Early Iron Age Terracottas from Southern Portugal: Towards the Definition of a Regional Coroplastic Tradition

• Autor(a) principal: Gomes, Francisco B.
• Data de Publicação: 2019
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10451/42985
• topic: Coroplasty; Near Eastern iconography; Phoenician and “Orientalizing” iconography; Zoomorphic representations; Early Iron Age Iberia

At the beginning of the Iron Age, the iconographic output of the communities of southwestern Iberia was radically changed by the introduction of a rich and diverse imagery with Near Eastern roots brought to the Far West by the Phoenician diaspora. Coroplasty, however, does not seem to have been a popular medium for iconographic expression within Phoenician and “Orientalizing” groups. In this regard, the communities of the inner Alentejo region of southern Portugal constitute an exception, as they developed an expressive coroplastic production that clearly outweighs other artistic media. This tradition was based on the selective adoption and adaptation of specific oriental motifs, essentially zoomorphic representations, among which representations of bulls and birds are predominant. The rural and heterarchical nature of these communities meant that coroplastic production was decentralized and heterogeneous, but a number of common features can be glimpsed that unify this production in a coherent coroplastic production.