91 Arheološki vestnik 72, 2021, 091–116; DOI: https://doi.org/10.3986/AV.72.04
Women, Sheep, and Textiles:
The social significance of ram’s head beads
in Early Iron Age Slovenia
Ženske, ovce in tekstil:
družbeni pomen jagod v obliki ovnove glavice
v starejši železni dobi na Slovenskem
Adrienne C. FRIE
Izvleček
Jagode v obliki ovnove glavice sodijo med dobro znane nakitne predmete dolenjske halštatske kulturne skupine. S 
187 doslej odkritimi primerki so na tem območju najpogostejše zoomorfne najdbe, kot je pokazala nedavna analiza. V 
prispevku je posodobljen seznam tovrstnih jagod in kontekstualiziran njihov pomen v tej kulturni skupini. Predstavljeni 
so argumenti za tezo, da so upodobitve ovac/ovnov v obliki jagod in njihovo pojavljanje v ženskih grobovih povezani 
z lokalno tekstilno dejavnostjo. Pripisati jim je mogoče vlogo označevalca osebne in ekonomske identitete dolenjskih 
halštatskodobnih žensk, povezano z izdelovanjem visokokakovostnih tkanin. Poleg tega kaže razprostranjenost teh jagod 
na mrežo tesnih stikov med najdišči na zahodnem obrobju teritorija dolenjske železnodobne skupnosti, morda odslikava 
celo mobilnost žensk med lokalnimi skupnostmi.
Ključne besede: jugovzhodna Slovenija; starejša železna doba; dolenjska halštatska kultura; jagode v obliki ovnove 
glavice; ikonografija; ženske; ovce; tekstil
Abstract
Ram’ s head beads are well-known items of personal adornment in the Dolenjska Hallstatt cultural group. Recent analysis 
has demonstrated that they are the most common zoomorphic artefacts in this region with 187 currently known. This 
article updates the list of known beads and contextualizes their significance in the Dolenjska Hallstatt cultural group. It is 
argued that the sheep imagery of these beads and their distribution in female graves is related to local textile production. 
It is proposed that beads signalled aspects of personal and economic identity for Dolenjska Hallstatt women related to 
the production of high-quality textiles. In addition, the distribution of these beads demonstrates Iron Age community 
networks on the western frontier of Dolenjska, and perhaps even reflects the movement of women between communities.
Keywords: South-eastern Slovenia; Early Iron Age; Hallstatt culture; ram’ s head beads; iconography; women; sheep; textiles
Ram’s head beads are the most common zoo-
morphic artefacts associated with the Dolenjska 
Hallstatt cultural group of south-eastern Slovenia 
with one hundred and eighty-seven currently 
known. Markus Egg wrote the seminal piece on 
ram’ s head beads in Slovenia, assessing their produc-
tion, chronology and distribution, and proposing 
a typology. His work remains a valuable resource, 
and here I will supplement this work by noting 
additional examples of these beads and refining 

92 Adrienne C. FRIE
his typology. My primary focus in this article is to 
delve into the question he left open
1
 – what was 
the local significance of ram’s head beads?
Several broader questions frame the significance 
of these artefacts. First, why were sheep chosen 
to ornament these particular items? Sheep are not 
very intelligent and they do not usually make good 
pets or companions, at least not compared to other 
contemporary domesticates like dogs and horses.
2
 
Nor do they have the clear cosmological associa-
tions such as birds and horses possessed.
3
 What 
was it about sheep? And why glass beads, which 
are virtually the only artefact type and medium 
depicting sheep in this cultural context? Finally, 
how can we explain the fact that ram’s head beads 
are almost exclusively associated with women in 
mortuary contexts?
It is proposed that the significance of ram’s 
head beads was linked to the importance of wool-
producing sheep and textile manufacture in the 
Early Iron Age, which based on mortuary and 
iconographic evidence, was dominated by women. 
