, goats, sheep, pigs, wild boars, deer, dogs, foxes, birds, and horses. The animals are often alone but not on the so-called boat-lamps of bronze (Fig.12). Some ships have a stag-head or a bullhead protome and different animals like dogs on the gunwale and birds even on the top of the mast.Webster (1996:203ff) has compared the votive animals with the bone remains at one sanctuary and three settlements. The sacrificed animals did not correspond to bone remains. For example, bronze birds are found – but no bones. One explanation

After Webster 1996:199

Fig. 1. Tabell (Stary 1991:134)

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were worn on a helmet or as a tiara by the gods. Naram Sin, king of Akkad in Mesopo-tamia (2291-2255 B.C.) is portrayed with a helmet with bullhorns.On a stele in Ugarit from the 14th century B.C. there is another god with a horn-decorated helmet (aa. 106ff). Maybe it is Baal. A vase from Mycenae, too, from the 10th century has warriors wearing horned helmets (Stary 1991:133, Sandars 1978:189). On the wall reliefs at Medinet Habu in Egypt there are fightings depicted between pharao Ramessess III and the Sea Peoples. According to the Amarna letters the Sea Peoples appeared as mercenaries or as enemies (O’Connor 2000:85, Vagnetti 2000:319). Their homeland is unknown but Vag-netti suggests that it might have been north of Ugarit, present Ras Shamra, at the border district between Turkey and Syria. There are obvious similarities applying to weaponry, i. e. helmets and round shields, swords and bows between pictures from Egypt around 1200 B.C. and the bronze statuettes from Cyprus during the 12th century B. C. and from Sardinia from 800-700 B.C.

The two gods from Cyprus might have in-spired to the helmet-dressed bronzes at fig.3, Sardinia. They are the Horned God even called The Horned Apollo and The Bearded Ingot God, both from Enkomi. The first one is cast in solid bronze and 54,3 cms high. It is generally believed that it is from the 12th century (Sandars 1978:148, Winbladh 1992:31). The bronze shows a muscular anatomy,

Fig 2. Different types of helmets on warrior statuettes (Stary1991:121).

has been proposed that in daily life the sta-tus of the birds was lower than in the ritual connections.

The routes of the expressions of formStary (1991:134) has constructed a table of arms and armour of the late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age in Sardinia, in Egypt, in the Near East , in the Mediterranian, and in Europe (Fig. 1). Warriors and perhaps gods are dated to1000-700 B. C. both in Assyria and in Cyprus (Stary 1991:135). One lost bronze statuette from Mallorca showing soldiers with horned helmets is lost, but there are such soldiers depicted on one stele in Corsica and on one stele from south-western Iberia (Randsborg 1995:176). The horned helmets are also vis-ible as rock carvings in Bohuslän, on bronze statuettes in Sardinia, and the real helmets from Viksö in Denmark.The warriors are related to prototypes in Urartu, Luristan, and Phoenician-Syrian cul-ture (Stary 1991:120).

Horned helmetsTo get an understanding of how the forms of the helmets and the other types of forms, which I have chosen to study, spread to Scan-dinavia and to Sardinia, I tried to find the oldest pictures and/or descriptions of them. The horned helmets are derived from Mes-opotamia, Anatolia, and from the Levant (Sandars 1978:106). In this region bullhorns

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perhaps influenced by the Aegean or the oriental art (Anastassiades 2001:2f).The other god is a war god with a spear, a shield, and a horned helmet. The figure is a summarized shape and stands on an ox-hide ingot. It is therefore regarded as the protector of the copper mines which were the base of the Cypriotic economy (aa:3). The two gods were found in different tem-ples in Encomi at the south-eastern part of Cyprus. The war god and a bronze warrior from Sardinia bear a resemblance close to each other (Fig. 3b and 3c).

The Sea PeoplesDuring more than a hundred years scholars have been arguing about the origin of the Sherden people, i. e. if they are from Sardinia or not. The Sherdens were described in the Amarna letters from the 14th century B. C.

as a warlike people and, if so, they cannot be Sardinians as no traces of weapons are found from that time.”Moreover, in regard to the identification of the Sherden with warriors of Sardinian origin, a further difficulty arise from the almost complete lack of evidence for ar-mour and weapons in Sardinia in the local Middle and Late Bronze Ages. Although this is admittedly an argument ex silentio, it is rather surprising that, if the Sardinians of the 14th century were renowned warriors …. No trace of weaponry has been preserved in their supposed area of origin” (Vagnetti 2000:319).

