Fragment of leg with shin guard. Sculptural group of Cerrillo Blanco (Porcuna, Jaén, Spain)

Fragment in round bundle made of white calcarenite stone called 'Fragment of leg with greba’. It is preserved a very well modeled leg with a cnémide, whose function is to protect the shin. On this one stands a second protection made in leather. This double protection would be strapped both at the top of the twin muscles and at the bottom of the leg. This type of piece would be part of the clothing of a warrior, so it would be part of the group of duels of the sculptural group of Cerrillo Blanco. Chronology: 440-400 B.C. Dimensions: Height: 22.5 cm Width: 8 cm Thickness: 12.5 cm The sculptural group of Cerrillo Blanco was found in 1975 in the municipality of Porcuna (Jaén, Spain). This set constitutes nowadays the most important Iberian sculptural group of the known so far. It is composed of more than forty pieces that represent heroic struggles of men with each other or men with animals, hunting scenes, images of fantastic animals or important characters. The sculptural group of Cerrillo Blanco would be integrated into a possible staggered monument as a tower in which the history of a lineage is expressed through the ages of the prince, in a context in which the animals shape with their presence the different landscapes of the narrated history. The whole has enough elements to be represented as a whole, programmed from its beginning. The initiatory struggle in distant territory and the mourning with death between aristocrats, zoomachia and monomachias reproduce the two activities that in the sculptural representation of Porcuna more fit the aristocratic imaginary. Porcuna also offers the possibility of reading this double activity in two ages, in children when it shows the learning of both activities in the forms of small hunting and ruled struggle, and in adulthood with the tragic component added. The duels are the largest and most complex group in the whole of Cerrillo Blanco. War defines the space and time of aristocratic representation. The war is conceived as a sum of individual or monomachian fighting. In the adult stage the prince is shown through the duels. In Porcuna we collect five cases of duels that constitute a real seriation of the usual scenes of a single duel: in one the defeated rider is standing; he has released the shield when he receives the impact of a falcata on his body, in another the rider has fallen and raises his arm to assist the leg of the winning warrior, a third scene shows the character lying on the ground touched of death because a spear crosses him from the back and by En face. However, it is not the dismissal of a mourning because the deaths of the defeated are different: with falcata wound on the left side of the trunk, with spear on the face or with wound on the right shoulder, on the contrary they are different duels that refer to some collective fact that can respond to a ritual of games of fight with death or to the narration of a past fact that were protagonists the adult warriors of the lineage. It is significant that almost all of the heads have been crushed when the monument was destroyed. For they are his most noble expression, they concentrate the virtue and power of the warrior. The destruction of Iberian sculptures follows analytical behavior patterns. A vital part of the body is destroyed: the face, the eye, the hand. Porcuna specially chooses the face. Only in one case it is kept practically complete. It is a disproportionate and serene face and psychologically it marks a noble distance with the action of his body, it is also highlighted by a helmet of high tops, which defines the identity of the warrior. The face introduces the image in the undisturbed ideal seriousness of the prince, foreign to the grimace and to the distortion of the effort. The faces of both groups, victors and defeated, have been meticulously shattered, reflecting a deep aristocratic conception: if both groups have the right to memory, destruction affects both equally. The glory of the victor does not exist without his mirror of the defeated: both are heroes and complement each other. Bibliography: Chapa, T. (2015): “Los escultores del Cerrillo Blanco de Porcuna,” in A. Ruiz y M. Molinos (coord.): Jaén, ibera land. 40 years of research and transfer. University of Jaén. Jaén. Olmos, R. (2002): “The sculptural groups of Cerrillo Blanco de Porcuna (Jaén). A convergent iconographic reading essay.” Spanish Archive of Archaeology, 75 107-122. Ruiz, A. and Molinos, M. (2015): “The sculptural group of Cerrillo Blanco, Porcuna.” In Arturo Ruiz and Manuel Molinos (Eds.). Jaén, Iberian land 40 Years of research and transfer. University of Jaén. 67-84. Torrecillas, J. F. (1985): The late period cemetery of Cerrillo Blanco. Institute of Giennenses Studies. Jaén.