bronze age acrobats: denmark, egypt, crete
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Bronze Age acrobats: Denmark, Egypt, CreteRune Iversena
a University of CopenhagenPublished online: 10 Mar 2014.
To cite this article: Rune Iversen (2014) Bronze Age acrobats: Denmark, Egypt, Crete, World Archaeology,46:2, 242-255, DOI: 10.1080/00438243.2014.886526
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Bronze Age acrobats: Denmark, Egypt,Crete
Rune Iversen
Abstract
A Danish eighteenth-century find of some bronze figurines tells the story of the practising of similar ritualperformances across Bronze Age Europe from Egypt to Scandinavia. The Danish figurines, as well as Swedishrock carvings, showbackwards-bending female acrobats doing backward handsprings. The exact same appearanceis found on Egyptian depictions related to ceremonies and festivals. OnMinoanCrete backwards-bent acrobats arerelated to bull leaping and bull ceremonies. Despite local variations, backwards-bent acrobatic performancescarried out by topless female actorswere part of the immaterial, ritual and cosmological exchange that characterizedthe second and earlyfirstmillenniumBC.Beliefs and ritual practiceswent hand in handwith the adoption of a seriesof elite items and an aristocratic lifestyle, thereby creating a unique and fascinating European Bronze Age.
Keywords
European Bronze Age; acrobats; figurines; Scandinavia; the Aegean; Egypt.
Acrobatic performances, dances and games were significant elements of the elite lifestyle thatcharacterized the East Mediterranean civilizations during the Bronze Age. However, elementsfrom these early civilizations reached Scandinavia and promoted the creation of a distinctiveNordic Bronze Age. The influences stretching across Europe from south to north can beillustrated by the depictions of acrobats and ritualized acrobatic performances. Hence, the aimof this article is to examine the striking similarities that exist between some Danish Late BronzeAge acrobatic figurines and Egyptian depictions of acrobatic dancing. Both the Danish and theEgyptian images bear resemblance to Minoan depictions and then form parts of the manifoldexchange of cultural ideas and beliefs that took place among Egypt, the Aegean and Central andNorthern Europe during the second and first millennium BC.
The Danish acrobats
Antiquarian recordings from the late eighteenth century tell the story of a significant find, withoriginally at least six bronze figurines, recovered at Grevensvænge on southern Zealand,
World Archaeology Vol. 46(2): 242–255 Archaeology of Performance© 2014 Taylor & Francis ISSN 0043-8243 print/1470-1375 online
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2014.886526
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Denmark. The find included three identical back-bending female acrobats, two inverted squat-ting men wearing horned helmets and holding large cultic axes and a single standing womanwith a fibula on her chest. The two squatting men and the standing woman are fixed to their ownplate and a ‘free’ space on the woman’s plate indicates that another figure, probably onemirroring the woman depicted, was originally placed beside her. Both plates and each of thebackwards-bending females have a peg that shows that the whole scene was fastened to somekind of base, presumably of organic material and therefore not preserved (Fig. 1). The find datesto the Late Nordic Bronze Age, most probably Montelius’ Period IV, c. 1100–1900 BC.Unfortunately, only one of the horned helmet men and one of the female acrobats have survived,now belonging to the National Museum of Denmark (Djupedal and Broholm 1953, 41–52;Randsborg 2011, 50–51).
The one surviving female acrobat from the Grevensvænge find is a backwards-bent toplessfigure (Fig. 2). The style is rather simple, showing some recognizable details. The only clothingis a short cord skirt, similar to the one found in the famous oak coffin-grave at Egtved, SouthernJutland, known as the ‘Egtved Girl’s grave’ (Thomsen 1929). The Grevensvænge acrobat wearsa neck ring and the hair is piled high on her head in a complex hairstyle, or perhaps she wearssome kind of headgear.
Interestingly, the exact same hairstyle is shown on some life-size Minoan terracotta statuesfrom the temple of Ayia Irini on Kea, the Cyclades, and from Thera (Santorini) in the southernAegean Sea. Furthermore, the sixteenth–fifteenth-century BC Ayia Irini statues are depictedtopless and wear neck rings or garlands, just like the Grevensvænge acrobat figurine. Theterracotta statues are part of the ritual sphere and are most likely representations of goddesses,priestesses or worshippers (Eluère 1999, 133, fig. 1, Cat. No. 68; Kristiansen and Larsson 2005,152, fig. 57c).
