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IX.—A Find of Ibero-Roman Silver at Cordova

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2011

W. L. Hildburgh
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Extract

In spite of the long history of silver in Spain, and the vast amount of that metal taken from her mines in ancient times, comparatively few objects made in the Peninsula before the Christian era are to be seen in museums or in private collections. The things not protected and concealed by earth, with possibly a few exceptions, long ago went the way of all articles of precious metal in a theatre of repeated warfare; and most of those discovered accidentally in the soil were until quite recently melted down for the metal they contained. The pieces with which the present paper deals have, in addition to their general interest, the special value due to their having been kept together ever since they were found, and to their being accompanied by a quantity of coins found with them which give us, with close approximation, the date at which they must have been buried.

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Research Article
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Archaeologia , Volume 72 , 1922 , pp. 161 - 184
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1922

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References

page 161 note 1 Cf. Gowland, W., ‘Silver in Roman and Earlier Times,’ in Archaeologia, Ixix, pp. 130seqq.Google Scholar; Williams, Leonard, Arts and Crafts of Older Spain, Lond., 1907, vol. i, pp. 1–14Google Scholar.

page 161 note 2 Cf. Proceedings, xxviii, pp. 56seqq.Google Scholar

page 161 note 3 Mélida, J. R., Museo Arqueologico Nacional: Adquisiciones en 1916, Madrid, 1917, pp. 4seqq.Google Scholar

page 162 note 1 Cf. Sandars, , ‘The Linares Bas-Relief and Roman Mining Operations in Baetica,’ in Archaeologia, lix, pp. 316seqq.Google Scholar

page 162 note 2 Proceedings, loc. cit., p. 57.

page 162 note 3 Cf. p. 182, infra.

page 162 note 4 Cf. infra, p. 182.

page 163 note 1 Cf., however, Hill, G. F. and Sandars, H. W., ‘Notes on a find of Roman Republican Silver Coins and of Ornaments from the Centenillo Mine, Sierra Morena’ in Numismatic Chronicle, 4th Ser., xii (1912), p. 69.Google Scholar

page 163 note 2 Sandars, , op. cit., p. 62.Google Scholar

page 163 note 3 Hill, and Sandars, , op. cit., pp. 65seqq.Google Scholar

page 164 note 1 Cf. Pijoan, J., ‘Iberian Sculpture,’ in Burlington Mag., vol. xxii (1912), pp. 65seqq., for remarks on affinities of this kind.Google Scholar

page 164 note 2 Cf. Cat. Jewellery (Greek, Etruscan, and Roman), Brit. Mus., 1911, nos. 1633, 1950.Google Scholar

page 164 note 3 Cf. Mélida, , ‘El tesoro iberico de Jávea,’ in Revista de Archivos, vol. xiii (1905), pp. 366seqq.; andGoogle ScholarParis, P., ‘Le trésor de Jávea,’ Revue archéologique, vol. viii (1906), pp. 424Google Scholarseqq. The former paper is in part reproduced by Vásquez, F. Almarche, La antigua civilizacion ibérica, Valencia, 1918, pp. 118seqq.Google Scholar

page 165 note 1 Cf. loc. cit., p. 433. Mélida's view (cf. loc. cit., pp. 372 seq.) is that the diadem is of native workmanship. Paris suggests (loc. cit.) further that it is highly probable that jewellery was made in Greece of the fifth and fourth centuries especially for such foreign markets as those of the Peninsula. P. Baur takes it to be ‘more probably the work of an Ionian of Asia Minor, who very successfully combined Attic delicacy with Ionic sumptuousness ’; cf. ‘Pre-Roman Antiquities of Spain’, in Amer. Jour. Archaeology, 2 S., vol. xi (1907), pp. 192seq.Google Scholar

page 165 note 2 Cf. infra, p. 170 (text and foot-note 2).

page 165 note 3 Cf. ‘The Linares Bas-Relief…’, pp. 312 seq.

page 165 note 4 Cf. Sandars, , ‘Pre-Roman Bronze Votive Offerings from Despeñaperros,’ in Archaeologia, Ix, p. 72Google Scholar . Cf. ibid, p. 71, or Sandars, , ‘The Weapons of the Iberians,’ in Archaeologia, lxiv, p. 210Google Scholar , for map showing distribution of Greek and Carthaginian settlements in Spain.

page 166 note 1 Earthenware cups of similar forms have been found in Spain. For some examples see H. and Siret, L., Les premiers âges du métal dans le Sud-Est de l'Espagne, Antwerp, 1887, pls. 55 (El Argar), 65 and 68 (Fuente Alamo).Google Scholar

page 166 note 2 The Industrial Arts in Spain, p. 1.

