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Of the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean, it is the Greeks, the Romans, and the Egyptians who tend to get the most press. However, many of the region’s other inhabitants, often consigned to the peripheries of Classical studies, have rich and fascinating cultures that deserve their moment in the spotlight. The people of the Iberian Peninsula undoubtedly number among them. Iberians at the Antikenmuseum Basel and Sammlung Ludwig is Switzerland’s first major exhibition on the culture of pre-Roman Hispania. Developed in collaboration with the Museu d’Arqueologia de Catalunya in Barcelona – home to one of the world’s most important Iberian collections – as well as several other lenders, the exhibition features 270 objects from 40 different sites that highlight the splendour and diversity of Iberian culture.
Who were the Iberians?
The term ‘Iberians’ in fact refers not to one homogenous group, but to a collection of tribes who lived along the east coast and in the south of the Iberian Peninsula in the 1st millennium BC. These groups displayed distinct regional differences, but also shared many elements of their culture and ways of life.
There is evidence as early as the 3rd millennium BC of peoples in this area with complex social structures and material cultures, but Iberian culture reached its peak between the 6th and 1st centuries BC, during which time it established itself as an advanced civilisation with skilled artisans and sophisticated metalworkers, fully developed writing systems, distinct religion and mythology, and a social hierarchy headed by a wealthy elite. The Iberians had connections across the Mediterranean world and beyond, resulting in a unique culture combining numerous foreign influences with local traditions.
The Phoenician effect
‘For nowhere in the world have gold and silver, and even copper and iron, ever been found in such quantity and quality.’ Such were the words of Greek historian Strabo, writing of the Iberian Peninsula in the late 1st century BC or early 1st century AD. However, the region’s abundant natural resources first caught the attention of the wider world several centuries earlier. In the early 1st millennium BC, the Phoenicians, inhabitants of modern-day Lebanon and Syria, were expanding across the Mediterranean, driven in large part by the search for metal deposits. By the 9th century BC, they reached the Iberian Peninsula, and by the 7th century BC they had founded a number of settlements along its south coast.
Trading of goods clearly ensued, as objects produced by Phoenicians have been discovered in many Iberian settlements. However, direct archaeological traces of Iberian contact with these new arrivals remains fairly limited. Much more evident is the impact of the ideas and technologies the Phoenicians brought with them. The Iberian peoples had been processing metal and making pottery long before the Phoenicians settled on the Peninsula, but the arrival of new metalworking techniques and the introduction of the potter’s wheel enabled them to produce better quality goods much faster than before.
Perhaps most significantly, however, the Phoenicians brought with them an alphabet, which the Iberians adopted in order to develop their own writing system. This system came to consist of three scripts: the north-eastern and the south-eastern scripts, which used symbols descended from the Phoenician alphabet, and the Graeco-Iberian, which used Greek letters. Unfortunately, although linguists can produce rough phonetic transcriptions of most characters, translation remains, at present, impossible. The Iberian language itself, which was non-Indo-European in origin, disappeared from use more than 2,000 years ago, and there are no surviving similar languages that we can turn to for comparison. Frustratingly, more than 2,000 Iberian inscriptions are known from funerary inscriptions, coins, ceramics, lead tablets, and religious carvings on cave walls, but – with the exception of a few words – we are unable to read them.
Greek arrivals
The Phoenicians were not the only ancient civilisation drawn to the Iberian Peninsula. Several centuries later, the Greeks also established a presence here, founding the colony of Emporion in Catalonia in the early 6th century BC. The settlement’s name, which comes from the Greek term for ‘trading post’, reflects its status as an important interface between the Greek and Iberian worlds. The Iberian settlement of Ullastret, which was probably the capital of the Indigetes tribe, was built around the same time only 25km away from Emporion, and this whole region in the north-east of the peninsula had extensive connections with the Greek world. We see this in the spread of Greek materials that took place over the following centuries: objects like Attic vases were imported to the Iberian Peninsula in large quantities in the 5th and 4th centuries BC, while the earliest coins minted by the Iberians, which did not emerge on a large scale until the end of the 3rd century BC, closely resemble the silver drachmas that were produced at Emporion in vast quantities to pay soldiers.
However, Emporion remains the only known Greek settlement founded on the Iberian Peninsula, and the archaeological record indicates that the Greek presence here was perhaps smaller than Classical sources suggest. Many Greek and Roman authors, writing both retrospectively and at the time, present the Iberians as a ‘wild people’ to whom the Greeks ‘brought culture’. A growing body of evidence demonstrates clearly that this was not the case. The material culture of the Iberian people paints a different picture, one of a highly advanced civilisation who adapted and incorporated a range of new ideas from abroad, and combined them with local traditions to create a phenomenon that was distinctly Iberian in type.