The evidence supporting this argument includes 
the distribution of ram’s head beads as well as the 
association between ram’s head beads and textile 
equipment such as spindle whorls recovered from 
Dolenjska Hallstatt period graves. To frame this 
evidence, I contextualize the local importance of 
sheep in the Early Iron Age and focus in particular 
on evidence for textile production. My conclusions 
focus on the social significance of ram’ s head beads 
for signalling aspects of personal and economic 
identity. It is proposed that the distribution of ram’ s 
head beads reflects community networks linked 
by the exchange of these items and potentially 
also the movement of women between Dolenjska 
Hallstatt communities.
DISTRIBUTION OF RAM’S
HEAD BEADS
The Dolenjska Hallstatt cultural group dem-
onstrates social stratification in the distribution 
of grave goods, and increasing participation in 
1 
 Egg 2010, 539.
2 
 Frie 2018a; Škvor Jernejčič, Toškan 2018.
3 
 Birds and horses played a role in solar cults in Bronze 
and Iron Age Europe and were believed to draw the sun 
through the sky (Pare 1989; Kaul 1998; Kuzmina 2006; 
Hänsel 2012; Potrebica 2012; Teržan 2013; Bilić 2016; 
Frie 2018b).
long-distance trade networks.
4
 One aspect of this 
group that differentiates it from previous Urnfield 
practices as well as neighbouring archaeological 
cultures is the significant increase in the produc-
tion of figural imagery, including the well-known 
situla art. The term refers to a style of figural 
imagery produced by incising and repoussé on 
sheet bronze objects.
5
 However, in addition to 
situla art there was also the frequent production 
of imagery in other styles and media, and these 
figural artefacts most often depict animals.
6
 My 
doctoral thesis assessed Dolenjska Hallstatt animal 
imagery focusing on the species depicted, the types 
of artefacts depicting animals and their contextual 
associations, and the human-animal interactions 
that characterized Early Iron Age life.
7
Ram’s head beads are small glass beads between 
1.1 and 2.3 cm in length, usually made of several 
colours of glass (Fig. 1). The beads depict solely the 
head of the ram, with eyes and nostrils elaborated 
by alternating layers of light and dark colours. The 
horns are made of twisted glass, often composed 
of multiple colours as well. The back of the bead 
has a loop for suspension. Occasionally the bead is 
elaborated with a stripe down the nose, glass dots 
on the loop, or very rarely ears. One hundred and 
eighty-seven ram’ s head beads have been identified 
thus far at seventeen sites (Fig. 2). There are 29 
graves with a total of 104 ram’s head beads, two 
4
  Gabrovec 1976; Dular 2003; 2020; Dular, Tecco 
Hvala 2007.
5
  Lucke, Frey 1962; Eibner 1981; Turk 2005; Križ 2012.
6
  See A. Dular 1978; Tankó 2005; Metzner-Nebelsick 
2007; Egg 2010; T eržan 2012; Frie 2017; 2018a; 2018b; 2019.
7
  Frie 2017.
Fig. 1: Glass ram’s head beads from Grave VII/28 at Kapi-
teljska njiva in Novo mesto.
Sl. 1: Steklene jagode v obliki ovnove glavice iz groba 
VII/28 na Kapiteljski njivi v Novem mestu.
(After / Po Križ, Stipančić, Škedelj Petrič 2009, 101)

93 Women, Sheep, and Textiles: The social significance of ram’s head beads in Early Iron Age Slovenia
beads come from settlement contexts, and the 
final 81 are stray finds from mortuary contexts 
or other finds of unknown provenience (App. 1).
As Markus Egg previously discussed, ram’s 
head beads from Slovenia date primarily from 
the second half of the Early Iron Age and into 
the Late Iron Age. In terms of the relative chro-
nology for the Dolenjska Hallstatt cultural group 
these beads first appeared in the Certosa Fibulae 
phase and continued to be used in the Negova 
Helmets phase (i.e., late 6
th
 century to the end of 
the 4
th
 century BC).
8
 There is one La Tène grave 
at Kandija
9
 in Novo mesto that has a ram’s head 
bead, however this is thought to be an heirloom.
