OUR ANCESTOR´S RELIGIOUS: THE ANCIENT HISPANIC
TARTESSOS
To the Southwest, Valley of the Guadalquivir, the first indigenous State, of which
there are testimonies protohistoric by his contact with Greek merchants, and
which was probably destroyed by the Carthaginian expansion.
DIVINITIES
Astarte, the goddess of the Canaanites, companion of Baal: astral deity, boaters
Guide, dispensing of life and life in the most protective beyond the
image of the goddess
Phoenician gods Resheb or Hadad and Baal Safon Bes was a
mountain sacred to him, but is ignored if it was visited by the natives,
only by the Phoenicians, or by both populations at the same time.
Melqart was an island consecrated to him next to Huelva; It was
possibly a site sacred to the outdoors, as all these threads and the
sacred Islands.
RITES
The essential ritual consisted of the ex-voto offering. It is a ritual that is identical in
Etruria, Rome and Greece archaic. The votive offerings are made to the procedure
of melted wax, system brought by the Phoenicians or perhaps
by the Greeks.
In the funeral rituals is easy to track the phenomenon of
religious acculturation: the ashes were deposited in urns or
holes, busta, or places of cremation, with or without mound, or silicernia, or
deposits of objects or offerings associated with the fire, nature, most probably
ritual, performed on or around the grave. The kind of simple burial is the URN
deposited into a hole and bone cribaban, because the urn contains ashes clean
already deposited in the ballot box, which is usually covered with a plate, as
Achilles did with the ashes of his friend. The hole is filled with ashes or coals, and
later to land first. The bustum or the luculi were the places
where the bodies were burned. The silicernia or deposits of
offerings are sets of objects which are deposited in the
necropolis, not part of any funerary regalia.
IBERIANS
In the East and peninsular South, the Mediterranean coast and the Valley of the
Ebro
DIVINITIES
Gods little is known about the world of the gods of the Iberians, what little that is
known is due to the writings of ancient historians and philosophers, and some
other archaeological remains.
Sacred animals animals such as bulls, wolves, lynxes, or vultures, were part of
this world, whether as gods, symbols, linkages with the mortal world and its
'spirits', or the divine world.The bull would represent the virility and strength. The
Lynx was linked to the world of the dead. The vultures were the souls of the
Warriors killed in the battles to the world of the gods. Not is known much more,
because that has endured little information on these matters.
RITES
Burials the Iberians used the rite of cremation, known by the Phoenicians or the
transpirenáicos peoples to introduce the urnfield culture.
The ashes were stored at cinerarias polls of pottery in the
shape of Cup, with cover and without decoration. Others
were shaped box with legs ending with claws, with lid and
decoration of animals. The polls were brought into pits
dug in the ground with a funerary regalia. The Iberians,
to mark the site of the Tomb, built burial mounds of
varied dimensions, although there was much more
elaborate burials for the upper social classes. Barrows with ceramic containers at
the foot of the defunct, as the Lady of Baza,
which sits in a kind
of winged throne, and saves and protects the remains and the funerary regalia
have been found. Other mounds deposited weapons of the deceased, that he
incineraba and was introduced in an ornate ceramic vase. Shrines places of
worship as urban shrines have been identified. Also sacral spaces have been
identified as household shrines another feature is the use of caves or Caverns by
way of shrines, which deposited small statuettes, votive offerings, called as a votive
offering to a deity. These figures are both women priestesses and warriors men, on
foot or on horseback, others are sacrificing any animal with a knife, or showing
their respect with his hands high, or with open arms.
CELTIBERIANS
In the peninsular Centre and the Valley of the Ebro.
DIVINITIES
The indigenous Pantheon can be divided into three categories of deities:
1.- Astral nature deities. They form the substrate of Indo-European religions: the Sun and
the Moon
2.- Celtic gods. Equal than in other areas of the peninsula and
beyond, as in Gaul and Britain.
The most important seems to have been
Lug, which with the romanization was
assimilated to Mercury. Other important
deities were the Matres, goddesses of
fertility, the nourishing Earth and water,
whose cult was widespread among the Celts and Germans.
3.- Lesser divinities. With a likely local cult, whose character seems to indicate a substrate
or type animist or totemic origin and that appear linked to natural accidents (mountains,
forests, etc.) or territorial type (castros, villages, cities, etc.).