page 166 note 3 Loc. cit., quoting Velasquez's, Ensayo sobre las letras desconocidas, Madrid, 1752.Google Scholar

page 167 note 1 Sentenach doubts if the bowl was originally thus ornamented; cf. ‘Bosquejo histórico sobre a l orfebreria española’, in Revista de Archivos, vol. xviii (1908), p. 102Google Scholar . I do not know what reason there is, unless it be the Christian form of the emblem, for this doubt; we may see a similar cross, painted, in a corresponding position (but on the outside) on a pottery vessel found at Luzaga, and thought to have been made under Celtic influences (cf. Gimpera, Bosch, El problema de la cerámica ibérica, Madrid, 1915, pp. 33seq.)Google Scholar . Cruciform designs occur-perhaps brought about merely through the desire to fill circular spaces-on the small flat bottoms of pottery conical cups painted with designs resembling those found on some Aegean pottery (cf. ibid., pl. viii and pp. 27, 45). If the golden cross is, as I take it to be, contemporary in period with the bowl, I think that, like certain details of the present silverwork and like certain pottery objects (cf. Man, 1922, 52), it may (since in form it corresponds exactly to certain Aegean examples) possibly be one of the numerous indications of the contact between the Peninsula and an Aegean civilization of a period much earlier than the one to which these Iberian bowls are assignable. On crosses in Minoan art cf. Evans, , The Palace of Minos at Knossos, vol. i, Lond., 1921, pp. 513seqq.Google Scholar ; on crosses as Aegean motives in Peninsular art, cf. Paris, P., Essai sur l'art et l'industrie de l'Espagne primitive, vol. i (Paris, 1903), p. 34, and figs. 26, 27Google Scholar . Possibly of further interest in this connexion is a pottery plate or bowl, found by Schliemann in the ruins of the ‘Fourth City’ on the site of Troy, which has a large cross in its hollow, ‘evidently painted there before the plate was baked’ (cf. Schliemann, H., Ilios, Lond., 1880, p. 544, fig. 1128)Google Scholar.

page 167 note 2 Melida, , Mus. Arqueol. Nac.: Adquisiciones en 1917, Madrid, 1918, pp. 11seqq. and pl. v.Google Scholar

page 167 note 3 Cf. ibid., p. 12.

page 167 note 4 Cf. Sandars, , Proceedings, xxviii, fig. 2.Google Scholar

page 168 note 1 Mélida's observation (on p. 169 of ‘Antigüedades anteromanas de la costa de Levante’, in Rev. de Archivos, vol. vii [1902]Google Scholar ) is perhaps worth recalling here, that amongst Spanish tores those of gold, but of the rougher workmanship, are generally found in the north-western part of the Peninsula and adjacent districts, while those of silver, formed of wires twisted spirally or of little chains, are found more commonly toward the south.

page 169 note 1 Eyelets of this kind appear to have served in tores to hold a cord to fasten the ends together; cf. Sandars, , Proceedings, xxviii, p. 57.Google Scholar

page 169 note 2 A tore, of a type other than the present one, formed of square wires, is figured by Mélida, ‘Antigiiedade s anteromanas …’, pl. v (with description on p. 169).

page 169 note 3 Cf. Essai, vol. ii (1904), pl. vii, fig. 5.Google Scholar

page 169 note 4 Ibid., figs. 1, 2.

page 170 note 1 Cf. large-scale map given by Sandars, , ‘The Linares Bas-Relief…’, p. 312.Google Scholar

page 170 note 2 It is, of course, on the present evidence open to question whether Cordova was included in that district, or was merely adjacent to it, for the present hoard possibly contains (as pointed out, supra, p. 163) things from various localities; and, furthermore, the coincidence of the dates of the burials of the Mogón and other treasures and the present one suggest the possibility that the latter belonged to a fugitive down the Guadalquivir valley.

page 170 note 3 Proceedings, xxviii, fig. 11 and pp. 60 seq.

page 170 note 4 ‘Pre-Roman Bronze Votive Offerings,’ pl. xii and p. 86.

page 170 note 5 Op. cit., pp. 103 seq.

page 170 note 6 Cf. ibid., pp. 98 seqq., where several papers dealing with them are noted; Vega, Balsa de la, in Orfebrería gallega, Madrid, 1912Google Scholar (also in Bol. Sociedad Española de Excursiones, vol. xx [1912]), figures some Galician examplesGoogle Scholar.