Life and death
A defining feature of Iberian culture is the abundance of beautiful objects produced by skilled artisans – not just metalwork and ceramics, but also ornate sculpture, textiles, jewellery and personal ornamentation, and more. However, a large class of farmers was necessary to support the production of these luxury goods. Indeed, the Iberians were at heart a largely agrarian society, with those involved in agriculture and animal husbandry making up the majority of the population. Specialisations varied by region: for example, we know that grain was being produced on a large scale in the north, while olive oil- and wine-making were favoured in the Valencia region, and animal husbandry in the west. We know relatively little, though, about the lives of the many ordinary people who carried out this work.
We have significantly more evidence related to the upper classes of Iberian society who ultimately controlled these agricultural resources and commissioned work by the artisans. By the 7th century BC, there are already signs of the existence of privileged Iberian ‘princes’ who held seats of power, with access to trade with the Phoenicians and restricted luxury commodities. The presence of this elite ruling class is reflected in the burial record. Cremation appears to have been the predominant funerary practice among the Iberian peoples, and we find the remains of the wealthy buried in cemeteries and necropoleis with rich grave goods and funerary sculptures depicting the deceased (which also provide valuable information about trends in clothes and hairstyles among affluent Iberians). Significantly, from the 6th century BC onwards, the number of identifiable burials found decreases dramatically, and it appears that elaborate funerary rituals were increasingly restricted to an elite few. What happened to everyone else – the farmers, artisans, soldiers, and peasants who made up a vast part of the population – remains a mystery.
Details of the rituals and beliefs surrounding death are mysterious as well, although it is clear that the Iberians had their own distinct religious and mythological traditions. Like their material culture, it appears that the Iberian pantheon consisted of a combination of local gods and deities adopted from other cultures, such as Demeter, who possibly served as a goddess of agriculture and fertility for the Iberians, and the Egyptian god Bes, perhaps a protector of the home. Depictions of the griffin, which has its origins in Mesopotamian folklore, are found in Iberian sculpture, while other symbols such as the wolf, which appears repeatedly in Iberian imagery, were clearly mythological traditions of long-standing local importance. The discovery of votive offerings – often in natural places like caves or near springs, but also in small temples in urban settings – gives us some clues about where religious rituals occurred. Ultimately, however, we do not know what these deities meant to the Iberian peoples who worshipped them, nor exactly how this worship took place. Religious inscriptions have been found but, of course, we cannot decipher them.
Violence and warfare
With their complex ideologies and traditions, and their beautiful material culture, the Iberians were clearly not the ‘savages’ that many Classical authors depicted. Nonetheless, they were fierce fighters when necessary. In ‘warrior graves’ found in Catalonia and Valencia, the deceased are buried with high-quality weapons, as well as jewellery and bronze vessels, reflecting the status of these individuals. The weapons used by Iberian warriors varied by region, but included multiple types of sword, spear, and dagger, as well as arrows and slingshot projectiles. They had well-made armour, helmets, and shields, too, while the discovery of equestrian paraphernalia such as spurs, together with stone stelae depicting armed horsemen, are testament to their skills in mounted combat. More graphic evidence of the brutal Iberian fighting spirit comes in the form of the severed heads of their enemies, which Iberians in the north-east of the Peninsula nailed to fronts of their houses or to the defensive walls of their towns as trophies of war.
We find archaeological remnants, as well, of the conflict that ultimately brought about the end of the Iberian civilisation. In the 3rd century BC, tension between Rome and Carthage reached boiling point. Some 20 years after Rome’s victory in the First Punic War (264-241 BC), Carthaginian general Hannibal set out from his base on the Iberian Peninsula to attack Rome. His first step was a siege of the Roman-allied Iberian city of Saguntum. Rome responded by declaring war on Carthage, and in 218 BC Roman forces landed at Emporion. Fighting continued on the Iberian Peninsula for almost two decades. We can see the impact of this conflict on the local population in finds like the Tivissa Treasure, a hoard of silver objects discovered at the Iberian settlement of Castallet de Banyoles, which was destroyed amid the upheaval of this period. The hoard is dated to 250-195 BC and is therefore believed to have been buried by the objects’ owners to protect them from enemy capture during the Second Punic War. Meanwhile, Hannibal, famously, crossed the Alps with his elephants and began a campaign against Roman troops in Italy. Ultimately, the Carthaginian forces failed, and Rome prevailed.
The conflict between these two external forces divided Iberia, and in 197 BC, after their victory, the Romans split the Peninsula into two provinces. The Iberians in the north-east rebelled fiercely, but two years later they had been defeated. The Romans continued to face strong opposition from other Iberian tribes as well, but by the end of the 1st century BC the conquest was complete. New towns were founded, and local traditions were replaced by Roman customs, religion, language, and laws.
However, we can still find extensive evidence of this remarkable culture, and its wide-ranging connections with the rest of the Mediterranean world, in the archaeological record. Iberians brings these fascinating peoples out of the shadows and demonstrates why they deserve their moment in the sun.
DETAILS:
Iberians
Address: Antikenmuseum Basel and Sammlung Ludwig St Alban-Graben 5, 4051 Basel
Open: until 26 May 2024
Website: www.iberer.antikenmuseumbasel.ch/en
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