NECROPOLIS
The necropolis are located in flat areas, (vegas or gentle sloping Plains, which are
currently exploited for agriculture), in proximity to waterways (rivers and permanent
streams) or in ancient sites of room, abroad and in the vicinity of the Habitat and visible
from these. Burial space one of the aspects that has drawn attention, is the peculiar layout
of burial space. They are characterized by the aligned arrangement of the graves forming
parallel streets, cobbled sometimes, length variable and formed by large stones as a stele
indicating the location of a tomb. The number of burials varies significantly, so some
necropolis reach the 5,000 graves, others only reach 100.
The funeral ritual is documented archaeologically in celtiberian cemeteries is the
cremation but all evidence is reduced to the regalia. Although the ritual of incineration
was the most widespread among the celtiberians, literary sources, the numantinas painted
representations and the absence of funerary evidence in certain times and areas of the
Celtiberians suggest that it was not the only one used. It can be assumed the use of rituals
such as the descarnación or the exposure of corpses, whose practice among the tribes
celtíberas is known from classical sources. Children's reburials.
Celtic rite of the cabezas-trofeo.: Group of four skulls found in the
interior of a House.
Foundation sacrifices funerary structures within the extension of
the necropolis, differentiate two structures, the locations where the
cremation, the ustrina, surely collective spaces and generally bad
acquaintances would take place and places where took place the final deposition of the
remains of the deceasedthat offer great structural variability. Types of burial there is a
variety with respect to the type of burial, from the deposition of the remains of cremation
in a hole, with or without urn and sometimes accompanied by stelae. mounds This
variability, which manifests itself between the tombs of a same cemetery, could mean,
depending on the more constructive complexity, a differentiation of social, and also
evident between the different necropolises.
The funerary regalia objects accompanying the corpse
on the burial can be of different types: those made in
metal, usually of bronze, iron or silver, including
weapons, items of adornment and utensils; ceramic
materials, covering about from the own cineraria URN
to vessels that sometimes accompany, the objects of
bone, stone, glass paste, etc., and those achieved in
perishable materials, not kept on any occasion, but known to the ancient sources, such as
containers of wood or own clothes of the deceased.
While the majority of objects deposited in tombs could have a practical function in the
world of the living, some of them have a social and symbolic value to the value of purely
functional, thereby indicating the status of the holder. It highlights the role played by
weapons and particularly by the sword. The prestige of the sword, with rich decorations
often have handles and their pods and as a weapon of struggle,
led indicator of the Warrior status and the privileged position,
within the celtiberian society to become, owner, emphasizing the
military character of the society. . The deposited regalia
maintains a constant and is that small parts were brought into
the interior of the urn and the large pieces were placed outside;
without urn burials, the remains were wrapped in some leather,
fabric or perishable material which has not survived and the
pieces of the regalia were available around.
GALAICOS, ASTURES, CANTABRIANS
The Galicians were a set of Celtic tribes and preceltas settled in Gallaecia in the
Northwest of the Iberian Peninsula. They occupied almost all of the current
Galicia.
GODS
Lug: God of the Sun and the dead.
Bormanico: God of the hot springs.
Sannoava: Local goddess linked to sources.
Nauia or Nabia: another of the most attested galaicas deities is Nauia
(to the North of the Miño) or Nabia (in South). The majority
interpretation defends an aquatic nature to Navia. Blanca García
explained Nabia linking with the rivers from the Celtic concept of
water as a characteristic element of the access to the more than from
this perspective. The myth appears in the archaic passages of the
second cycle of the Irish heroic epic which describes a beautiful
woman who in the Celtic myth plays the role of Messenger of death
and conductive psicopompa of the souls of young people to the abode of the dead,
which moura or certain legends lavandeira...The myth is repeated in the journey of
Arturo towards its final destination in Avalon, and still survives in the North in
devotions to the Virgin de la Barca (Muxía) or Virgin of Covadonga (Canges
d'Onís) .
Deva: Literally "Goddess"
Cosso: it's a God assimilated to Mars, which fits well with the character of these
tribes that Strabo (4-4.5) were in continuous war footing before the arrival of the
Romans as the account. When it comes to population mountaineers of the North
(geography Book III) stated that "they sacrifice to Ares goats and bulls and
horses". The geographer considered that a God assimilated the Greek Ares, God
of war, was the principal of the peoples of the North.
Bandu: Is a Warrior God assimilated to Mars.
Bibliography:
Blázquez Martínez, JM “ Religiones, ritos y creencias funerarias de la España
Prerromana” ( Religions, funeral rites and relieves of the pre-Roman Hispania),
Biblioteca nueva 2001
Este trabajo ha sido realizado por Yolanda Bustamante, Raquel Monteoliva,
Rebeca Ordoñez y Alejandro Presmanes from
I.E.S. Santa Clara
Santander-Spain