Bronze Apollo statuette
This 11.5 cm high statuette was found in the river Ljubljanica near the village of Blatna Brezovica. It depicts a naked male figure with a hairstyle typical of Classical/ Hellenistic depictions of the Greek and Roman god Apollo. The collar, however, does not match traditional depictions of Apollo and is a distinctly Celtic element. The pose of the body and the position of the arms are reminiscent of Italo-Etruscan statuettes.
This statuette is assumed to have been made in north-eastern Italy or its eastern hinterland, including the wider surrounding area of the site where it was found. It was probably made during the period of the Romanisation of the Vrhnika and Ljubljana areas in the middle or second half of the first century BC. It represents a non-Roman deity who, under the influence of Roman culture, was identified with Apollo. This deity could be the god Belenus, whose cult extended across north-eastern Italy and the region known as Noricum (mainly in present-day Austria), and who was of pre-Roman origin. There are no known depictions of Belenus – with the possible exception of this statuette from the Ljubljanica – but he is known of from Roman-era inscriptions, in which he is referred to as Apollon Belenus.
The statuette is thought to have been thrown into the river as a votive offering.
Janka Istenič, National Museum of Slovenia
Centaur archer
Round brooches made of plated bronze over an iron core are relatively common finds in Slav cemeteries from the eighth and ninth centuries in Slovenia’s Gorenjska region. Notable among them, for the quality of workmanship and, above all, for the depiction of a centaur archer, is this brooch from the Brda cemetery near Bled.
In stylistic terms it belongs to Carolingian art, which drew on illuminated manuscripts. Most comparable artefacts are from sites in the Upper Danube basin and the Rhineland. The figure of the centaur archer developed in Babylonian art before 1000 BC as a symbol of the zodiac sign Sagittarius. It entered Roman and medieval astrological depictions of Sagittarius via Egypt and was later adopted in Christianity.
We will probably never know exactly how this brooch ended up in a Slav grave in the Brda cemetery near Bled. It may have been made by a Christian who based the design on an illustration from an illuminated manuscript. On the other hand, the Slavs, who were pagans when they settled this area in the sixth century and whose Christianisation under the Carolingians had only just begun in the eighth century, probably did not see this design as a Christian symbol but as a pagan one. The centaur archer may have reminded them of Perun the Thunderer, the supreme god of the Slavs, who could also be depicted as a horseman with a thunderbolt or bow in his hand.
Daša Pavlovič,
National Museum of Slovenia
