Bronze Age male dresses 2

Textiles, Hittitian culture, Babylon, priest-king, Sumerian symbolism, yearman, tunic, Horus, Egypt, Aegean worlds, Anatolia, Levant, power belt, Celts, Gundestrup kettle, trousers, Persia, caftan, military order, foot-soldier, cavalry, Celtic feast, gille, neo-Hittitian, battle chariot,

Scientific archaeology needs substantial proof always. Nature takes back such things as clothes and that is why we have only indirect proof of dressing about 20000 years back. The indication is for instance needles made of horse bone found in Bohemia. The unique thing is that it seems that the horse lived in Europe at that time but disappeared to the other side of Ural until maybe 4000 BC.

In archaeology we should be careful with dating and always say, "according to what we know at present". Often new evidence show up an alter definite dates. From Denmark we have recent finds of textiles from ca 5700 BC. The new underwater archaeology around the Danish isles gives "well preserved" finds. Most of Denmark is now cultivated and I guess most of the future finds would be under water

But let us have a look at the Hittitian culture that was a bridge to Europe

The Hittitians conquered Babylon for a short period around 1600 BC. The priest-king stands on the ur-hill = original hill, which is drawn in the same way as the 800 year elder seal from Akkadian times. His headgear, shoes and dress are also influence from Babylon. But the AEDICULA or seal shows the Hittitian world order invented by the Hittitians, however the Sun Eagle and symbol of the moon and morning star was international already at this time.

At right we see the top hat that seems to be Hittitian invention but inspired from Sumer. The rings we know from Sumerian symbolism and they like the four oxhorns symbolise the division of year. The Hittitian king was mainly ritual leader = yearman and chosen among the feudal nobility. The high cone maybe was influence from Egyptian Khons that symbolise the corn and end of season. We see that even the soldiers at a time wore the top hat but lower ... In the Russian army we can decide the grade by the size of the headgear. Particularly in Egyptian art every detail is a message.

He wears a dress that seems be a tunic with belt. Tunic is the classic Greek or Roman term for short-sleeved knee-long body-garment with loose blouse or coat gathered or belted at waist. It is close-fitting for moveable soldiers and other professions on the move and at work.

MAAT = destiny especially for Horus / Time, "the little one" or the seed and for the corpse going to afterlife. Could be read "grow or not grow". The Greek word "hora" = time, season and understood as the growing period. In many cultures they made small figurines of "the little one" in some local shape.

Egypt heavily influenced all Aegean Worlds, Anatolia and the Levant. But they influenced also each other and it seems that we got the intellectual culture and organisation of society from Mesopotamia. The system with small states or federations of cities was suitable model for sparsely populated Europe. From the scripts we easily see the loans and can identify the source in many cases.

During last millennium BC we see figures with a low cross line that can mark the lower level of the tunic since it is so low. At right it is surely a belt "power belt". On both side of Viken the bay to Oslo we can identify one artist that must have been working in the whole area including Bohuslaen.

When we see the right figure with spear and the hind besides to think of the Celtic Lugh Long-arm is easy. Some of the tales about him tells about a hind. In general we se what we call Celtic culture in last millennium BC with the neckring as one characteristic feature.

True historians should not listen to the pamphlets and political writing of Caesar. For him the Celts were enemies and enemy should not bear witness. The normal description of Celts is that it was a tribe coming from nowhere during the Greco-Roman Age since they knew them north of their own empires and extended to Phrygia in Anatolia. The Ionian philosophers thought that the druids were good thinkers however sometimes their tales were difficult to understand.

Naturally the Celts of that time were heirs of earlier people in North Europe and they are the aborigines. Later they mixed blood as well as culture with the Southern World as we know. We know less about the same kind of cultural interchange before that. In South Scandinavia we see clearly the Celtic culture until around 600 AD.

The castle was build in first half of second millennium BC. We must look carefully to see the long tail on his headgear that appears a thousand years later in symbolism in Middle East ... see Part 1. He wears a short sword and an axe of Luristan type from east of the Hittitians.

To compare the headgear with the rock carvings from Bohuslaen is natural. However in this case I think picture shows ritual astronomy since there are seven males with no arms. The cupmarks may be female symbols and some of them may symbolise "going beneath" or start of season

The dress of the leader and the soldiers seem to be tights and maybe we should interpret the pattern as quilted dress. We know from medieval times that they used the method form making a suit of armour, since it protects well against the sword. Surely it would be practical also for the rider since the stirrup was not invented yet.

Naturally we can speculate about where the trousers were invented and I would guess in the arctic region. However we have no sure evidence. There is a single picture of a female with a dress that could be the short kirtle of today, which is used, with trousers of skin in the winter. Probably also the people of the Grand Asia = above Mongolia used short caftan with trousers as we know from later times and Lapland.

But we see early trousers in Persia used with long caftan. The Persians invented quilt cover for the horse too. The pointed headgear is normally pointing upward. In the Hittitian AEDICULA we see the priest-king with the top pointing forward like the later Phrygian headgear.

