Warrior of Hirschlanden

The Warrior of Hirschlanden (Krieger von Hirschlanden in German) is a statue of a nude ithyphallic warrior made of sandstone, the oldest known Iron Age life-size anthropomorphic statue north of the Alps. It was a production of the Hallstatt culture, probably dating to the 6th century BC. It is now in the Württembergisches Landesmuseum in Stuttgart, with a copy at the Hirschlanden site (now Ditzingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany), where it was found. The preserved height is 1.50 m, but the feet have been broken off.

The warrior wears a pointed hat, maybe – as with the real hat in the princely grave of Hochdorf – made of birchbark, a torc (neck-ring) and a belt with a typical late Hallstatt dagger.

While the legs are modelled with some realism, the upper body is rather schematic and the face is extremely sketchy, leading to speculation that the man might be intended to be seen as wearing a mask, as is known from burials in Klein-Klein, Styria, Austria, Trebeništa (Macedonia) and the much earlier shaft-graves of Mycenae, ca. 1500 BC.

The statue shows significant weathering, suggesting that it stood exposed to the elements for a long time before being buried. Other anthropomorphic statues of the early Iron Age have been found in Rottenburg, Tübingen, Stammheim and Stockach (all Baden-Württemberg, Germany), but they are far more stylised, more carving than statue. In the following La Tène period, anthropomorphic statues are still very rare, but examples include the finds from Glauberg (Hessen, Germany), Holzgerlingen (Baden-Württemberg, Germany), the Mšecké Žehrovice Head (Bohemia), and the sculptures at Roquepertuse.

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