Some European History from 750-500BC

Etruscan Sarcophagus of the Spouses

This post will look at European history for the period from around 750-500BC. While most of the European continent is without written sources for this time period, the Greeks had a written tradition that is readable today and their inscriptions from this time period, as well as the much more voluminous Greek traditions from later time periods, allows us to talk more confidently about this period. The Greek sources also mention some of their European neighbours, for example the Thracians, but these records are less reliable than the ones regarding the Greeks themselves. Much of Europe is not documented at all and for areas such as Ireland, or Scandinavia, it is correct to view them as still being part of prehistory.

By the year 750BC Indo-European languages were spoken in the majority of Europe, with the exception of certain areas such as upper Scandinavia, perhaps parts of Ireland, Crete, Sardinia and parts of the Iberian Peninsula. Knowledge of iron-working was widespread at this point, but certain peripheral areas, such as Ireland and Scandinavia seem to have mostly used bronze at this point. For other points about the mid-700’s BC, these are dealt with in greater detail in the previous blog.

Reconstructed fortress at Biskupin

Around the year 700BC the fortified town of Biskupin was built in the region now known as Poland. This was a large island fortress that nevertheless had large wooden fortifications for defence. The builders were part of the Lusation culture, which was a Bronze/Iron Age culture that was related to the Urnfield and subsequent Hallstatt cultures further south in Europe. The fortified town was partially reconstructed by the Poles in the early 20th century, before it was intentionally destroyed by the retreating Nazis in WWII and subsequently rebuilt again after the war. It is one of the more impressive site reconstructions from the time period. I’m a fan of reconstructing history, as long as it can be done in a sensitive manner and without destroying what it purports to represent. We are visual and tactile beings and seeing a reconstruction may help us understand more history than we might otherwise get from a textbook alone.

On the Iberian Peninsula the treasure of El Carambolo dates from around this time. This is an exquisite hoard of golden treasure from the region generally referred to as Tartessos, to the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula. The golden hoard may be more closely associated with the Phoenicians however, as statues of their deities have been found nearby. It is an impressive hoard of gold regardless of whether its owners were Phoenician colonists or native Tartessians trading with the Phoenicians.

Hochdorf Chieftain's Grave

On the northern regions of the Italian Peninsula, the Villanovan culture gave way to the Etruscan culture around this time. The Etruscans are sometimes viewed as being external migrants to the region and there may be some truth to this. But if certain parts of Etruscan culture were imported from the outside, much of their culture was an evolution of the existing Villanovan culture.

Grave practices did seem to evolve and the tombs became quite elaborate. Cremation was still common, but rather than simply being interred in urns, elaborate sarcophagi and/or tombs were constructed for the nobles. Games for the dead may have formed the foundation for later gladiatorial games in Rome. Roman customs such as celebrating a triumph are also probably of Etruscan origin.

The Etruscan vision of the afterlife influenced later Roman conceptions of Hades and may have ultimately influenced medieval writers such as Dante. Later Roman writers viewed the Etruscans as being continually concerned with divination, augury and religious matters, to the point where they were viewed as almost superstitious.

The Etruscans ultimately formed into a confederation that was referred to as the Twelve Towns. These held an annual council at the shrine of the goddess Voltumna and decided matters between themselves. The League was a very loose one and in practice each city acted nearly independently. However these observations are taken from later sources and may not have been present at the beginning of the Etruscan civilisation.

Dipylon Inscription

In Greece, the earliest writings date from around this time. The two objects generally held to be have the oldest writing are the Dipylon Inscription and the Nestor Cup, both of which are small inscribed pottery pieces. Pottery and terracotta tend to survive the ages well. Even broken, they can be put back together. They cannot be melted down by looters like bronze or gold and once in the ground they can last for a very long time. Hence, why, even if nothing else survives of a culture, the archaeologists may still find the pottery.

It is around this time that Homer is said to have written the Iliad and the Odyssey. It is unclear if the Odyssey and the Iliad were written by the same person, if that person was Homer, or even if Homer existed. But rather than calling the person Anonymous, we may as well call them Homer. These two epics were drawn together from the existing oral tradition of epic poetry. If Homer existed, he was more of a master compiler and editor than an author in the modern sense. We know that the Greek epic tradition was well known in the centuries that immediately followed Homer, but we cannot say for sure that the organisation of the epics was exactly the same as we have them today. The versions of the poems that survive to us are the earliest pieces of European literature extant today. They also have a justified claim to being some of the greatest literary works ever written, but this is subjective.

Artifacts from the Hochdorf Chieftain's Grave

Around the year 650BC the climate in Scandinavia appears to have grown colder. In a probably unrelated development, the Novocherkassk culture of the Pontic steppe, in the lands north of the Black Sea, appears to have disappeared around this time. This is likely because they were subsumed into the Scythian culture that was becoming prominent.