10
 
8
  Egg 2010, 532–535. For the relative chronology see 
Teržan 2008, 273–293.
9
  The site name Kandija is used throughout this article 
since the site has been extensively published by the Dolen-
jski muzej under this name. However, Znančeve njive is 
the name of the site used in the Archaeological Cadastre 
of Slovenia (ARKAS, ZRC SAZU, Inštitut za arheologijo) 
and some other publications (ANSl 1975; Dular, Tecco 
Hvala 2007).
10
  Grave 56: Križ 2001, 164, cat. no. 542; Egg 2010, 533–534.
Work by Thea Elisabeth Haevernick and later by 
Borut Križ and colleagues has demonstrated that 
the stylistic similarity and the distribution of glass 
ram’s head beads, as well as the preponderance of 
glass artefacts overall, indicates that these items 
were locally crafted at a glass working centre in the 
area of modern Novo mesto.
11
 New evidence indi-
cates that while glass items were probably worked 
locally, glass ingots were most likely coming from 
the Levant or possibly Egypt. Early Iron Age glass 
in this region is all natron glass based on recent 
PIXE, PIGE analyses, and the nearest sources of 
natron carbonate mixtures occur in Egypt and the 
Middle East.
12
 This new data adds support for 
Markus Egg’s hypothesis that the Dolenjska ram’s 
head beads were inspired by earlier Mediterranean 
and Egyptian examples.
13
While the vast majority of ram’s head beads are 
made of glass, there are also five ram’s head beads 
11
  Haevernick 1974; Križ, T urk 2003, 78; Bakarić, Križ, 
Šoufek 2006, 11; Egg 2010, 534.
12
  Šmit, Laharnar, Turk 2020.
13 
 Egg 2010, 535–539.
Fig. 2: Sites with ram’s head beads.
Sl. 2: Najdišča jagod v obliki ovnove glavice.
1   Magdalenska gora – Preloge
2   Vintarjevec 
3   Stična 
4   Medvedjek 
5   Valična vas
6   Špičasti hrib
12   Velike Malence 
13   Podzemelj – Steljnik (Grm) 
14   Vinica 
15   Mengeš – Gobavica 
16   Most na Soči – Repelc
7   Volčje njive 
8   Brezje pri Trebelnem 
9   Vinkov vrh 
10 Novo mesto – Kandija (Znančeve njive)
     and / in Kapiteljska njiva 
11 Vinji vrh 

94 Adrienne C. FRIE
carved from amber in the Dolenjska cultural group.
14
 
A pair was deposited in Grave VI/4 at Novo mesto 
– Kapiteljska njiva and another pair was recovered 
from Grave 5/11 at Stična, both dating from the 
5
th
–4
th
 centuries BC.
15
 An additional amber ram’s 
head bead was recovered as a stray find from Tu-
mulus VI at Stična.
16
 Analysis of individual amber 
artefacts found in Dolenjska has demonstrated that 
this amber came from the Baltic like the majority 
of European amber dating to the Iron Age.
17
 There 
has been no unworked amber recovered from Novo 
mesto where amber is most common, and based 
on the current evidence it seems that amber was 
imported to the Dolenjska region from Italy already 
shaped rather than in its raw form.
18
There is a single bronze ram’s head bead from 
Grave VII/1 at Brezje pri Trebelnem. This is the 
only bronze ram’ s head bead in the area and it is the 
reworked foot of a crossbow Certosa fibula
19
 like 
those from Magdalenska gora described below. The 
burial contained typical male artefacts including two 
iron axes and a bronze belt plate and fittings, and 
as well as less clearly gendered artefacts such as a 
hollow bronze torque with large, spherical terminals, 
a necklace made of glass beads, a bronze bracelet, 
four bronze Certosa fibulae,
20
 and a cylinder of 
sheet bronze that was later identified as part of a 
sceptre.
21
 Several features of this grave set it apart: 
the torque and sceptre, as well as a large amount 
of animal iconography including two Certosa 
fibulae with horse protomes, a bronze bracelet
22
 
14
  Egg 2010, 532.
