Le vase orné de Plichancourt, «Les Monts» (Marne) et les céramiques à décor d’étain de La Tène ancienne en Champagne

Abstract

The decorated vase from Plichancourt, “ Les Monts” (Marne), and the ceramics with tin decorations of Champagne in the early La Tène. The preventive excavation conducted at a place called “ Les Monts” in Plichancourt in 2003 brought to light many tombs of early La Tène. Amongst them, the grave no. 493, which can be dated from early La Tène B1 (Aisne-Marne IIC), delivered a large vase with a hull-like bottom with a decoration exceptional by the material used, the techniques used and the iconographic repertoire employed. The ornamentation, mainly seen on the top of the vase, includes panels covered with the remains of a white substance that the analysis has identified as tinfoil. The compositions, of a vegetable repertoire, belong to the first classical Celtic style : friezes of esses and of lotus flowers forming panels with a double axis of symmetry. They refer us to the most important metal productions of Rhineland for which no exact parallel is known in Champagne. The repertoire of potters is clearly different from that of the Champagne metalworkers, which is well known and did not deliver comparable compositions. Some other vases decorated with tinfoil can be identified in Champagne in the early La Tène, although a systematic analysis is needed to understand the extent of the phenomenon. They are found mainly in the dinner sets of chariot graves and in the most important of the single tombs in later La Tène A and early La Tène B1, at a time when the art of Champagne potters was in its peak. The small series of Champagne vases decorated with tinfoil cannot find a real parallel in Europe in the late fifth and early fourth century BC : the known series are older, from the late Bronze Age and first Iron Age. Further studies will be needed to understand how this unusual craft specialty was located in Champagne at that time

Differences in birch tar composition are explained by adhesive function in the central European Iron Age

“…Similar results from the early Iron Age in central Italy show that birch tar was used as an adhesive to apply tin strips as décor onto ceramic pots [ 29 ]. Tin strip decorated vases are also known from the Champagne region, however the underlying adhesives have not yet been chemically characterised [ 96 ], opening up further potential for future inter-regional comparative studies. We could only identify beeswax as the main component of the residue, but we cannot exclude that, for example, ashes or charcoal might have been added for its visual appearance.…”