Around this time the Etruscans seem to have developed their own script to write their language in. This was an alphabetic script and was based on the Phoenician and Greek alphabets, both of whom would have traded with the Etruscans. The Etruscans left a large number of inscriptions, but their language appears to be a language isolate and is quite difficult to understand. Thus very little of it can be fully understood.

By around the year 600BC the Scythians seem to have become dominant in the Pontic steppes. They were a nomadic tribe of horse-riders. The Greeks feared them as barbarians and saw them as “other”. Like other steppe peoples before them, they buried their dead in Kurgans and carried their wealth in horses, cattle and gold. Their religion is not well known, but their artwork seems to have motifs of deer, birds and leopards in a ceaseless struggle against each other. This may be an artistic trope rather than a religious belief however. The Scythians were said to practice human sacrifice as well.

Strettweg Cult Wagon

The Strettweg Cult Wagon appears to date from around this time as well. This was a bronze grave offering found in the tomb of a Hallstatt culture Celtic chieftain in what is now the region of Austria. The wagon is an elaborate four-wheeled creation with figures of warriors, worshippers, horsemen and deer surrounding a larger female figure bearing something upon her head, usually displayed as a bronze bowl although this is now disputed. It is a striking artwork and one that is usually used as a depiction of the Hallstatt Celts. It is still not entirely clear what the Cult Wagon is actually depicting. While it is probably a religious ceremony of some sort, it is hard to say more than this.

An even more mysterious memory from this time is the Girl of the Uchter Moor. The body of a girl was found in a bog in what is now Germany. She was dated to have lived around this time. However, she had not been cremated, nor were there grave goods found with her body. The girl was well-preserved and 17-19 years old. She had been malnourished and had clearly had a hard life, with her skeleton showing signs of lifting very heavy loads. She was clearly not a high-status woman and the fact that she was naked when buried in the bog suggests that this was not a burial, but an ancient crime scene.

Reconstruction of the Girl of the Uchter Moor

Maiden Castle was first built in Britain around this time. This would go on to later become one of the most spectacular ancient fortifications in the British Isles, but the initial fort was much more modest.

In the Iberian Peninsula, the Southwest Paleohispanic script, sometimes known as the Tartessian script, was developed. This was probably the third oldest European alphabetic script, after the Greek and the Etruscan, although the Latin alphabet may predate it. The Tartessian alphabet was actually a semi-syllabary and thus contained a number of redundant signs. It was almost developed after contact with the Phoenician script, but is not a direct copy, as the Phoenicians had no need for syllabic signs. The sounds can be guessed at by the connections to the Phoenician alphabet, but the language itself is not understood. It may be a non-Indo-European language.

Around the year 550 a Celtic chieftain was buried with great splendour in what is now the small village of Hochdorf in Germany. The mound was a large one, but had gradually sunk into the ground and had been lost to history. This obscurity saved it from looting and the golden objects survive to this day. The man buried here was doubtless of great importance, almost certainly a chieftain or a king. He was middle-aged, perhaps around 40 years old. The tomb held a wagon that was covered in iron and which carried grave goods to be wheeled into the next world. A great cauldron was filled with mead for feasting and the chieftain himself wore gold and amber. It was a magnificent burial and a sign of the grandeur of the Celtic world.

In the Italian Peninsula, an Etruscan couple were buried in the necropolis at Caere (now known as Cervetari). Their sarcophagus for their ashes was decorated with a scene of the couple reclining lovingly in each other’s arms as for a feast. It is a perhaps the most iconic piece of Etruscan sculpture. It was made in terracotta and was once painted, although this has faded. It is displayed in the Etruscan Museum in Rome. This artistic motif of a banqueting couple may once have been a common one, as a similar sarcophagus is preserved in the Louvre.

Duenos Inscription

Further south, in Rome, the first inscriptions in Latin begin to appear around this time. The probable oldest writing in Rome is on the Lapis Niger, in the Roman Forum. However another candidate for the oldest Latin inscription is the Duenos Inscription, which is on a small pottery piece held in the Altes Museum in Berlin. Another candidate for oldest Latin inscription is the Praenestine fibula, but there is still some doubt over the exact dating of this artefact.

In Greece, the main period of colonisation, of the sending out of spare citizens to explore and make new cities in new lands, came to an end around this period. Occasionally new colonies were sent out, but for various reasons, including needing increased manpower for hoplite warfare and increased participation of the hoplite class in government, the Greek cities generally ceased to send colonies.

