3 - Spatial and iconographic analysis

Summary

INTRODUCTION

The aim of this chapter is to answer the first two research questions of this study that have been formulated in the first chapter:

• 1. Can we observe relations between size, material and subject of statuettes and their find-spots in the three areas and if so, how can we explain these relations?

• 2. Were there preferences for specific subjects or iconographies in the three areas and if so, how can we explain these preferences?

To answer the first research question, it will be examined if there is a relation between the size of statuettes and the area where they were found, and secondly, whether there is a relation between material and statuette representations in the three areas.

The second topic concerns the iconography of statuettes and specific iconographic elements. It has been argued in the first chapter that creolisation is an important component in the process of shaping new cultures and identities. It will be examined to what extent this applies to the shaping of iconographies of Roman period statuettes.

By combining written sources and archaeological evidence, we will first explore in how far images of deities were a new phenomenon to the inhabitants of western Europe when the Romans introduced statuettes of deities in the northwestern provinces. This is necessary for a better understanding of how deviating, non-Roman iconographic elements could appear in depictions of Roman deities and other figures.

WRITTEN SOURCES AND THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE

Based on written sources, it is often assumed that Germanic and Gallic cults were predominantly an-iconic before the Roman conquest. The Greek historian Diodorus Siculus (c. 90-30 BCE), reporting on the Celtic attack on Delphi in 279 BCE, states:

‘Brennus, king of the Gauls, on entering a temple found no dedications of gold or silver, and when he came only upon images of stone and wood, he laughed at them, to think that men, believing that gods have human form, should set up their images in wood and stone’.