15
  Novo mesto – Kapiteljska njiva VI/4: Križ, Turk 
2003, 99, cat. no. 84; Bakarić, Križ, Šoufek 2006, 186, cat. 
no. 269. Stična 5/11: Kruh 2008, 99.
16
  W ells 1981, 80, 213 Fig. 161i, though it is incorrectly 
identified as glass in the original publication.
17
  Križ, T urk 2003, 76; Bakarić, Križ, Šoufek 2006, 131.
18 
 Palavestra 1993, 291–292; Bakarić, Križ, Šoufek 
2006, 131. Though it has been proposed that there was 
limited amber working in Dolenjska based on the find of 
an unfinished amber bead depicting four bird heads and 
the amber ram’s head beads which are quite similar to 
locally-made glass examples (Križ 2017, 41).
19
  Thanks to prof. Mitja Guštin for bringing this to 
my attention.
20 
 Kromer 1959, 22–23, Pls. 20; 21; Dular, Križ 1990, 538.
21
  Tecco Hvala 2012, 338.
22
  This find has been published as an anklet (Kromer 
1959, 22–23; Dular, Križ 1990, 538); however, the over-
lapping form with a snake head terminal has much more 
in common with bracelets in this area (e.g., Novo mesto 
– Kapiteljska njiva Grave III/2, Stična Grave VII/7, Brezje 
pri Trebelnem Graves VII/8 and VII/28). While its size is 
somewhat large for a bracelet at 10.3 cm, it could have 
with overlapping snake’s head terminals,
23
 and the 
aforementioned bronze ram’s head bead.
Ram’s head beads in the Dolenjska Hallstatt 
culture are predominantly associated with women 
(Fig. 3).
24
 Sixty-eight ram’ s head beads are associated 
with 12 female graves.
25
 There is wide variation 
in the number of beads deposited in graves: single 
ram’s head beads were deposited in 52% of intact 
graves and appear in sets of five or more in 31% 
of the known graves. Grave 2 at Vintarjevec had 
the largest number with 14 ram’s heads beads that 
were part of a necklace with other glass and amber 
beads, glass rings, and flat bone beads (Fig. 4).
26
Marcus Egg previously developed a tripartite 
typology of ram’s head beads. He distinguished 
between large beads of up to 2.3 cm in length 
been worn higher up as an armlet (see Tecco Hvala 2012, 
290 for a discussion of the size ranges of annular jewelry). 
Novo mesto – Kapiteljska njiva Grave III/2: Knez 1986, Pl. 
23; Stična Grave VII/7: Wells 1981, 215 Fig. 166; Brezje 
pri Trebelnem Graves VII/8 and VII/28: Kromer 1959, Pl. 
23 and 47, Dular, Križ, 1990, 539.
23
  It should also be noted that while the items in this 
grave seem reliable, some of the grave inventories from 
Brezje pri Trebelnem may be mixed and it is wise to treat 
this site with caution (see Božič 2018, 189 fn. 60; Laharnar 
2018, 200).
24
  Egg 2010.
25
  It should be noted that I am referring to gender rather 
than sex. Due to acidic soils in this region, skeletal remains 
rarely preserve to allow the determination of biological 
sex. In lieu of knowing the sex of the individual, grave 
goods have been used to estimate the probable gender of 
the deceased. In the rare cases where osteological remains 
have been preserved and analyzed it has been determined 
that certain artefacts are strongly associated with males or 
females and it seems that biological sex and social gen-
der overlap and are organized in a largely binary fashion 
(Dolinar-Osole 1956; Gabrovec 1956; 2006; Angel 1968; 
Hencken 1978; Teržan 1985; Tecco Hvala, Dular, Kocuvan 
2004). The larger study of animal imagery on Dolenjska 
Hallstatt artefacts included many artefacts that are often 
used to identify gender (e.g., bracelets and beads; Teržan 
1985; 2008; T ecco Hvala 2012, 376–384), so to avoid circu-
lar reasoning a more conservative assemblage of artefacts 
was used to identify the probable gender of the deceased. 