page 170 note 7 Cf. Orfebreria gallega, p. 19.

page 170 note 8 Cf. ‘Pre-Roman Bronze Votive Offerings’, p. 69.

page 171 note 1 Cf. Paris, , op. cit., vol. i, p. 162.Google Scholar

page 171 note 2 Cf., for examples, ibid., figs. 146, 148, 151, 175; or Mélida, , ‘Las esculturas del Cerro de los Santos,’ Rev. de Archivos, vol. xiii (1905), pl. i and p. 23, and vol. viii (1903), pl. v. We cannot, of course, tell from the sculptures, which for the most part are roughish, just what the construction of the tore-like objects wasGoogle Scholar.

page 171 note 3 Cf. Paris, , op. cit., figs. 138, 146Google Scholar ; or Mélida, , op. cit., vol. ix (1903), pl. vi and p. 281, and vol. xiii, pl. iGoogle Scholar.

page 171 note 4 It is perhaps worthy of note in connexion with the vexed question of the authenticity of certain of the Cerro de los Santos figures, that there is a difference of opinion between Paris and Mélida in the matter of the two statues cited as wearing armlets, the former expressing his opinion that his fig. 138 illustrates a false example and his fig. 146 a genuine one, while the latter remarks precisely the reverse in the matter of the two statues (cf. Paris, p. 170, and Mélida, vol. ix, p. 281; and Paris, p. 175, and Mélida, vol. xiii, p. 23). It is, of course, difficult to judge without having the statues in question before one, but I am inclined, on the evidence of the known silver objects-most of which have come to light since the doubtful figures were acquired by the Museo Arqueológico-showing the present kind of work, to think that both statues are ancient, although perhaps recut in some parts.

page 171 note 5 Reproductions of three are in the Victoria and Albert Museum, nos. 1884–15, 16, 17.

page 171 note 6 Cf. Minns, E. H., Scythians and Greeks, Cambridge, 1913, pp. 199, 202, 402Google Scholar ; Kondakof, N., Tolstoï, J., and Reinach, S., Antiquités de la Russie Méridionale, Paris, 1891, fig. 83Google Scholar ; V. and A. Mus., no. 1884–16.

page 171 note 7 V. and A. Mus., no. 1884–17.

page 171 note 8 Cf. Ant. Rus. Mér., p. 65; Minns, , op. cit., fig. 317Google Scholar ; Comptes rendus de la Commission Impériale Arche'ologique (St. Petersburg), 1865, pl. ii and p. 49Google Scholar.

page 171 note 9 Cf. ibid., 1869, pl. i; Minns, , op. cit., pp. 429, 400, 402Google Scholar ; Ant. Rus. Me'r., pp. 62 seqq.

page 171 note 10 Cf. C. R. Comm. Imp. Arch., 1864, p. v.Google Scholar

page 171 note 11 V. and A. Mus., no. 1884–15.

page 172 note 1 Cf. Weerth, E. Aus'm, Der Grabfund von Wald-Algesheim, Bonn, 1870, pl. i and p. 15.Google Scholar

page 172 note 2 Cf. Worsaae, J. J. A., Nordiske Oldsager, Copenhagen, 1859, figs. 455, 457Google Scholar ; Montelius, O., Antiquités suédoises, Stockholm, 1873-1875, fig. 608. Various other examples might also be citedGoogle Scholar.

page 172 note 3 Cf. Cat. Jewellery (Greek, Etruscan, and Roman), nos. 1607, 1608, 1609; and ibid., index, s.v. ‘Nodus Herculeus’, for many minor examples; Ant. Rus. Mér., pp. 57 seq.; Minns, , op. cit., pp. 432, 404Google Scholarseq. Some jewellery of Roman times shows it as a minor element; cf. Cat. Jewellery, cit., index. For the significance attached to this knot, cf. Daremberg et Saglio, Diet. Antiquités, s. v. ‘Nodus’.

page 173 note 1 Cf. Cat. Jewellery, cit., p. lv.

page 173 note 2 Cf. Sandars, , Proceedings, xxviii, figs. 8, 12, and pp. 59, 61.Google Scholar

page 173 note 3 For a note on ancient animal-headed jewellery see Odobesco, A., Le trésor de Petrossa, Paris, 1889-1890, pp. 466seq.Google Scholar

page 174 note 1 Cf. Minns, , op. cit., p. 402Google Scholar , for reference to some animal-headed examples; and ibid., p. 401, Ant. Rus. Mer., pp. 316 seq., for illustrations. Others had complete animals represented in profile at their ends; cf. infra, remarks on fig. 7.