The Greeks had mostly stopped sending colonists to conquer new territory, but around this time Thales, an Ionian Greek from the city of Miletus in Asia Minor, became the first philosopher in the Greek tradition. He also has some claim to the title of first scientist as well. Thales believed that water was the primordial entity and that all things came from water. This is of course wrong, but Thales is perhaps the first person known to us who attempted to rationally explain the world without reference to the gods. Much of what later became philosophy and science and all the sub-disciplines and related disciplines of these two endeavours, stems from this moment.

Sarcophagus of the Spouses

Around the time of 500BC the Iron Age arrived in Ireland, as well as into the Scandinavian region. The Celts probably also arrived in Ireland around this time, although it is not clear if there was a large migration from Europe or Britain into Ireland, or if it was a small migration that gradually spread the culture and language. The latter option is perhaps more likely.

The Celtic world on the mainland was also changing. The Hallstatt art style was beginning to be superseded by a newer style of Celtic art, known as La Tene. This was named after a village in Switzerland where a huge variety of objects had been dropped as votive offerings in an Alpine lake. The art style gives its name to the culture, which is said to supersede Hallstatt culture, although the change was primarily a stylistic one. The art style is one that most people would identify as Celtic, including the spirals and curving lines so associated with Celtic art. But the art style was probably also taken up by speakers of non-Celtic languages as well.

Around this time the actual Celtic settlement of Hallstatt seems to have been abandoned and looted. This would almost certainly have nothing to do with the change in art style, but was more likely to be tied to a nearby salt mine becoming unproductive. As the settlement shifted away to a new source of income, the abandoned town was looted by those who were leaving or by surrounding peoples.

The Lepontic and South Picene alphabets may date from this time. These are poorly attested alphabets from the Italian Peninsula. The Lepontic script (also known as the Lugano Alphabet) is from the Alpine region and probably was used by the Celtic inhabitants of the region, who would have been visited by Greek and Etruscan traders.

The South Picene alphabet is from the east of the peninsula. The people on the other side of the Apennine Mountains from the Etruscans developed their own script. Only around 20 inscriptions remain and it appears to be heavily influenced by the Etruscan alphabet. However because the language is Indo-European the inscriptions are (generally) readable.

Pyrgi Tablets

The Pyrgi Tablets, perhaps the most important Rosetta Stone like object for the Etruscan alphabet, dates from around this time. These are a collection of three golden sheets inscribed with Etruscan and Phoenician inscriptions. The tablets have aided a great deal in the better understanding of Etruscan, but the inscriptions do not seem to match exactly and the fact that Etruscan is itself an unknown language makes further advances with Etruscan inscriptions difficult.

An Etruscan artist in the city of Veii created the Apollo of Veii, a terracotta statue of the god Apollo disputing with the hero Heracles. This was as part of a scene to decorate a temple. The artwork is quite advanced and nearly on a par with the Greek Archaic statuary that was current in Greece at the time.

In the year 513BC King Darius I of Persia, ruler of the largest empire in the world at the time, launched an expedition across the Bosphorus into Europe. This was aimed at conquering the Thracians, Macedonians and Scythians. The Thracians and the Macedonians were quickly brought into the Persian Empire, but Herodotus records that the Persians had to cross the Danube to face the Scythians. The Persians marched fast but the Scythians retreated faster and even though Darius was said to have crossed both the Dnieper and the Don and advanced all the way to the edges of the Caucasus, he was unable to bring the steppe warriors to battle as he had wished. The Persians retreated to the Danube and returned to Asia.

In the year 509BC it is said that the Romans overthrew their last king, Tarquinius Superbus, a man of Etruscan descent, and established the Roman Republic. The foundation of the Republic has many legends associated with it and the date in particular is not fixed. However, this is the traditional date and I have mentioned it here.

Gold dress fasteners from Bronze Age Ireland

In the year 508BC, we can say with more certainty that the Athenians, having finally got rid of their tyrants two years previously, began to move towards a participatory democracy. I have spoken at length of Greek history elsewhere and the reader can check the associated blogs, but I feel it useful to give context as to what is happening in Europe.

Thus the period draws to a close, with La Tene Celtic culture becoming the dominant culture in central Europe and iron-working technology spreading entirely across Europe. In the Iberian Peninsula Phoenician influence is growing in importance, while in the Italian Peninsula Greek cities have been established in the south, the Etruscan civilisation is flourishing in the north, and between these lies the small and hitherto insignificant city of Rome. The period sees Europe move more fully into the historical period, with the beginnings of Greek philosophy and science and from this point onwards, much more can be said.

Related Blog Posts:
Some European history from 4000-3000BC
Some European history from 3000-2000BC
Some European History from 2000-1500BC
Some European History from 1500-1000BC
Some European History from 1000-750BC
Some European History from 750-500BC