Fallen warrior. Sculptural group of Cerrillo Blanco (Porcuna, Jaén, Spain)

This piece is part of a sculptural group composed of three figures, two human and one animal, that rest on a pedestal. It represents the moment immediately after a struggle, in which there is a winning warrior and a fallen warrior. The first is only the beginning of the legs and feet, whose plants rest totally on the ground, on both sides of the fallen warrior. In the left leg is preserved part of the greba that would protect the lower part of it. The fallen warrior partially retains his head (part of the right ear, the cheek with the beginning of the mouth and the neck), is barefoot, wears short robe and what seems to be a cap. His position in general, together with the presence of a bird perched on him and a deep wound marked on the right shoulder seems to indicate that he is dead. His hand holds on the knob of a gable sword. From the bird the legs and tail resting on the right side of the fallen warrior are preserved. Chronology: 440-400 B.C. Dimensions: Height = 55 cm Width = 87 cm Maximum thickness = 48 cm This scene comes from the sculptural group of Cerrillo Blanco, 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. Specifically, it is part of the group known as the duels, the largest and most complex group of the whole of Cerrillo Blanco. In it war defines the space and time of the 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. 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. 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: 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 A. Ruiz and M. 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.