Greek Armament from the South of the Iberian Peninsula during the 1st Millennium BC

Abstract

We study the scarce Greek armament found in the southern Iberian Peninsula dated along the first half of the 1st millennium BC, more specifically between the seventh and sixth centuries BC. during the so-called Orientalising period. This armament consists of four Corinthian helmets which were made in the Peloponnese and the Hellenic colonies located in Magna Graecia. They were found both in indigenous aquatic contexts as ritual religious offerings –such as those coming from Ria de Huelva and Guadalete and Guadalquivir rivers- or Phoenician contexts as it happens with a tomb excavated in the colony of Malaca. To them we can add an armour breastplate which can be included in the "muscled" type, which comes from a wreck, sunk in the waters of Almuñécar, perhaps also Phoenician. Although the debate continues among researchers currently, its parallelism with what has been proposed for other areas of the Mediterranean where these Corinthian helmets have also been found means that, rather than with the direct presence of Greek warriors, as has sometimes been suggested, relate them to the indigenous and Phoenician populations that lived in these places, in particular with the ruling elites of both communities. The same happens when it comes to determining the way in which they arrived to these western territories, considering that it was mostly in the hands of Phoenician merchants but without absolutely discarding the leading role that Greeks themselves could have had in distributing such valuable products.