Iconography as a visual history of an aristocratic world

The Iberian images that appear on sculptures, reliefs, silver pateras and, particularly, pottery are an exceptional source of information about a people that had a markedly aristocratic system of values (ethos).

Of the two distinguishable periods in pottery iconography, the first (300-150 BCE) shows, through its depictions of warriors, hunters and ladies, the values of the urban ruling classes, whereas the second (200-50 BCE) centres more on the depiction of deities, myths and religious rituals (Aranegui Gasco 1998).

The iconography offers valuable information about initiation rites, and rites of passage into puberty, or heroization. Such subjects as the struggle between a youth and a beast of the underworld, often incarnated in the form of a wolf (portrayed in the pottery of La Alcudia, Elche and in sculptures from the “frontier” sanctuary at El Pajarillo in Huelma, Jaen, or in the beautiful Braganza brooch: Perea 2011), were set within city territory. The “goddess of the wolves” found in Moratalla, Murcia, was probably an initiatic figure. Hand-to-hand combat scenes between warriors and hunting scenes also reflect the ethos of the elites.

There are many ceramic scenes related to initiation or celebration rituals, with a notable female participation in male-dominated ceremonies, as in the case in Edeta (Sant Miquel de Lliria, Valencia).

These themes apart, Iberian iconography did not seem particularly concerned with representing sacrificial rituals aimed at ensuring communication with the gods (at least, not to the same extent as other cultures, for example Greek or Roman) - nor with depicting the priests (Marin Ceballos 2000-2001). Sacrificial scenes are depicted in such objects as the silver tray of Tivissa (Tarragona), which is dated to the third century BCE; depictions of dances and processions are found in the pottery of Sant Miquel de Lliria (Valencia).

It is possible that certain themes, such as the sphinx carrying the deceased, found in the park of Elche, refer to the journey to the afterlife. In any event, the image of death varied in the Iberian world. Sometimes we see the deceased being devoured by a wolf, and his rebirth in an afterlife marked by the presence of male and female centaurs, as on the silver patera from Santisteban del Puerto, Jaen, with parallels on the pateras from Tivissa, Tarragona (Olmos Romera 1997). These images contrast with the image of the nursing mother suckling the deceased, as if he were an infant, on the tomb at La Albufereta, Alicante, comparable to the famous “Lady of Galera”, Granada (Olmos Romera 2004).

The presence of priests in the Tartessian world of the orientalizing period is documented in the Phoenician sanctuary of Melqart in Cadiz by Silius Italicus (Punica 3.1), who writes that the priests wore linen tunics with purple embroidery and shaved their heads. There is no such information regarding the Iberian period after 500 BCE, although archaeological data suggests there was a priesthood (Chapa Brunet & Madrigal Belinchon 1997). The existence of priests is inferred from sacrificial knives found in graves and sanctuaries, the tonsured characters found in El Collado de los Jardines, Jaen (Nicolini 1998), and the bronze from Segura de la Sierra (Jaen), which dates from the fifth century BCE, and depicts a man slaughtering a goat at a river (Almagro-Gorbea & Lorrio Alvarado 2011). These priests would have been recruited among the ruling class and hierarchically organized according to the types of sanctuaries. Domestically they would have been heads of households.