Probable males were identified based on the presence of 
weapons, defensive gear, razors, and whetstones (Teržan 
1985; 2008; 233–245; Tecco Hvala 2012, 137–143, 341), 
while probable females were identified based on the pres-
ence of anklets, textile equipment, earrings, and hair rings 
(Tecco Hvala 2007; Tecco Hvala 2012, 290, 332–333). In 
cases where male and female gendered artefacts appeared 
together in a grave without any indication that it was a 
multiple burial, gender attribution was marked ‘indeter-
minate’. See Frie 2017, 76–80 for additional discussion.
26
  Starè 1953, 270, Pl. IV: 1.

95 Women, Sheep, and Textiles: The social significance of ram’s head beads in Early Iron Age Slovenia
and smaller beads averaging 1.5 cm in length. He 
further subdivided the smaller beads into a group 
with trunk-like heads with stalk-like, protruding 
eyes, and a group with rounder heads and eyes 
likely created by secondary heat treatment of the 
beads.
27
 The eyes and nostrils of the heat treated 
examples are more clearly fused to the head and  
display a gradually sloping join (see Fig. 1) while 
the protruding examples rise from the head much 
more abruptly (e.g., the solid blue beads in Fig. 4). 
However, in practice, it is often difficult to distinguish 
between the heat-treated examples with rounded 
heads and eyes and those with trunk-like heads 
and protruding eyes. I propose that for typological 
assessments it is also useful to differentiate single-
colour beads from multicoloured beads, and for 
the multicoloured beads, to differentiate between 
those with eyes and/or nostrils made from two, 
three, or four layers of glass prior to assessing the 
presence or absence of heat treatment. The pro-
posed modification to Egg’s 2010 typology yields 
a more detailed typology that can be utilized even 
with fragmentary beads or beads where it is not 
possible to assess the presence or absence of heat 
treatment (see App. 1).
Type 1: Large beads (2.0 cm or larger)
Type 2: Single-colour beads (1.5 cm on average)
Type 3: Multicoloured beads:
Variant 3a: Two-layer eyes and nostrils:
– 3a.i. Protruding eyes and nostrils (not heat treated)
– 3a.ii. Flattened or rounded eyes and nostrils 
(heat treated)
Variant 3b: Three-layer eyes
– 3b.i. Protruding eyes & nostrils (not heat treated)
– 3b.ii. Flattened or rounded eyes and nostrils 
(heat treated)
Variant 3c: Four-layer eyes
– 3c.i. Protruding eyes & nostrils (not heat treated)
– 3c.ii. Flattened or rounded eyes and nostrils 
(heat treated)
Beads of Type 1 are marked by their variability 
in addition to their large size. The Type 1 beads 
currently identified have two- or four-layer eyes 
and nostrils, two have ears,
28
 and one lacks nos-
trils entirely.
29
 Currently, this type has only been 
identified at sites in Novo mesto. Type 2 beads 
appear at Stična, Vinkov vrh, and at Kapiteljska 
njiva in Novo mesto in small numbers. Thirty-five 
27
  Egg 2010, 529–531.
28
  Novo mesto – Kandija IV/3 and Kapiteljska njiva 
Grave III/49, Dolenjski muzej P 270 and P 2316.
29
  Kapiteljska njiva XIV/41, Dolenjski muzej P 4557.
Fig. 3: Grave contexts with ram’s head beads divided 
according to probable gender. Solely probable gender is 
indicated since skeletal remains rarely preserve in this 
region and osteological analysis has not been possible, 
gender attribution is based on grave goods. (See Fn. 25 
for more details).
