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Headhunting and the Body in Iron Age Europe

Ian Armit author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Cambridge University Press

Published:19th Mar '12

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Headhunting and the Body in Iron Age Europe cover

This book examines the widespread evidence for the removal, curation and display of the human head in Iron Age Europe.

Across Iron Age Europe the human head carried symbolic associations with power, fertility status, gender, and more. Evidence for the removal, curation and display of heads ranges from classical literary references to iconography and skeletal remains. Traditionally, this material has been associated with a Europe-wide 'head-cult', and used to support the idea of a unified Celtic culture in prehistory. This book demonstrates instead how headhunting and head-veneration were practised across a range of diverse and fragmented Iron Age societies. Using case studies from France, Britain and elsewhere, it explores the complex and subtle relationships between power, religion, warfare and violence in Iron Age Europe.

'… carefully crafted and theoretically situated … this book is a tour de force … I would recommend [it] to anyone interested in ancient European cosmology, ritual, power, and identity.' Miranda Aldhouse-Green, European Journal of Archaeology

ISBN: 9780521877565

Dimensions: 259mm x 184mm x 17mm

Weight: 620g

272 pages