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A Bronze Horse Figurine found near Birkwood, Lesmahagow, Lanarkshire
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 November 2011
Summary
The bronze horse figurine found at Birkwood, Lanarkshire, Scotland, is described, and found to compare closely with horse figurines from Hallstatt, Upper Austria. These in turn relate to figurines decorating bronze vessels in Etruria, and in Greece, especially at Olympia in late Geometric contexts. Considerations bearing on horse-trading along the Adriatic, and the dissemination of ideas about racing trophies, are discussed. The occurrence of Hallstatt exotics in Scotland is summarized, but it cannot be established that the Birkwood figurine was an ancient import as it was a stray find.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1969
References
page 118 note 1 National Grid reference NS 7942. Greenshields, Annals, p. 37, and frontispiece, no. 4. Greenshields further records that the same labourers ‘about the same time’ picked up a small bronze square-mouthed and four-footed bell: ibid., p. 37, and frontispiece, no. 3. However, although the two objects were clearly found in proximity, it is not necessary to assume any association.
page 118 note 2 J.B.A.A. xxi (1865), 82Google Scholar and pl. 3, fig. 3.
page 118 note 3 Catalogue: Scottish History and Archaeology Section, p. 29, no. 213.
page 118 note 4 Palace of History (Catalogue of Exhibits), ii, 865, no. 6.
page 118 note 5 Reg. no. LA 618d. Our thanks are due to Lady Scott Mackirdy for agreeing to the publication of this note.
page 120 note 1 Kromer, K., Das Gräberfeld von Hallstatt (1959)Google Scholar, pl. 147, 15a and b; Kromer, K., Hallstatt, Prähistorische Kunst (1963)Google Scholar, pl. 41. At about the same time as our first discussion of the Birkwood horse in the Glasgow Museum, Dr. Morna Simpson had independently recognized its Hallstatt affinities which she subsequently recorded in her Edinburgh Ph.D. thesis.
page 120 note 2 Our thanks are due to Professor Karl Kromer for correspondence on these figurines, and for information on a further figurine from Hallstatt, now only known from an old illustration, that closely resembled the Birkwood example. We are also indebted to Professor Gotbert Moro, Director, Landesmuseum fur Kärnten, Klagenfurt, for photographs and kind permission to publish pl. xxix, and to Mrs. M. E. Scott for the drawings of the Birkwood figurine and other text figures. Also to Miss N. K. Sandars, Mr. Vincent Desborough, Dr. Hugh Hencken, Professor R. J. Hopper, and Mr. R. W. Hutchinson, for many helpful comments and references.
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page 120 note 6 Ibid., pls. 137, 222; (1963), pls. 42, 43.
page 121 note 1 K. Kromer (1959), Text Bd. pl. 6. In addition on chronology v. W. Dehn and O.-H. Frey, Atti VI Congr. Scienze Preist. e Protoist. (Roma), i (1962), 197–208.
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page 121 note 4 Pallotino supra, pl. 47; F. Starè, Vače (Arheološki Katalogi Slovenije, i) (1955), pl. i.
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page 122 note 4 Ibid., figs. 6, 10.
page 122 note 5 Ibid., figs. 12, 13.
page 122 note 6 Ibid., fig. 13; Mitton, G. D., Boston Museum Bull, lxv (1967), fig. 2Google Scholar. It is opportune to compare Mitton's fig. 8 of a Geometric bull with that from Hallstatt, Grab 507, K. Kromer (1959), pl. 219; (1963), pl. 21; T. G. E. Powell (1966), pl. 172.
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page 122 note 8 Ibid., p. 37.
page 122 note 9 F. Willemsen (1957), especially pl. 90: B 1301; H.-V. Herrmann (1964), figs. 1, 2, 6, 7,13.
page 123 note 1 J. A. H. Potratz, Die Pferdetrensen des Alten Orient (Analecta Orientalia, 41) (1966), pls. lxv, 153, Ixvii, 157.
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page 123 note 3 K. Kromer (1959), pi. 220; (1963), pls. 48, 49; Piggott, S., Ancient Europe (1965)Google Scholar, pl. xxviiia.
page 123 note 4 F. Willemsen, 1957, passim.
page 123 note 5 Ibid., fig. 10.
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page 124 note 1 H. Hencken, op. cit., fig. 10.
page 124 note 2 Frey, O.-H., ‘Der Ostalpenraum und die antike Welt in der frühen Eisenzeit’, Germania, xliv (1966), 48–66Google Scholar. Parducz, M.Acta Arch. Hung, xvii (1965), 137–231Google Scholar), in publishing the Archaic Greek bronze hydria from a ‘Scythic’ grave at Ártánd, south-east of Debrecen, has adduced reasons for a route from the Adriatic, rather than from the Black Sea, for this vessel.
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page 124 note 4 Frey, op. cit., recognized the chronological value of this allusion for the archaeology of the East Alpine region.
page 125 note 1 Antiq. Journ. xxxviii (1958), 254–5Google Scholar, in reviewing Willemsen.
page 125 note 2 Coles, J. M., ‘Scottish Late Bronze Age Metalwork’, Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot, xciii (1959–60Google Scholar), 16–134. His ‘Duddingston’ and ‘Adabrock’ phases respectively. Map 8 for Hallstatt finds in Scotland.
page 125 note 3 Ibid., p. 25 and fig. 3; p. 48 and fig. 5. Coles rightly related the Inveraray (recte Killeonan, Kintyre) ‘flesh-hook’ to that from Dunavemey, Antrim, Ireland, which is illustrated inter alia: Piggott, S. and Daniel, G. E., A Picture Book of Ancient British Art (1951)Google Scholar, pl. 3 6; British Museum, Later Prehistoric Antiquities of the British Isles (1953), pl. iv 4; T. G. E. Powell (1966), pl. 168. We would regard the Dunavemey piece as another Hallstatt import, falling within G. Eogan's ‘Dowris B' phase (Proc. Preh. Soc. xxx (1964), 320–5Google Scholar), and draw attention to the similarity of its birds, especially the crows, to certain Olympic figurines (e.g. Willemsen, pls. 40, 61, 66). On these ‘fleshhooks’ as stimuli for horse-driving v. Mariän, M. E., Trouvailles du champ d'umes et des tombelles hallstattiennes de Court-Saint-Étienne (1958), pp. 115–17Google Scholar.
page 126 note 1 J. M. Coles (1960), maps 1–7 and 9; Scott, J. G., South-West Scotland (Regional Archaeologies) 1966), pp. 48–54Google Scholar.