The cord skirt depicted on the Grevensvænge acrobat and the indication of breasts show thatthe figurine depicts a female and the bridge posture that she is performing an acrobatic exerciseor backward leap/somersault. The hands are slightly angled ready to set off on some object orbase and both feet are placed flat on the ground as if she is starting or finishing a leap.
A variety of acrobatic representations are known from Bronze Age imagery, including back-bent persons. Examples are given by rock carvings at Backa and Sottorp in Bohuslän, Sweden,showing backwards-bent possibly female acrobats leaping over ships containing crews of‘matchstick figures’ including larger standing men wearing horned helmets and carrying culticaxes (Fig. 3) – in fact, the same constellation of actors as found in the Grevensvænge find.Stylistically, these rock carvings can be dated to the Nordic Bronze Age Period III, IV and V,c. 1300–800 BC, which makes them contemporary with the Grevensvænge figurines(O. Almgren 1927, 20–22, figs 17–18; B. Almgren 1983, 49–50, 57–58, pls 136, 157–159).
Furthermore, horned helmet men as well as men in ships carrying over-sized cultic axes areoften seen on rock carvings and appear on a razor from Vestrup, Northern Jutland. The razordepicts two horned helmet men with cultic axes sitting in a ship next to a standing woman. Thisscenario might also well be represented by the Grevensvænge find; cf. the missing standingfemale figurine (Djupedal and Broholm 1953, 51–52).
Considering the scenes on further rock carvings and the razor from Vestrup, there seems to bea close relationship between the actors in the Grevensvænge scene and ships. It is therefore verylikely that the base on which the bronze figurines were originally placed was, in fact, a miniatureship and that the ship was the arena for backwards-leaping acrobatic performances.
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Figure 1 The Danish bronze figures from Grevensvænge. Drawn by Christian Brandt c. 1779/80 (afterDjupedal and Broholm 1953).
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H. C. Broholm (Djupedal and Broholm 1953, 53–54) and later Glob (1962) have bothproposed a relationship between the Grevensvænge figurines and a model ship. However,F. Kaul has elaborated on the idea by stressing that several rock carvings show miniature
Figure 2 The one surviving backwards-bending bronze figurine from the Grevensvænge find. Zealand,Denmark (photo: © The National Museum of Denmark).
Figure 3 Rock-carvings showing ‘ship-leapers’. Sottorp, Tanum, Bohuslän, Sweden (after B. Almgren1983).
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ships held by larger figures. Such scenes can be seen as depictions of ‘real-life’ ritualsperformed with miniature ships containing a ‘crew’ of figurines like those fromGrevensvænge (Kaul 1998, 22).
As pointed out byKaul, the strange scene represented by theGrevensvænge figurinesmust in itselfrepresent actual ‘real-life’ rituals carried out by Bronze Age worshippers. As well as being recog-nized on rock carvings, the objects and details on the Grevensvænge figurines are known in full-sizefrom the archaeological record. For instance, the attributes of the squatting men are represented by apair of horned helmets found in a bog near Viksø, northern Zealand. Also the over-sized cultic axes,often found in pairs, are known from hoards. Moreover, a piece of clothing in the form of a tongue-shaped ‘flap’ resembling a dress corresponding to that worn by the Grevensvænge men have beenfound inwhat is seen as a sorcerer’s or priest’s grave atHvidegård, north-eastern Zealand (Kaul 1998,19–24). As mentioned above, an actual cord skirt mirroring those worn by the Grevensvængeacrobats was found in an oak coffin at Egtved containing a young woman. Furthermore, smallbronze tubes originally fastened on the cords of cord skirts are known from a series of Danish BronzeAge graves (Thomsen 1929, 190–193; Randsborg 2011, 38–40, Tables 5–6).
Thus, it is reasonable to consider the Grevensvænge figurines as originally fastened to amodel ship depicting actual Bronze Age rituals in which female acrobats performed leaps orbackwards somersaults over ships. As the material attributes and depictions of these rituals arefound throughout Scandinavia and span most of the Bronze Age, these rituals must have been awidespread and embedded practice in northernmost Europe during the second and early firstmillennium BC.
