Elfenbeinwerkstätten in Huelva und La Rebanadilla (Málaga), den ältesten phönizischen Niederlassungen auf der Iberischen Halbinsel

Abstract

The present article – the result of an interdisciplinary collaboration – serves as the pilot study of a project that investigates specifically selected, datable Phoenician ivory finds of the 9th to 6th centuries BC in their geographical context, which spans the entire Oikoumene including the Oriental and African regions from where the material originated. The analysed material can be classified as the remnants of workshop activities that took place during the last quarter of the 9th century BC, i. e. the founding phase of the westernmost and oldest Phoenician production centres, Huelva and La Rebanadilla (Málaga). The specific selection of the study objects enables a comparison of contemporaneous and homogenous find contexts, which are Mediterranean on the one hand (La Rebanadilla) and Atlantic on the other (Huelva). The applied analyses are in keeping with a research tradition that is firmly established at the Madrid department of the German Archaeological Institute, resp. the study of ivory objects from the Phoenician outpost Mogador (Essaouira, Morocco) and the extensive Chalcolithic and Bronze Age ivory studies of Thomas X. Schuhmacher and Arun Banerjee. The results show, for example, that two thirds of the 32 analysed samples from Huelva, Calle Méndez Núnez come from hippopotamus teeth, of which a Near Eastern origin could be verified for one example, whereas the remaining samples come from the tusks of Asian elephants. From the three samples found in La Rebanadilla, two belong to hippopotamus teeth and the third belongs to an African elephant. The material, the carving techniques and the context of the finds from Huelva and La Rebanadilla indicate the presence of oriental ivory carvers, who belonged to a circle of specialised craftsmen and oriental tradesmen of aristocratic standing, and who introduced exotic products and technological innovations thereby initiating economic and cultural orientalizing changes in the autochthonic milieu.