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Heads and Hoofs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Stuart Piggott
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Extract

A few years ago Professor Ole Klindt-Jensen, in publishing the results of his excavations of Migration Period sites on the island of Bornholm, described a remarkable find from the Sorte Muld settlement. Here, just outside the entrance to Building II, was a small pit containing the skull of a horse, its severed fore-legs, and a pelvic bone, accompanied by a few bones of sheep, pig and dog, and sherds which dated the pit to the main occupation phase of the site, in the 5th century A.D.(FIG. 2, 1).

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Type
Research Article
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Antiquity , Volume 36 , Issue 142 , June 1962, pp. 110 - 118
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1962

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References

1 O. Klindt-Jensen, Bornholm i Volkvandringstiden, 1957, 81 of Danish text, 247 of English ; Folk I, 1959, 51.

2 Cf. also B. Schmidt, Die Späte Völkerwanderungzeit in Mitteldeutschland, 1961.

2a Additional South Russian finds have recently been published: cf. Materialy, LX, 1949, passim.

3 Herod. IV, 72.

4 M. A. Czaplicka, Aboriginal Siberia, 1914, for earlier accounts; N. K. Chadwick, Poetry and Prophecy, 1952, 76 and pl. 3 (photograph of Oirot horse sacrifice).

5 Västerbjers: M. Stenberger et al., Das Grabfeld von Vãsterbjers, 1943; Ostorf is mainly unpublished but cf. Reall., IX, 1927, 241, and material in Schwerin Mus.; Tangermünde, J. Preuss in Wissensch. Zeitschr. Martin Luther Univ. Halle-Wittenberg, III, 2, 1945, 415; Olen Island, Kola Peninsula, etc.: M. Gimbutas, Prehist. E. Europe, 1, 1956, 183, with refs.; N. N. Gurina, Materialy, XLVII, 1956; ibid., XXXIX, 1953, 347; Lake Baikal: A. P. Okladnikov, Ancient Population of Siberia, 1959; Acta Arctica, XII, 1960, 35 (Circumpolar Conference); H. N. Michael, Neolithic Age in Eastern Siberia (Trans. Amer. Phil. Soc., XLVIII, Pt. 2, 1958).

6 Materialy, XXXIX, 1953, 378, figs. 23, 24. I would suggest that the perforated antler object from Grave 21 at Tangermünde (Preuss, loc. cit., Taf. 25, 4) and its unpublished counterpart from Ostorf (Schwerin Mus.) could be similarly interpreted.

7 J. E. Forssander, Ostskand. Norden während der alt. Metallzeit Europas, 1936; J. Werner, Atti Primo Congresso Internat. Preist. e Protost. Mediterranea 1950, 1952, 193; R. Hachmann, Friihe Bronzezeit im westlichen Ostseegebiet, 1957; E. Lomborg, Acta Arch., XXX, 1959, 51.

8 As T. G. E. Powell, The Celts, 1958, 168.

9 Skalk, I, 1960, 9, and conversation with Professor Klindt-Jensen.

10 Aborig. Siberia, 298. Cf. the Tungus shaman wearing a reindeer skin with antlers in the early 18th century: M. Hald, Olddanske Tekstiler, 1950, 368, fig. 423; J. G. D. Clark, Star Carr, 1954, 171, fig. 75.

11 Excavation reports in R. Arik, Les Fouilles d’Alaca Höyük, 1937; H. Z. Kosay, Ausgrabungen von Alaca Höyük, 1944; ibid., Les Fouilles d’Alaca Höyük, 1951. Comment by C. Schaeffer, Strat. Comp. d’Asie Occ., 1948, 278; T. Özgüç, Bestattungsbraueche im vorgesch. Anatoliens, 1948, 108; S. Piggott, The Listener, 10 Nov., !955> 79°; Seton Lloyd, Early Anatolia, 1956, 96.

12 Childe, Dawn, 1957, 157; V. Milojčić, Germania, xxxiii, 1955, 240.

13 Gimbutas, Prehist. E. Europe, 1, 1956, 56 ff. ; Childe, Dawn, 1957, 148 ff. I owe much to conversations on South Russian prehistory with Dr Gimbutas at Harvard early in 1961.

14 Jahrb.f. Mitteldeutsch. Vorgesch., XXXVI, 1952, 52.

15 Gimbutas, op. cit., 75, 80.

16 Czaplicka, op. cit., 304.

17 Sov. Arkh., x, 1949, 148; Gimbutas, op. cit., 78; Hančar, Das Pferd . . ., 1956, 105; Proc. Prehist. Soc,, XVII, 1951, 185.

18 Tallgren in Euras. Septent. Antiq., II, 1926, 31, fig. 31.

19 Mylonas, Anc. Mycenae, 1957, pl. 46; less markedly in Graves Mu and Nu (pls. 67, 76). Childe noted that the Mycenaean Shaft Graves showed close structural agreement with the South Russian Pit and Hut Graves (Dawn, 1957, 79). Deposits of animal bones in the shalfts over the roofs of the tombs are recorded, but unfortunately without details.

20 Gimbutas, op. cit., 72, fig. 39, 3; Tallgren, loc. cit., 29, fig. 29; Materialy, IX., 1959, 173, fig. 61, 2; cf. Soc. Arkh., X, 1948, 146, fig. 4. The resemblance between the Shaft Grave and South Russian burial rite was independently noted by the writer and Childe (in litt., 28. x. 56).

21 K. Bittel et al., Die Hethitischen Grabfunde von Osmankayast, 1958. For Hittite horses, cf. A. Kammenhüber, Hippologia Hethitica, 1960, and p. 23 for donkeys.

22 Earlier work summarized by Tallgren, loc. cit.; Merpert in Materialy, XLII, 1954, 39; ibid., LXI, 1958, 45 ; Smirnov, ibid., IX, 1959, 206; Sinitsyn, ibid., IX, 1959, 39; Gimbutas in Expedition (Bulletin Univ. Mus. Pennsylvania), III, no. 3, 1961, 14, and in Munro Lecture, Univ. of Edinburgh, Oct., 1959.

23 Tallgren, loc. cit., 37, fig. 34.

24 Tallgren, loc. cit., 37, fig. 33; Gimbutas, loc. cit., 17.

25 My thanks for this negative information are due to Dr H. Behrens of Halle, who will shortly publish a full study of Neolithic animal burials in Central Europe; cf. the short note by O. F. Gandert in CISPP Actes de la IIIe. Session, Zurich, 1950, 1953, 201.

26 Arch., XLII, 1868, 182. What appears to have been a ritual burial of two complete horses, possibly of Romano-British date, was found under a round barrow at East Hendred, Berks. (Trans. Newbury Dist. F.C., VII, 1935, 102).

27 Cf. H. C. Broholm and M. Hald, Costumes of the Bronze Age in Denmark, 1940, passim.

28 Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., VII, 1866–68, 115; Childe, Scotland Before the Scots, 1946, 119.

29 Czaplicka op cit., 265.

30 T. F. O’Rahilly, Early Irish Hist, and Mythol., 1946, 324. I am indebted to Dr Anne Ross for help here.

31 Decretorum Libri Viginti, xix (Migne, Pat. Lat. 140, coll. 961)—’vel in bivio sedisti supra taurinam cutem ut et ibi futura intelligeres?’

32 M. Martin, Descrip. Western Isles, 1716, III.

33 As Mrs Chadwick has stressed, especially in Poetry and Prophecy.