Egyptian acrobatic dancers
After this glimpse into Scandinavian Bronze Age rituals, it is significant to find, more than3,000 kilometres from Denmark, Egyptian depictions of almost identical postures to those of theGrevensvænge acrobats. A variety of dancers and dancing postures are known from Egyptianreliefs and wall paintings. There is an interesting example from the Red Chapel of Hatshepsut(c. 1473–1458 BC), Karnak, where backwards-bent female acrobatic dancers are shown takingpart in the celebration of the annual ‘Beautiful Festival of the Valley’ in Thebes. The dancers aredepicted topless wearing short skirts and with long piled-up hair (Fig. 4) (cf. Graves-Brown2010, 93, pl. 8).
Other depictions of the backwards-bent posture are found on wall paintings from tombs of theBeni-Hasan cemetery in Middle Egypt used mainly during the First Intermediate Period and theMiddle Kingdom (c. 2258–1786 BC). Here female acrobat dancers are depicted topless wearingtight shorts or other close fitting clothes besides neck rings, bracelets, and anklets and withpiled-up hair or wearing headgear (Fig. 5). The exact same posture can also be recognized froma fragmented twelfth/thirteenth Dynasty (c. 1938–1630 BC) limestone figurine found in tombD303 at Abydos, Upper Egypt. The figurine has traces of paint, which might depict beads orbody paint but apart from that the dancer appears naked (Statuette of a Female Acrobat n.d.).
However, the most elegant and best-known representative of the backwards-bent posturecomes from a painted early nineteenth Dynasty (c. 1280 BC) limestone fragment known as ‘theTurin dancer’ (Fig. 6). Smooth limestone flakes were often used for informal paintings,sketches, drawings or writings in the Ramesside period, c. 1314–1085 BC, and are generally
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Figure 4 Acrobatic dancers taking part of the annual ‘Beautiful Festival of the Valley’ in Thebes. Bas-relieffrom Hatshepsut’s Red Chapel, Karnak, Egypt (photo: © Dreamstime).
Figure 5 Back-bending acrobatic dancers. Beni-Hasan, Egypt (after Wilkinson (1878): illustration 316).
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referred to as ostraca (Greek for ‘potsherds’) or ostraca figurés. The depictions are often‘cartoon-like’ humorous drawings or trial studies carried out prior to the execution of largerscenes on tomb walls and so on. Most ostraca have been found at Thebes where they werereadily accessible; however, the original location and context of the Turin dancer piece areunknown although it now belongs in the Museo Egizio at Turin, Northern Italy (Smith 1981,381–382; Malek 2003, 224).
The Turin dancer is depicted doing a bridge. The feet are almost placed flat on theground with slightly raised heels and the legs and arms are angled so that the thighs, backand upper arms form an arch. The hands are placed flat on the ground and the head hangsstraight down with the long curly hair touching the ground. The dancer is depicted topless,wearing only a short skirt or loincloth and large circular earrings. In general, it is hard tosay whether the Egyptian acrobats are performing a stable back-bend or if they arecarrying out backward somersaults or handsprings.
However, the Greek writer Xenophon (c. 430–355 BC) gives us a restricted glimpse of thebackwards-bent posture as he describes the entertainment related to a Greek banquet. Here afemale dancer carries out a series of backward handsprings and bends backwards making abridge (Wilkinson 1878, 53–54; Tortzen 1994, 30, 32). Now, considering Xenophon’s descrip-tion and the depiction of backwards-bent acrobats shown next to other dancers at the RedChapel of Hatshepsut, it is reasonable to view this specific posture as emblematic of acrobaticdancing related to feasting and festivals.
In this context it is worth noticing that the role of women in the Egyptian religious ceremonieswas often linked to music and dance. In fact, groups of mainly women singers and dancers,termed khener, held cultic roles in temples and during funeral ceremonies. Even though rich
Figure 6 The ‘Turin dancer’, Egyptian acrobat dancer. Ostracon. Unknown location of discovery. About1280 BC, early 19th Dynasty (photo: © Fondazione Museo delle Antichità Egizie di Torino).
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families would have their own group of entertainers, their role most likely also had religiousovertones. Both music and dance were essential parts of festivals and of the temples’ activities andboth elements were connected with the goddess Hathor. Music and euphoric dancing seem to havebeen essential in breaking down or crossing barriers between the world of the living and the worldof the gods and the dead (Graves-Brown 2010, 92–96, 167). Hence, even if acrobatic dancing waspart of the amusement at feasts, it most probably also had ritual and ceremonial aspects.
