Two tenets of the "Hellenization" model that will be examined closely involve the interpretation of goods found in funerary contexts. They assert that Greek and Etruscan imports are evidence, on the one hand, that the Celtic socioeconomic structures were dependent on the "high" cultures of Mediterranean; and, on the other hand, that these imports were carriers of ideas and institutions, providing Greek impetus for cultural and artistic change in Europe.
Imported Mediterranean vessels in Celtic tombs have been used to construct an elaborate model of Iron Age Europe as economically, socio-politically, culturally and even psychologically dependent on, and determined by, their southern neighbors (e.g., Frankenstein and Rowlands 1978; Wells 1980; Pauli 1980); aspects of this model have recently been called into question (e.g., Champion and Champion 1986; Arafat and Morgan 1994). Briefly, a more precise evaluation of the material remains will reveal that the economic basis of the model, which sees trade in luxury goods with the Greek Mediterranean as central to Celtic culture, is not supported by the nature of the imports. The roles of Marseille and of Northern Italy as conduits for the transmission of Mediterranean culture to the north, as well as the north-eastern (Scythian/Thraco-Cimmerian) connection, are now better understood by historians. There can no longer be any question of Greek "colonization" of inland Europe.
The second tenet mentioned holds that the importation of Greek objects, motifs and styles was closely accompanied by the importation of Greek ideas. For an imported object to function as a carrier of meaning, ideas and cultural values, the receiving culture must associate and understand both the place of origin and the ideas being transmitted. We have no evidence that the ancient Celts so associated the Western Greek (South Italian) or Etruscan places of manufacture of nearly all imported luxury vessels with the archaic and classical Greek civilization (Dehn and Frey 1979). More specifically, Celtic mortuary assemblages including imports have been interpreted as reflecting activities practiced by the living, and as revealing Greek influence in and of themselves. However, Celtic burial practices are highly distinctive and reveal some continuity with the preceding Urnfield period rather than any imitation of Greek burial customs.
The groups of vessels found in the burials have led to a pervasive assumption that the Celts imitated Greek drinking practices in the form of the symposium; damage to imported Greek kylikes has even been attributed to the barbarians' inexpert playing of the Greek game of kottabos, and the Celtic funerary couch has been misinterpreted as a Greek kline (e.g., Schaaff 1988, Fischer 1990, Krauße 1993). There is, however, no archaeological evidence that the Celtic Trinkfest took on any of the characteristics of the Greek symposium (e.g., Dietler 1990). On the contrary, the imported vessels, in every case, were incorporated into the local mortuary assemblage, reflecting indigenous burial customs.
These two tenets of the "Hellenization" model are inextricably linked; the Celts imported Greek goods because of their associated meanings, and once in the Celtic lands, these imports played key roles in the local systems. Since neither of these aspects of the model can be supported by archaeological evidence, this model must be rejected. In order to explain the transition that demonstrably took place in the fifth century B.C.E., this study therefore turns to a selection of the excavated objects themselves for information on which to base an alternative reconstruction.
(III) Evidence: Art Objects.