High conical hatsConical hats (Fig. 2:9) were common in the Near East, in Egypt, in Hellas, in Italy, at the Iberian peninsula, and in Central Europe.

Fig. 3a. The Horned God (Anastassiades 2001:5)

Fig. 3c. Sardinian warrior(Lilliu1966:62)

Fig. 3b. The Bearded Ingot God (Anastassiades 2001:3)

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However, only in Sardinia double-crested helmets are found (Fig. 2:5). Please observe that the helmets do not have two horns but two crests.Helmets with feathers were common in Egypt, in Assyria at Assurbanipal’s palace in Ninehve 668-627 B. C., and even in Cyprus.

KardiophylakesThese round helmets (Fig. 2:8) were in use as originals both in Luristan and in Urartu and are shown as reliefs in Assyria. The helmets of this type were found in Greek sanctuar-ies too. This headdress was introduced in central Italy in the early 7th century B.C. from the Middle East together with a strict military discipline and some cultural influ-ence. According to Stary the best analogue representations of this protecting equip-ment for soldiers were found in Assyria (Stary 1991:135).

War chariotsThere is only one bronze chariot known in Sardinia. It is a miniature. To use war chariots in bronze is presumably a natural develop-ment from the heavy and clumsy wagons which were pulled by oxen or donkeys. A close connection between the Maikop cul-ture in Caucasus and the northern part of Mesopotamia is noted as early as during the latter part of the 4th millennium B.C. (Lars-son 1997:54f). A bronze wheel from around 3000-2500 B.C. with four spokes has been found in a Kurgan grave nearby Maikop. During Hattusilis’ reign, 1650-1620 B.C., his military power was the war chariots with four spoke-wheels of bronze.The Trundholm chariot from Denmark, 1500 -1300 B.C., has three pairs of four-spoke wheels. It is a cult wagon, pulling the sun made of two bronze discs and one side is gilded. In Sweden there is a rock carving at the Kivik grave with a picture of two horses pulling a two-wheel chariot with a standing warrior. These two Scandinavian chariots show that people knew about four spoke-wheels in the early Bronze Age.The Hallstadt wagons, HaC, were introduced by the contact with the Traco-Cimmerian

complex which brought the Assyrian way of producing chariots (Kristiansen 1998:243).

A comparative study of the expressions of form of the bronze figurines and the rock carvingsI wish to stress the expressions of form, not the symbolic language, of both the bronzes and the rock carvings. Sometimes it is difficult to separate them from each other because we think that we know the meaning of the form. A line is a line. A cross is also a cross but can also be deciphered as a Christian symbol and I think that it is the context that can show us how we can understand this sign. It is the forms I am studying and they do not always have the same value. A high conical hat in Sardinia was worn by a priest, but it was a sign of a divinity in the Hittite kingdom. The form is the same but the value is not necessarily the same.The climate changed in Scandinavia during the last millennium B.C.. It became cooler and more humid (Coles 1990:9). Research about the local use of the soil during this time is still going on – but maybe it had an influence on the harvest (Lagerås o Regnell 1999:273).

My opinion is that the weather in the cold, misty North forced people to carve their of-ferings and prayers in stone – figuratively speaking – in order to receive more sun and warmth and in Sardinia they asked for water and cooler weather. They built water temples where they offered bronze statuettes to the water gods. It was a period of draught. The remarkable thing is that they used the same expressions of form, in different materials however.

AdorersThe bronze figurine (Fig.4a) is one of three similar figures. They are adorers or ceremo-nially greeting fighters or soldiers. Fig. 4b is an adorer from Rished, Bohuslän together with the cloak-dressed man (Fig. 5b) and a wagon pulled by two oxen. Adorers are of-ten close to ships, wagons, or other objects (Coles 1990:25).

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Cloak-dressed menThe bronze figure (Fig. 5a) is a tribal chief-tain since he wears a cloak, a headring, a frame-hilted dagger, and a staff.

Variations of helmetsFig. 6a is a small bronze head, just 6.5 cms high with a plume helmet. I think that it brings to mind the rock carving from Bro, (Fig. 6b). Both also have a distinctively marked nose or bill. Fig. 6c shows a man walking in

a procession in a long row. All with very high hats. Randsborg (1993: 114) compares these with the hats from Schifferstadt in Germany and with a hat from Avanton in France. I think a plume helmet can be proposed too.