Even though the bridge posture and backwards somersaults are well-known gymnasticexercises even today, the similarities between the Grevensvænge acrobats and the Egyptianacrobat dancers are striking when it comes to posture, clothing and jewellery (neck rings,bracelets and earrings). Despite the fact that the Egyptian depictions predate theGrevensvænge figurines by a couple of hundred years or more, the given similarities point tothe existence of some common ideas about the significance of acrobatic performances whetherthese might have had a religious, entertaining or sporting character, or, more likely, a combina-tion of the three. In order to approach this issue further, I will turn to some evident parallelsfound in Minoan depiction of acrobatic leaps, which had a certain significance on Bronze AgeCrete and beyond.
Minoan leapers
As already indicated by the hairstyle of the Grevensvænge acrobats, the Aegean Bronze Age isan obvious place to look for parallels with the Danish figurines and their gymnastic postures. Ifwe accept the assumption that the performances carried out by the Grevensvænge acrobats werebackwards leaps over ships, as indicated by contemporary rock art depictions, the Minoan bullleapers make an obvious parallel (Fig. 7).
Bull-leaping is just one branch of a series of bull games represented in the Minoan icono-graphy dating throughout most of the south Aegean Bronze Age from the early Minoan III tothe late Minoan IIIB, i.e. c. 2300–1200 BC (Younger 1995, 508–512). Bull leaping is widelydepicted on frescoes, panels, seals and seal impressions. They occur in metalwork in the form ofbronze figurines and one ivory figurine is known from the palace of Knossos, c. 1550 BC (Evans1921; Poursat 1999, 164, fig. 1).
John G. Younger has separated at least two types of leap from variations in the way theacrobats are depicted leaping over the bulls. The first type of leap is performed by first grabbingthe bull’s horns, then flipping over the bull’s head, landing feet first on its back and finallyjumping off. The second, and most common, type of leap starts from a raised level, a platform,an assistant’s shoulders etc., from which the leaper dives down the bull’s neck, landing hands-first on its shoulders, somersaulting over the bull’s back and finally landing feet-first behind thebull (Younger 1995).
Judged from the colour of the leaping acrobats depicted on frescoes, both adolescent females(white-painted) and males (red-painted) took part in the spectacular bull-leaping exercise. Thoughphysical female attributes are rarely shown, the presumed participation of females is confirmed by adepiction of one white painted figure with long hair wearing a typical women’s hair-band. The onlyclothes worn by the leapers are shoes and loincloths, the typical sports clothing. Jewellery is seen inthe form of necklaces/garlands, armbands, bracelets and anklets. Both white- and red-painted leapers
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wear their hair long; however, red-painted leapers can also be shown shorthaired as typical for maledepictions (Evans 1921, 251–252; Younger 1995, 515–516).Even though depictions of bulls and various kinds of bull games, including bull leaping,
occur throughout the Aegean, there is a vast concentration of such scenes at Knossos, whichimplies that bull games made up a certain Knossian sport. The leapers were probably speciallytrained acrobats/dancers, whose entertainment was a part of larger bull ceremonies ending withbull sacrifices. However, it has also been proposed that bull-leaping sports indicate a coming ofage ceremony for the young members of the aristocracy as indicated by the long hair worn bythe adolescent leapers (Younger 1995, 518–523).
If we compare the depictions presented – the Danish Grevensvæge acrobats (and the Swedishrock art depictions), the Egyptian acrobatic dancing scenes and the Knossian Minoan bullleapers – some significant similarities stand out. The backwards-bent postures unite the depic-tions, whether they were performed on flat ground (the Egyptian depictions) or as a part of backsomersaults (the Scandinavian acrobats and Minoan leapers). Furthermore, there are strikingsimilarities in the dress worn by the acrobats as if we are dealing with a common set of sportsclothing, or rather ceremonial dress linked with acrobatic dancing activities. This specialclothing consists of a short skirt or loincloth, ornaments in the form of rings (neck, ear orarm rings/bracelets) and shoes, thereby leaving the acrobats topless. The acrobats depicted arewomen (and men when it comes to the bull leapers) participating in different forms of ceremonyor festival. The act of ‘leaping over something’ connects the Scandinavian and Minoan depic-tions whereas the Egyptian acrobat-dancers perform their backwards-bent dance on flat ground.
Now the question is how the shared depictions of backwards-bent acrobatic performancescarried out by female dancers in special costumes reaching from Egypt to Scandinavia can beexplained in the context of Bronze Age Europe.