But back to the plate. Some of the composition is the same as always in the big cultures that they use the same symbolism as for the ritual year. Best we see it in Egypt where the year always ended in battle or the symbolism for the harvest time. It is often difficult to see if they meant ritual, harvest or battle. The connection to year ritual here is the snake, dog, vegetative plant and the kettle. These symbols we also find in the early zodiac as a programme for the season.

On the plate we see a military order that maybe also represented part of society. There are 6 foot-soldiers with spear and shield and a sergeant with sword. He has a swine in his headgear and maybe that gave name to the "swine phalanx" known from early Nordic literature. There are also three blowers. In battle they blow the command and the number maybe indicate that there were three phalanxes in the unit. For us it seems very little but those days in sparsely populated land it would be enough in most of the place.

Since there are also four riders as cavalry and maybe with more behind it was surely enough. The riders have headgears with symbols new-moon, two horns, swine and bird of which the new moon maybe indicates the leader. Cavalry has always been a matter for the nobility. The Hittitians are known in the "civilised" world as the first real horsemen because we have evidence of their horse manual, stud and battle-chariot with metal wheels of course. But we do not know much about the influence from northern Asia. We have to look out for all "first-time labels" archaeology uses for making their field interesting.

They date the kettle to early Iron Age and think that it was imported from Balkan. The "Big Man" has a headgear with tail. The slim headgear became fashion in Scandinavia until times of Kingdoms beside another type with a low top.

The decorated plates on the kettle often represent Celtic culture since we have few artefacts with figurative motifs. The Celtic symbolism during Bronze Age was mostly geometrical symbols and a vocabulary of icons for important concepts of society. For Scandinavian culture some of the figures on the kettle seems odd, while others are known until 600 AD.

For the Celts the god Dagda with kettle and club was icon for the farmer. The kettle was harvest time that ended in the Celtic feast called "gille" in Danish. In early medieval symbolism gille was also the brotherhood and guild of society. In the calendar the feast was in beginning of August or at Ramadan when we see 11 of 12 asterisms of zodiac near the horizon. In the Edda it is Lokasenna and the feast of Aegir and maybe we should compare it also with the roman call to account for septemvir = collegium of seven in charge during the season.

Naturally we see odd creatures and it is easy to think that only the Celts were that primitive since we are indoctrinated to think that Egyptian and Greco-Roman culture is high culture. But all ancient cultures have many ugly and odd creatures. Maybe it began earlier but from Sumerian symbolism we learn that they created these to describe abstract concepts as for instance the Goatfish that was a merge of three asterisms.

Even our centaur Sagittarius is a merge of five asterisms that are hard to see now since some of them have dropped away. There is the psychology that it is easier to remember odd figures and then maybe we avoid believing that virtual figures are reality … who knows there thoughts behind their creations ... and who knows what gods looks like. We would hardly know about their ritual astronomy without Scorpio, Goatfish, Flying Virgin, the Janus-type and others that gives us grey hair in trying to understand the rational meaning.

On this plate the Sun or Time is the idol in centre. The Celts symbolised time with a wheel and we also see the Indian time-wagon from Rigveda in our symbolism. Then to see the horned man as Pusan, the driver at the sun-wagon is easy. The dog animals divide the year in the round. The snake is the womb symbolising the fertility period and later the harvest that should last a winter.

We see Eagle =Aquila in neo-Hittitian symbolism around 700 BC together with the moon-year and its division in three seasons and that was influence from the vegetative year of Egypt. The Horse or later the flying Pegasus became also heavenly symbol during last millennium BC. So these three "flying eagle horses" symbolise the division of the moon year. We see other kind of symbols but the same symbolic division on our rocks besides the old sun year with four different symbols or four of a kind.

Most of the symbolism on the plates of the kettle is mythic and there is the old Ox in the bottom. Or maybe it is a bull Taurus that is the asterism Kaitos below Aries and the Fishes. With another imagination we can see it as an idol standing on Taurus

From the past thousands of years we can conclude that whenever a new tool, vehicle or armour was invented it should be tried in battle. From the Bible Kings Books we can read about many battles with their neighbours and they mention their chariots. Their main enemy lived at Gaza so we can say that history repeats itself after 3000 years.

In young days a saw the Ben Hur movie and since I have worked with horses I naturally felt that it must have been fun. Even when the horses were smaller than today. Today I would find all excuses in the word to avoid battle as well as unnecessary movements.

In a pair of decades after World War II customs and classes decided the dressing I remember. I also tried out to dress in different style and experienced the differences in service when being "in town". Our language has still left "blue-clothes and white-collar" as some kind of tradition and trademark. That has been going on since civilisation was born.

It is not only the dress but also accessories and attributes. For a period certain kind of briefcase told about the officer and soon the metallic attaché-case became fashion at the higher stage. But then all kind of people could afford it and high society has to seek new symbols of status. They want to be untouchable and that is why they buy the biggest and fastest cars and such things. But in everyday life they tell about how their company is environment-minded. I do not think this world would ever recover from the consuming and polluting disease.

Naturally we should see that chariots as part of the dress that made the nobility former than others. Maybe their dress was only a little more expensive than that of ordinary people. But the attributes and accessories told about their wealth and power.

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