page 174 note 2 Ant. Rus. Mer., pp. 318 seq.

page 174 note 3 Cf. ‘Weapons of the Iberians’, pl. xiv (b); Paris, , op. cit., vol. ii, pl. xGoogle Scholar.

page 174 note 4 Cf. ‘Weapons of the Iberians’, pp. 238, 257.

page 174 note 5 Cf. Paris, , op. cit., vol. ii, pp. 266, 268, 270, 52, 55, 59, pls. iii, v, for some examples.Google Scholar

page 174 note 6 Cf. Schmidt, H., H. Schliemann's Samtnlung trojanischer Altertümer, Berlin, 1902Google Scholar, figs. 3625, 3628, for precisely the present form; and ibid., figs. 3626, 3627, for slight modifications of it. Cf., also, ibid., p. xvii.

page 174 note 7 Cf. Worsaae, , op. cit., p. 84, fig. 365.Google Scholar

page 175 note 1 Cf. C. R. Comm. Imp. Arch., 1869, pl. i, fig. 16.Google Scholar

page 175 note 2 Cf. Minns, , op. cit., p. 217.Google Scholar

page 175 note 3 Cf. ibid., p. 401; Ant. Rus. Mer., p. 316.

page 175 note 4 Cf. Proceedings, xxviii, fig. 5 and p. 58.

page 175 note 5 Cf. Supplement (privately printed) to ‘Pre-Roman Bronze Offerings’, pp. 8, 12.

page 176 note 1 The Cheste find has been described and in part figured by Mélida, , ‘Antigüedades ante-romanas de la costa de Levante,’ pp. 164Google Scholarseqq. and pl. v; on the coil-armlet cf. pp. 170 seq.; his paper has been in part reproduced by Vásquez, Almarche, op. cit., pp. 96seqq.Google Scholar

page 176 note 2 Cf. Mélida, , ‘Antiguedades … de Levante,’ p. 168.Google Scholar

page 176 note 3 Cf. Mélida, , ‘El tesoro iberico de Javea’; on the silver objects, pp. 371seq. and pl. xvii.Google Scholar

page 176 note 4 Cf. Cat. Jewellery, cit., nos. 1602 (Archaic Greek, from Cyprus), and 2775 (fourth-third centuries B. c, from Vonitza); also, pp. xliv seq., and General Index, for references to examples of other workmanship and later periods.

page 178 note 1 Cf. Ilios, Lond., 1880, pp. 458seq.Google Scholar

page 178 note 2 Cf. Armstrong, E. C. R., Cat. Irish Gold Ornaments, Dublin, 1920, pl. xii.Google Scholar

page 178 note 3 Cf. Mélida, J. R., Excavaciones de Numancia, Madrid, 1912, pl. lx and p. 43Google Scholar ; Paris, , op. cit., vol. ii, pl. viiiGoogle Scholar , figures a typical fine example.

page 178 note 4 Cf. ‘Adornos de oro encontrados en Galicia’, by Castro, J. Villa-amil y, in vol. iii (1874), pp. 545seqq. and pl.Google Scholar

page 178 note 5 Compare, also, the ends of gold tores in the Museum, shown in ibid., p. 246, fig. 383.

page 178 note 6 Cf. Paris, , Essai, vol. i, pl. i and pp. 279seqq.Google Scholar ; Pijoan, , op. cit., pp. 68seqq.; etcGoogle Scholar.

page 178 note 7 E. g. a large gold tore in the Madrid Museum (cf. Paris, , op. cit., fig. 386)Google Scholar , whose engraved ornamentation is referred (cf. ibid., pp. 245 seq.) to Celtic influences. While chevrons alone are too common elements of ancient ornament to be worthy of citation, it is perhaps worth noting that ornamentation formed of chevrons tipped with little circles occurs on Bronze Age things from Switzerland and elsewhere (cf. Bertrand, A., Archéologie celtique et gauloise, Paris, 1889, figs. 46, 47)Google Scholar ; on pre-Etruscan pottery (ibid., fig. 59); on Iron Age antiquities from Livonia (cf. Aspelin, J. R., Ant. du Nord Finno-Ongrien, Helsingfors, 1877, p. 366Google Scholar ); etc. Perhaps of interest in relation to these examples is the Trojan pottery ornamented with a band of chevrons containing (instead of tipped with) each a little circle (cf. Schmidt, , op. cit., no. 2544Google Scholar ), a pattern very similar to one to be seen on a black pottery fragment found at Numantia (cf. Mélida, , Excav. de Nwnancia, pl. xxiii)Google Scholar.