Figure 7 The Taureador Frescoes, bull-leaping scene. Knossos, Crete (after Evans 1930).
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Acrobatic performances and the spread of ceremonial ideals and cosmology across BronzeAge Europe
The similarities among the Scandinavian acrobats, the Minoan bull leapers and the Egyptianacrobatic dancers are striking and reflect a certain shared focus on ceremonies and ritual gamesthat included acrobatics. Although the actual meaning behind the acrobatic activities no doubtvaried from region to region, acrobatics were part of a certain set or ‘packet’ of religious ideasand material attributes that stretched from Egypt, Anatolia and the Aegean through south-eastEurope and further on to Scandinavia.
This set of ‘BronzeAge ideas’ included a rich imagery of the holy sun (or sun/fertility goddess in theMinoan world) and related mythological creatures and objects such as birds, snakes, ships, axe/doubleaxe motifs, spiral motifs and figurines used in rituals. Besides, a range of new chiefly elite manifesta-tions was introduced in the form of chariots, razors, bronze drinking vessels, conical hats, thrones andfolding chairs, large-scale burial monuments, music, ceremonial games, dances and acrobatics (Winter2001; Kaul 2013).
Many of these exotic Bronze Age elements are found on the decorated stone slabs of the Kivikburial cist from south-eastern Scania, Sweden. The Kivik burial is dated to the late Period II/beginningof Period III of the Early Nordic Bronze Age, c. 1300 BC. The pictures are unique in a Scandinaviansetting in resembling royal Hittite and Minoan/Mycenaean iconography. The Kivik burial itself,consisting of a very large cairn and the decorated stone slab cist, and its location as a port to south-eastern Europe and beyond hint at the possibility of long-distance personal travels and exchangeexpeditions carried out by certain high-ranking Bronze Age individuals (Randsborg 1993, 107–117,132–141; Kristiansen and Larsson 2005, 142–250; Randsborg and Merkyte 2011; Kaul 2013, 470).
However, the southern impulses were not restricted to the Kivik burial but were generallyincluded in the existing material culture, thereby forming a distinct Nordic Bronze Age. One ofthese new and chiefly attributes is the folding chair. During the period from the mid-sixteenth tothe beginning of the thirteenth century BC (the eighteenth Dynasty in Egypt) the folding chairgained a significant importance as status symbol in Egypt, Anatolia and the Aegean. Foldingchairs are present in the tomb of Tutankhamen, they are depicted on the ‘Camp-stool Fresco’ atthe palace of Knossos, they occurring in Hittite iconography and they have been found in someof the Danish oak-coffin graves (Smith 1981, 353; Kristiansen and Larsson 2005, 303–5).
In fact, the Danish oak-coffin graves themselves might be the result of new impulsesreflecting the Egyptian idea of preserving the dead body for the afterlife. A limited number ofthe South Scandinavian oak coffins, dated to the fourteenth and early thirteenth century BC, haverevealed well-preserved mummified bodies due to the existence of stable oxygen-free environ-ments within the graves.
The oak-coffin graves basically consist of an oak-log coffin covered by a burial mound madeof dry sods. Soil analysis and experimental archaeological tests have shown that environmentsconducive to preservation can be obtained only by deliberately adding large quantities of waterto the core of the burial mound. The water hinders air diffusion and, as the wet core is coveredwith oxygenous layers of dry sods, chemical redox processes create iron pans within the mound.The iron pans develop at the boundary between the wet core and the drier outer part, preventingthe drying up of the core and the entry of oxygen. The lack of oxygen within the core of theburial mound caused a cessation of the decomposition processes at an early stage and, as aresult, the coffin and its content are preserved (Holst, Breuning-Madsen, and Rasmussen 2001).
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The question is whether this special treatment of the mound during the construction phasewas meant to preserve the deceased for the afterlife or was an unintended spin-off from ritualideas or constructional practices. So far the question cannot be answered unequivocally and thusremains open (Kaul 2004, 235, n. 5). However, it is striking that mummification of buriedbodies occurs in a South Scandinavian context at the exact same time as influences from Egypt,including ideas about cosmology and the afterlife, reached the region.
