Bronze Age Imagery - Through Water and Fire

Abstract

The article focuses on representations or indications of water and fire in the late Bronze Age imagery, primarily on one figurative theme that occurs in rock art and that composes the single and dominant motif on hanging-vessels. It is argued that this theme represents the act of creation. The cosmological functions of water and ftre are seen as complementary actants that play different roles in space and cosmology as they are related to other archaeological materials and elements.

Keywords

• Late Bronze Age
• figurative imagery
• hanging-vessels
• rock art
• cosmology
• space