ABSTRACT
Human images visualise and mediate identity; they arise from a particular social context and were made for a certain purpose. The interpretation of these images, however, challenges the interpreter, who has to engage in the dialectic between the maker of the image and the depicted person(s). It is uncertain if an interpreter detached from the prehistoric context and symbolic language can fully understand what was meant to be seen and understood. When it comes to judging the readability of images (cf. Juwig and Kost 2010: 14-15), individual researchers of prehistoric image worlds range widely between optimism and pessimism; without additional information such as texts, which supply a reference point, a hermeneutic interpretation is not particularly fruitful (Eggert 2010: 58-62). Using analogies from the classical world to interpret early Iron Age images in central Europe comes with its own pitfalls. It risks projecting image contexts on to communities which might not have understood the images in the same way. At the same time, communities did actually import these images, and thus transferred and integrated the context of these images in various ways. Almost all stories and scenes from the Hallstatt world can in some way be traced to parallels in the Mediterranean. This demonstrates connections, but does not mean they were locally understood in the same way – or that we understand the early Iron Age images correctly.
