Decorated Weapons of the la Tène Iron Age in the Carpathian Basin

The statement that the Celts of the La Tène Iron Age had decorated their weapons is a fairly obvious one. This fact has been registered by the scholarly research devoted to this period practically at the moment of its birth and, moreover, in chronological respect quite nuanced observations were also soon published. The perfection of restoration methods resulted in an impressive growth of the relevant find material and, interestingly enough, led to a rather extremist view (which nonetheless appeared to be quite realistic), namely that all Celtic scabbards had originally been decorated. However, this "thesis" is only acceptable if another theory of pre- and protohistoric archaeology is also taken at face value, namely that all artefacts of a given period whose form points beyond a simple utilitarian function are to be regarded as a work of art. Taking this view ad absurdum, however, would lead to the necessary conclusion that all La Tène scabbards would have to be included in this study since all chapes, suspension-loops and reinforces would have to be regarded as ornaments. In order to avoid the pitfalls of a boundless analysis we have chosen to distinguish between functional parts of weapons and non-functional designs which — at least theoretically — can occur on any of the former, but whose presence is not a necessary must. The pioneer of Celtic studies in Hungary, Ferenc Pulszky too had dealt with these stricto sensu ornaments. This is readily understandable if we recall that one of the most outstanding finds from the Carpathian Basin, the "encrusted" scabbard from grave 1 of the Szob cemetery (Cat.no. 60; PL 61) which had been found in 1847, was published by Erdy in 1861. And even though Pulszky had in general adopted a rather dim view of the relics of Celtic art — no doubt influenced by the aesthetic taste of his age — , he nonetheless wrote a glowing and congenial account of this particular piece: in his opinion its engraved decoration was one of the most beautiful examples of a "flamboyant ornamentation despising all symmetry" Elsewhere he praised the "diversity" of the designs covering the spearhead from Csabrendek. (Cat.no. 7; PI. 9) The first half of the 20th century saw a rapid increase of Celtic finds, but there appears to have been little interest in their ornamentation. This can probably be attributed to the fact that at best, the relics of the La Tène Iron Age were categorised as documents of the applied arts, and that beside the cautious registration of Celtic "taste" most scholars found little to relate to, for these items fell short of what at that time was considered an independent mode and form of artistic expression. This is undoubtedly one of the reasons why the two comprehensive monographs of the Celtic finds from the Carpathian Basin do not include a chapter on art analysis in spite of the fact that an approach of this kind would undoubtedly have broken the deadlock of the typological/morphological analyses in the case of decorated weapons. ...