Wolf Attacking a Sheep. Cerrillo Blanco Sculptural Group (Porcuna, Jaén, Spain)

Three-dimensional sculptural group carved in white calcarenite stone. It is dated to the 5th century BC and belongs to the culture of the Iberians. It comes from the heroon of Cerrillo Blanco in the municipality of Porcuna, Jaén province, Spain.The preserved dimensions are: height 70 cm, width 62 cm and thickness 40 cm.Carved from a single block, it represents a wolf attacking a ram. It is sculpted with great realism and detail. The wolf’s mane is depicted with a fringe of teeth. It has a crease in the ridge that traces the outline of its entire face and forms a vertex on the forehead, representing the animal's hair, in the same way as on other canids in the Cerrillo Blanco Sculptural Group. The eye is almond-shaped and the eyelid and lacrimal are accentuated. The brow ridges are strongly indicated by five parallel incisions, with other incisions in front of them at the inception of the snout and the ears, of which only the left side is preserved.It is a sculpture in motion that very realistically depicts how the beast suddenly appears, rushes in and with its jaws bites deeply into the victim's neck. The bulging eyes of the wolf express fury and meet the terrified look of the lamb that, turning its head, helplessly perceives death in its loneliness. This sculpture belongs to the group of beings engaged in a struggle, as a metaphorical basis for the landscapes expressed in the monument. It is an example of how the language of nature is integrated into the narrative of the history of the lineage represented in the Cerrillo Blanco Sculptural Group.Cerrillo Blanco is an Iberian cemetery and sacred area located on a hill north of the present-day town of Porcuna, ancient Ipolka in Iberian times and Obulco in the Roman period. It is an area of memory and a long chronological sequence with intermediate breaks. It began with an initial phase in the Late Bronze Age and reached the peak of its development at the end of the 7th century BC with the construction of a collective tumulus. At the end of the 5th century BC, the tumulus was used as the hiding place for a large although extensively damaged sculptural group from a nearby heroon. The sculptures had been violently destroyed and their identifying features eliminated. They were buried in two ditches around the late 7th-century-BC tumulus. The collection consists of 1,400 fragments from sculpted figures of humans (warriors, mythical combats, ancestors, the divinity) and the animals that defined the territory and mythical space. Together they represent some of the basic principles of the southern Iberian societies’ heroic aristocratic worldview. In summary, the Cerrillo Blanco sculptural group expresses the power of a family lineage at the origin of the Iberian aristocracies of the Alto Guadalquivir.The Cerrillo Blanco sculptures are currently on display at the Jaén Iberian Museum. The Porcuna (Jaén) archaeological site can also be visited as a stop on the "Journey to the Time of the Iberians" cultural itinerary, which aims to focus attention on the important remains of the Iberian culture in the province of Jaén.References:Chapa, T. (2015): “Los escultores del Cerrillo Blanco de Porcuna”. En Ruiz A., Molinos M. (eds.): Jaén, tierra íbera. 40 años de investigación y transferencia. Universidad de Jaén, Jaén. 85-92.Olmos, R. (2002): "Los grupos escultóricos del Cerrillo Blanco de Porcuna (Jaén). Un ensayo de lectura iconográfica convergente". Archivo Español de Arqueología, 75: 107-122. Olmos, R. (2004): “Los príncipes esculpidos de Porcuna (Jaén): una aproximación de la naturaleza y de la historia”. Boletín del Instituto de Estudios Giennenses, 189: 19-46.Ruiz, A. y Molinos, M. (2015): "El conjunto escultórico de Cerrillo Blanco, Porcuna". En Ruiz, A. y Molinos, M. (eds.). Jaén, tierra íbera. 40 años de investigación y transferencia. Universidad de Jaén, Jaén. 67-84.Torrecillas, J. F. (1985): La necrópolis de época tartésica de Cerrillo Blanco. Instituto de Estudios Giennenses. Jaén.