Men with horned helmetsFig.7a represents an adorer or a warrior with a shield but it is the horned helmet which is of interest. This bronze warrior has earlier

Fig. 4a (Lilliu 1996:55). Fig. 5b (Coles 1990:71)Fig. 5a (Sjöholm 1997)Fig. 4b (Coles 1990:71).

Fig. 6 a (Lilliu 1966:98) Fig. 6c (Coles (1996:cover)Fig. 6b (Adoranten 1996)

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been compared with the War God from Cyprus (Fig. 3b). The rock carving (Fig.7b) is from Utmark, Bohuslän. More rock figures from the same place wear horned helmets – but not all of them

Round shieldsIn fig. 8a you see a soldier with a shield. The well known Greek historian and geographer Strabon described the shields from Sardinia as small, light and made of leather. (Stary 1991:131) considers that even if Strabon lived during the first hundred years B.C. it was probable that the weapons were similar at that time. The bronze figurine is generally believed to be a soldier, but with a peculiar face. The head is very skilfully shaped on the upper part, but the lower part looks more

like an owl’s head. The rock carving from Hede in Bohuslän, (Fig. 8b), is a man with both a shield and a horned helmet and the last picture (Fig. 8c) is one of the shields of-fered at Kålland in Västergötland.

ArchersBoth the bronze archer from Sardinia (Fig.8a) and the rock carving (Fig.8b) from Kville, Bohuslän, have, presumably, small recurve bows used by the equestrian peoples from Central Asia. These archers are solidly stand-ing on the ground and almost never riding their horses. Longbows have been found in the Scandinavian finds. There is, however, one exception. The Sardinian bronzes have long and short bows but the Sardinians evi-dently did not use horses in battles (Stary 1991:121).

Men on horsesThe bronze man (Fig. 10 a) is probably a hero, an acrobat, or a divinity, who is carried by a horse in the sky, launching sunrays in the

Fig. 7a (Lilliu 1966:62) Fig. 7b (Coles 1990:85)

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form of arrows. In fig. 10 b one man is trying to separate the horses and another one

is riding. None of the men in these pictures look like fighting men. Presumably ritual activities are depicted.

DeerThe bronze deer (Fig. 11a) is a gracile statu-ette in early geometric style. The rock art deers (Fig.11b) are from Tanum, Bohuslän.

Fig.8a (Lilliu 1966:247)

Fig.8c (Hygen & Bengtsson 1999:82; photo by Utne)

Fig. 8 b (Hygen& Bengtsson 1999:109; photo by Utne)

Fig. 9a (Lilliu 1966:70)

Fig. 10b (Bengtsson 1995:64).

Fig. 10a (Lilliu 1966 :311).

Fig. 9b (Coles 1990:57)

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ShipsThe ships (Fig.12a &12b) are bronze boats from Sardinia, looked upon as oil lamps.The rock carving (Fig. 12c) is from Åby, Bohuslän. According to Coles (1990:84f) the standards may be big battle-axes, holy mushrooms, leaves, or spearheads. One of the standards is similar to the seal belonging

to Suppiluliuma (Fig. 13) from Hattusa in the 12th century B.C. (Ceram 1956:80).

The rock art ship from Fossum, Bohuslän, (Fig.12d) makes me think of the Sardinian oil lamp, (Fig.12b). Both ships have animal protomes at the prow and they also have

Fig. 11a (Lilliu 1966:34) Fig. 11b (Gudnitz 1962) Fig. 11b (Gudnitz 1962)

Fig. 12a (Lilliu 1966:409) b (Lilliu 1966:427) c (Coles 1990:18) d (Sjöholm 1996)

a

b

c

d

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birds above and sun symbols in form of either rings or shields.Studies of the ships in Sardinia show that they were used as both votives and ordinary lamps.

The symbol “Sonnenbarkenvogel” during the Urnfield culture was common in many parts of Europe and it shows the common tradition in this area (Kristiansen 1998:65, 169ff).The Sea Pepoles at Medinat Habu used boats with seabirds at the prow and at the stern. To find parallels to them we have to look at Central Europe. The first “birdships” are dated to 1250-1200 B.C. in Velem in Hungary and Satu Mare in Romania (Bouzek1999:59; Wachsmann 2000:122).