page 179 note 1 Cf. Vásquez, Almarche, op. cit., p. 89Google Scholar and (for an indistinct picture of a plaster cast of the object) pl. facing p. 90.

page 179 note 2 Cf. Mélida, , Mils. Arqucol. Nac: Adquisiciones en 1917, p. 13 and pl. v.Google Scholar

page 179 note 3 For some examples see Paris, , op. cit., vol. ii, pp. 268, 270Google Scholar ; Déchelette, J., Manuel, vol. ii, 2, pp. 854Google Scholarseq.; Mélida, , Excav. de Numancia, pl. lxGoogle Scholar . Compare, further, the small bronze figures of horses shown by Paris, , op. cit., pp. 201seqGoogle Scholar.

page 180 note 1 Compare the Italo-Greek bronze amphora figured by Dèchelette, (op. cit., vol. ii, 3, p. 1048Google Scholar ), which has, as such upper supports, pairs of the fore-parts of horses set at an angle approaching the vertical. It should be observed that the present object seems to bear no marks indicating that it-was set in a similar position against the side of a vessel.

page 180 note 2 Op. cit., vol. ii, fig. 252, pp. 206, 209.Google Scholar

page 180 note 3 In Ant. Rus. Mér., p. 472, there is figured a roughish bronze ornament from the necropolis of Kamounta (where both early antiquities and antiquities of Byzantine times have been found), formed of a pair of horses ‘heads back to back and a loop, seemingly for suspension, which rises half-way between them. A number of pendants formed of horses’ heads are figured amongst Iron Age things from the Perm district (cf. Aspelin, , op. cit., pp. 154Google Scholarseqq.); to these a Livonian Iron Age pendant (cf. ibid., p. 377) seems related. There is in the British Museum a bronze buckle, found at Stanwick (cf. B. M. Guide … Early Iron Age, fig.121 and p. 135; the buckle is now, however, regarded as made at a period considerably later than the one to which it was formerly assigned), whose character makes it appear ‘quite isolated in Britain’ and suggests that it was brought to Britain from the East, which (although closed across the top) has some likeness to the present object.

page 180 note 4 A very similar design appears on a capital, of which part was found near the Cerro de los Santos (cf. ‘Pre-Roman Bronze Votive Offerings’, pp. 72 seqq.), figured by Paris, (op. cit., vol. i, p. 42Google Scholar ) and called by him (cf. ibid., p. 44; also, loc. cit.) ‘Ibero-Greek’; in the case of this capital a third and identical flange is interposed between the end-flanges of each two adjacent ‘reels’. Other pieces found in the Peninsula and showing similar arrangements could be cited.

page 181 note 1 Cerralbo, Marques de, ‘Nécropoles ibériques,’ in Comples rendus Congrès Internat. d'Autliropologie et d'Archéol. préhist., Geneva, 1912, p. 609, fig. 13Google Scholar ; and ‘Weapons of the Iberians’, fig. 8. Compare also some fragments composed of small pairs of spirals, found in a fourth-century B.C. woman's grave in the Iberian necropolis of Olmeda (cf. Bol. Soc. Esp. de Excursiones, vol. xxiii [1915], pl. facing p. 227Google Scholar ). On the Marques de Cerralbo's excavations, see his op. cit., pp. 593 seqq.; Bol. Soc. Esp. Excurs., vol. cit., pp. 225 seqq.; Déchelette, , in Comptes rendus Acad. des Inscriptions, Paris, 1912, pp. 433seqq.Google Scholar; Marques de Cerralbo, ibid., pp. 526 seqq.; Déchelette, , Manuel, vol. ii, 2, pp. 687seqq.Google Scholar; Galdácano, M. de Artiñano y, Cat. Exposition Hierros Antiguos Españoles, Madrid, 1919, pp. xviiseq., xx seq., xxiii, 3 seqq.; and ‘Weapons of the Iberians ’, passim.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 181 note 2 Cf. Mélida, , Mus. Arqucol. Nac: Adquisiciones en 1917, p. 12.Google Scholar

page 181 note 3 Cf. Sandars, , Proceedings, xxviii, p. 57.Google Scholar

page 183 note 1 Cf. Macdonald, G., ‘A Recent Find of Roman Coins in Scotland,’ in Num. Chron., 4th series, vol. v (1905), pp. 14seqq.Google Scholar

page 183 note 2 Macdonald has suggested (loc. cit.) very plausibly that the Roman tin coins were made as votive offerings. It is tempting to think that the two accompanying this find were left by fearful passengers along the road through the cemetery.