Variazioni sul sole: immagini e immaginari nell’ Europa protostorica

Marco Bettelli Studi Micenei ed Egeo-Anatolici 54 (2012) [2014], 185-205

Abstract

In recent years the meetings, exhibitions and collections of essays on the phenomenology of the sun imagery in ancient communities have multiplied. Such initiatives include works, usually comprehensive summaries, ranging from protohistoric Europe to the ancient Near East, including in some cases even more distant areas in both space and time.

The renewed focus on this topic has increased mainly in Central Europe, particularly in Germany. This has also probably happened because of recent and important discoveries, such as the disk of Nebra in 1999, or of innovative ideas in the interpretation of well-known, but very enigmatic artifacts, such as the gold hats so-called “type Schifferstadt” and the famous solar chariot from Trundholm. These artifacts are interpreted as evidence of the high degree of astronomical knowledge of the European communities in the Bronze Age and as an indication of the development of complex calendrical calculations based on solar and lunar cycles, and thus, inevitably, the role that asters, especially the sun , had to play in religious imagery.

The theme of war is often recurring in the sun iconography. With regard to the offensive weapons, in vast areas of continental Europe in the Late Bronze Age are known types of swords with hilt decorated with motifs related to the sun boat or the sun disk. This kind of evidence are abundant on defensive weapons, as armors, greaves and, in some cases, shields. There are also relevant social aspects to investigate. As is known, in much of continental Europe during the Late Bronze Age a social elite was well structured that, in male burials, is represented by “trans-cultural” material characteristics, especially in the type and combination of warfare items. Warriors graves with chariot, sword, armor, helmet and other materials not necessarily related to the sphere of war, such as bronze razors and tweezers, are widespread from central and northern Europe, to France, till the central Mediterranean and the Aegean. In many of these tombs motifs which refers to the solar cycle on artifacts, including weapons, are found.