Woman with goats. Sculptural group of Cerrillo Blanco (Porcuna, Jaén, Spain)

A sculpture in a round bundle made of white calcarenite stone that represents a sculptural group formed by an offeror and a couple of caprids. In the center of the composition, there is a great offeror dressed in carving clothing that reaches to the ankles. It is covered with a large V-neckline, smooth to the waist and forming four wide straight and vertical boards at the front. On this robe there is a wide tertiated mantle, which is held by a strap in the center of the back. The offeror is footwear, possibly with sandals. This figure would hold with his hands the front legs of two caprids (a male and a female) that have carved on his back. From the female we find the body in low relief, while her right leg that is in a running position is carved in high relief. The male retains very well all the part that is stuck to the offeror which is carved in high relief, leaving remains of red paint in his back rooms, the rest of the animal is sculpted in round bundle. Almost all of the face is missing, keeping an eye almond in which the tear is marked. Chronology: second half century V B.C. Dimensions: Height: 138 cm Width: 105 cm Thickness: 52 cm The sculptural group of Cerrillo Blanco was found in 1975 in the municipality of Porcuna (Jaén). 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 sculptures, dated in the middle of the 5th century B.C. (440-400 B.C.) were carefully buried in the boundary of an existing burial mound dated to the end of the 17th century B.C. This nineteen meter diameter structure was very destroyed and was delimited by stone slices. The interior of the burial mound enclosed a total of twenty-four graves of pit and one of chamber of polygonal plant. They all followed the rite of burial and were individual, except for the chamber that contained a double burial and created a space of their own to order the inner space of the burial mound. In the middle of the 5th century B.C., the burial space of the burial mound is recovered to carefully bury the destroyed set of sculptures that represented the history of the lineage. This is the starting point of an aristocratic lineage that was undoubtedly consumed in the camera model (monumental-couple burial) giving rise to the structure of the hierarchical funerary landscape that would remain as the dominant model. It is therefore justified that the burial mound of Cerrillo Blanco was recovered as the place where to erect the sculptural monument that the ruling prince of Ipolca raised in the middle of the fifth century B.C. in memory of the ancestors of his lineage and that the oppidum opposition lineage destroyed with saña when he surely dethroned the heir lineage of the buried in the burial mound. Therefore, sculptures are a representation of the power of the family group of Obulco’s oppidum. The sculptures project, symbolize and construct the space and time of the powerful: its new territory and its history. The elaboration of Porcuna’s sculptures can be part of a coherent and elaborated order in a limited time, respecting a style and standards of carving defined by the sculptor teachers who organized the work in the workshop. This monumental work required some clients to take the initiative of the commission, selecting the best sculptors and defining the message they wanted to transmit, both to the divinity to which it was venerated and surely appreciated their favors, as to the society that was going to contemplate it. The careful destruction of the monument, probably at the beginning of the S. IV B.C., when the memory of those who erected it is still alive and present, probably tries to erase the story told. The faces of memory are specially destroyed. The final deposition of the remains in the sacred space of the cemetery shows the pious practice of maintaining its presence and encouraging its reunion under the protection of the ancestors. Currently the sculptures from Cerrillo Blanco can be visited in the Provincial Museum of Jaén and the archeological site in Porcuna (Jaén) is also visible, since it is one of the stops of the cultural route “Journey to the time of the Iberos” with which it is intended to value the iberas first level traces existing in the province of Jaén. Bibliography: Torrecillas, J. F. (1985): The late period cemetery of Cerrillo Blanco. Institute of Giennenses Studies. 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. 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. Ruiz, A. and Molinos, M. (2015): “The sculptural group of Cerrillo Blanco, Porcuna,” in A. Ruiz and M. Molinos (Eds.): Jaén, Iberian land 40 Years of research and transfer. University of Jaén. 67-84. Ruiz, A. and Molinos, M. (2017): The Lady, the Prince, the Hero and the Goddess. Catalogue of the exhibition. Junta de Andalucía.