Interpretation of my questions1. The answer is both yes and no. During the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age there are many indications of contact between Sardinia and the Middle East, but the island has even had contacts to the west and to the north. It has an original culture as well, from which we can see their houses, the nuraghes, and their special water temples in which peo-ple offered the bronze votives with sometimes endemic forms or details.The rock carvings are described by many au-thors and many of them have deduced the forms from the Mediterranian area including

Anatolia. That means that Scandinavia has been influenced by many cultures in differ-ent ways, directly or indirectly. 2. The answer is yes and no. The problem is that we either do not understand all the forms or think that we do understand some of them. I have chosen pictures that illustrate similarities of the expressions of form. These can have different value according to my way of looking at them.

The Worthiness of the FormsThe adorers in figure 4 show the same worth-iness of subservience in front of the holiness or the authorities. The cloak-dressed men ( Fig. 5) are more difficult to have an opinion on, because I do not know if the cloak in Scandinavia is a sign of a chieftain, a priest, or someone else. However, the bronze statuette is con-sidered to be a tribal chieftain, because he is wearing a cloak, a frame-hilted dagger, and a head-ring. Lilliu finds the bronze statuette (Fig.7a) to be either an adorer or a warrior. If the figure is an adorer like the ones described above (Fig.4a) the worthiness is probably the same in Sardinia as in Scandinavia. We think that the rock carvings are expressions of social-religious myths and rituals (Hygen & Bengtsson 1999:166ff). We look upon the helmets as warrior equipment. If, instead, the

Fig.13 Suppiliuma’s Seal (detail)

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bronze figurine is looked upon as a warrior, then his helmet is a sign of that and not as a deity attribute as in the Middle East and in Cyprus. If so, the worthiness of the helmet is different. The shields (Fig. 8a—c) are common in the whole Mediterranian area as well as into Scandinavia. The bronze figure is maybe wearing a shield of leather as protection. The head of the soldier is a mixture of a hu-man and a bird’s head. That might be due to religious reasons. In Scandinavia we look upon the bronze shields (Fig.8c) from Kål-land as sun symbols and they were offered in the water. If they were sun symbols and the bronze soldier wore protection, it seems to be different worthinesses of the shields.Fig. 9a, 9b &10a are archers. The first two have short, easy bows like the Central Asiatic equestrian peoples, but both men are safely standing on the ground. These archers are used in ritual situations both in Sardinia and in Scandinavia.The bronze statuette (Fig. 10a) is standing on horseback and is tied together with the horse. There is only one riding archer in the rock carvings in Tanum in Bohuslän. If the interpretation of the bronze divinity is cor-rect and the bow is a short Asiatic one, it is possible to see all three as ritual attributes with the same worthiness.

In the Hittite lands the deer was a god and its name was Kurunta. The Celts called their god Cernunnos (Hygen & Bengtsson 1999:36). In Scandinavia we saw the deer as a symbol of life, renewal, rebirth, and passage of time (aa:115). The deer is truly a holy animal in Scandinavia and perhaps even in Sardinia.I have written about the chariots and to be observed wheels are common on rock carvings but nearly non existing in antique Sardinia As far as I know there are only one miniature wheel with four spokes and one miniature chariot with two four-spoked wheels. Because of these few finds of wheel crosses that form cannot have the same im-portance at Sardinia as in Scandinavia.

SummaryI have tried to find out why Sardinian bronzes and Scandinavian rock carvings during the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age have the same expressions of form.I have been working with two questions.1. Are the forms inspired by the cultures in the eastern part of the Mediterranian area?2. Is the worthiness of the forms similar in Scandinavia and in Sardinia during these periods?Sardinia has not been part of the earlier cultures like the Minoan or the Mycenaean

Water temple in Perfu-gas (Sjöholm 1997).Please, imagine the dome above.

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cultures. There have been sporadic contacts. Not until the Phoenicians founded trading places on the island, permanent contact was established. Water temples are only found among the Nuraghic people. They were prob-ably built during a period of draught. Above all in these temples the bronze statuettes were offered, forms which I often find similar to the rock carvings in Bohuslän.It is fascinating that people in Sardinia had a lack of water. Up in the damp and cold Nordic countries people expressed themselves in the same forms but in a different mate-rial. In my opinion the Sardinians prayed to their gods for more water and in the north people asked for less water with the same sign language.With my pictures I have shown many similari-ties of the forms but there are differences too, of course. One of them is, for instance, all the details of the equipment of the warriors and that the bronzes are three-dimensional.I find it very probable that ideas and ex-pressions of form were born in the cultures around the eastern part of the Mediterra-nian and were handled in different ways in Sardinia and in Scandinavia.

Åsa Sjöholmsjoebert@telia.com

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