When it comes to cosmology Kaul has stressed certain similarities with Egyptian religion. InEgypt as well as in the Nordic Bronze Age, the sun was a central element and the journey of thesun from day to night is an important motif. The ship had a significant meaning in bothcosmologies as a carrier of the sun, gods and sacred objects, and both in Egypt and inScandinavia model ships were part of rituals. Birds, snakes and fish assisted the sun on itsholy journey, forming a cyclical sun religion. Many of these elements can also be found inGreece, northern Italy and central and Eastern Europe during the late Bronze Age of the earlyfirst millennium BC (Kaul 1998, 2004, 190–212).
Even though there are some striking similarities between the Egyptian religion and thecosmology of the Nordic Bronze Age, the latter cannot be said to derive from the former in adirect manner. Instead, a common understanding of the basic cosmological and ritual principleswas shared over vast distances of Bronze Age Europe together with the above-mentionedaspects of rulership and aristocratic lifestyle (Kaul 2004, 190–191). The route along whichthese elements were transmitted went from the Aegean and Anatolia to the Carpathians andfrom here along the Oder to the Baltic Sea and South Scandinavia (Kristiansen and Larsson2005, 204–212; see also Kaul 2013, 464–467).
Wider Egyptian influences were probably transmitted through Minoan and Mycenaean net-works. Minoan contacts with Egypt seem well established during the sixteenth and fifteenthcentury BC as shown by the presence of Minoan frescoes depicting bull-leaping ceremonies atTell el-Daba in the Nile delta region of Egypt (Malek 2003, 134). However, Minoan art was alsoinfluenced by Egyptian culture, as shown by the borrowing of the popular lily and ivy flowermotif. Besides, Minoans/Aegeans are depicted on wall paintings in Egyptian elite tombs atThebes and a Mycenaean king is mentioned in a royal Hittite text from c. 1250 BC, underliningthe Aegean significance and membership of Near Eastern ‘high society’ (Kristiansen andLarsson 2005, 96–105, 142 with references).
Thus, the depiction of backwards-bending and leaping acrobats is a feature that can be relatedto, and which was shared among, the early civilizations of the east Mediterranean. Acrobaticleaps, dances and, in addition to these physical activities, music were part of ritualized games,ceremonial rites and processions (cf. Jockenhövel 1999, 58–59). A fine example of the sym-bioses of festivals, acrobatic dancing and music is given on a Hittite relief vase fromİnandıktepe, Anatolia, c. 1600 BC, on which certain individuals are seated on folding chairsand an acrobat carries out a backward leap next to musicians (Parzinger 1992, 5–11, fig. 2).
Considering the supposed high mobility of certain high-ranking individuals and the strikingsimilarities that occur between the Danish acrobats and those from the eastern Mediterranean itis likely that some Scandinavian Bronze Age individuals had witnessed such acrobatic gamesand dances. As was the case with the introduction of new elite items, stylistic elements, such asthe spiral motive, and cosmological beliefs that reached Scandinavia from the south, thecarrying out of acrobatic performances was transformed and adjusted to local conditions.
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Thus, the Grevensvænge acrobats can be considered as female ‘ship-leapers’, who, according tothe international norm, were dressed in special ceremonial/sporting clothes. The Minoan bull-leaping games may have constituted the remote ceremonial ideal but in a Scandinavian setting thebull is replaced by a ship and the loincloth by a cord skirt. The ship itself had certain significance asthe connecting link to the surrounding world and the import of bronze. Besides, the ship held acosmological important position as a carrier of the sun. However, some West Swedish rock-artimages depict human figures standing (or jumping) on the back of bulls, indicating that bull gamesmight not be that remote an ideal after all (Fig. 8) (for additional depictions, see Almgren 1983,plates 122 A, 162 A and B; Winter 2001, fig. 7; Kristiansen and Larsson 2005, fig. 106).The depictions of acrobats dressed alike and holding similar postures known from Egypt, Anatolia,
the Aegean and Scandinavia clearly show that it was not only goods and objects that were transmittedacross Europe but also ceremonial and ritual practices. Hence the transmission of related ceremonialacrobatic performances is yet another fascinating aspect of the large patchwork of wide-ranginginternational interactions that characterized the European Bronze Age.
Rune IversenUniversity of [email protected]
Figure 8 Acrobat (?) standing on the back of a bull. Vitlycke, Tanum, Bohuslän, Sweden (after B. Almgren1983)
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References
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Rune Iversen is a PhD candidate in the Department of Archaeology in the SAXO Institute atthe University of Copenhagen. His research centres on the Neolithic and earliest Bronze Age ofNorthern Europe with special focus on the third millennium BC.
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