SCULPTURE

Too little carved wood or datable stone survives for much discussion. Often it looks crude compared to the metalwork, but this is sometimes due to decay or weathering.

Wooden votive offerings in springs in France (see p, 3j6), appear to have been made by local carvers, with those at Chamalieres more Rom an-influenced than the examples from Sources de-la-Seine. A unique if fragmentary group of a stag and a human figure with goat supporters from a well, within a square ritual enclosure at Fellbach-Schmiden near Stuttgart, is dated by dendrochronology to the late second century BC (Figure 20.12). The presence, however, of turned wooden vessels and other wooden objects in waterlogged situations of much earlier date within a settlement area on the Diirrnberg, and evidence for the skilled production of wheeled vehicles (Piggott 1383: 135-238), are clear indications of how incomplete is our knowledge of the use by early Celtic craftsmen of such perishable materials, A small group of stylized human heads, mostly sandstone, of the late Hallstatt and early La Tcne periods is scattered through the Rhineland and south-western Germany (Kimmig 1985, 1987). Except for those of the Celto-Ligurians in the south of France, most other stone sculptures are usually isolated finds of sometimes dubious antiquity, such as the ‘Tarasque’ or monster of Noves from the Bouches du Rhone (Duval and Fleude 1983: 138). The splendid if damaged ragstone head of a torque-wearing, moustachioed male, found buried outside the Bohemian ditched sanctuary

Figure 20,12 Wooden stag from well within square ritual enclosure (Viereckschanze) at Fellbach-Schmiden, Kr. Rems-Murr, Germany. l it. 77 cm. Last quaner second century BC, (Photo courtesy Landesdenkmalamt Baden-Wurttemberg, Stuttgart.)

Figure 10.13 Ragscone head from Mscckc Zehrovicc, okr. Rakovnik, Czechoslovakia. Ht. 23. j cm. Date third century BC. (Photo: Au CSAV, Prague.)

Site of Msecke Zehrovice, is an exception which can be dated to at least the third century BC (Figure 20.13) (Megaw and Megaw 1988). Comparison with contemporary or near-contemporary classical sculpture such as the well-known depictions of naked Celtic warriors, originally commissioned by the Hellenistic rulers of Pergamon, demonstrates most clearly the absence of anything approaching naturalistic or even idealized portraiture in early Celtic art.