Sl. 3: Grobne celote z jagodami v obliki ovnove glavice po 
pripadnosti domnevnemu spolu. Opredelitev spola temelji 
na grobnih pridatkih, ker človeški kostni ostanki večinoma 
niso ohranjeni, zato osteološka analiza ni mogoča. (Za več 
podrobnosti gl. op. 13).
beads of this type were recovered from V alična vas, 
though unfortunately their within-site provenience 
is unknown. It is unclear if there are meaningful 
chronological or spatial distinctions in Types 3a, 
3b, and 3c, or whether the layering of the eyes and 
nostrils was a purely stylistic choice. However, it 
is notable that there is a clear correlation between 
increasing frequency of heat treatment with three- 
to four-layer eyes and nostrils (Types 3b and 3c). 
Currently there are only two beads of Type 3b.i
30
 
and one of Type 3c.i
31
 while there are over 25 
heat-treated examples of Type 3b.ii or 3c.ii.
There is a clear concentration of bead types at 
sites in Novo mesto. Kapiteljska njiva contains every 
bead type except Type 3c.i, supporting the proposal 
that this area was a centre for the production of 
ram’s head beads. In fact, all these bead types 
appear in Tumulus V and VI at Kapiteljska njiva: 
Tumulus V contains three graves with 19 ram’s 
head beads and Tumulus VI contains three graves 
with 11 beads. An outlier is the high number of 
Type 2 beads at Valična vas, which could indicate 
that this type of bead was produced elsewhere or 
circulated through different distribution networks 
30
  Three-layered eyes and nostrils (not heat treated): 
Kapiteljska njiva V/40, Dolenjski muzej P2503.
31
  Four-layered eyes and nostrils (not heat treated): 
Vinica – Stražni dol Grave 122, Peabody Museum of 
Archaeology and Ethnology PM 40-77-40/10977 [https://
pmem.unix.fas.harvard.edu:8443/peabody/].

96 Adrienne C. FRIE
than the other types of ram’s head beads, however 
at this point there is not enough data to determine 
which is more plausible.
Interestingly, beads occurring in groups of two 
or more from single grave contexts are typologically 
heterogeneous in all but three cases. Novo mesto 
– Kapiteljska njiva Grave VI/40 has a matched 
set of two beads of Type 3b.i with white heads 
and blue eyes and loops, Vintarjevec Grave 2 has 
14 matching beads of Type 3a in blue, aqua, and 
yellow with white details, while Vinica – Stražni 
dol Grave 237 has three matching beads of type 
3a.ii made of dark blue, white, and aqua glass. 
The ten other grave contexts containing multiple 
beads are more heterogeneous with two or more 
types of ram’s head beads in each grave. These 
more varied collections of beads are in many 
cases composed of multiple pairs or small sets of 
matching beads. For example, Grave 13/97 from 
Magdalenska gora – Preloge contains 11 glass ram’ s 
head beads. Three of these beads are a matched 
set of Type 3a.ii with green heads, blue and white 
two-layer eyes and noses, with yellow, white, and 
brown twisted horns, and a blue loop. These beads 
are nearly the exact same size
32
 and were clearly 
made as a matching set. In the same grave there is 
an extremely similar blue bead also of Type 3a.ii, 
though with a blue head and yellow loop, as well 
as two damaged beads that are also Type 3a.ii but 
with yellow heads. In addition, there are also three 
beads of Type 3b.ii and one of type 3c.ii. This pat-
tern of heterogeneous groups of beads containing at 
least one or two smaller matched sets characterizes 
most graves with multiple beads. At this time, it 
is unclear whether this relates to a preference for 
a variety of beads, patterns of bead production or 
circulation, or how they were obtained (e.g., they 
were accumulated over time and sets became larger 
as women aged), though this is a pattern worthy 
of further exploration.
THE IMPORTANCE OF SHEEP
Apart from the ubiquitous ram’s head beads, 
it is remarkable how rare depictions of sheep are 
in Dolenjska. A pair of crossbow fibulae with the 
foot terminal in the shape of ram’s heads were 
identified in Grave 2/b from Preloge at Magda-
32
  They are all within 1 mm of each other in measures 
of length, size, and width. See Frie 2017, 526 for images 
and dimensions.
Fig. 4: Necklaces with ram’s head beads from Vintarjevec 
Grave 2 (bottom) and an unknown provenience at Valična 
vas (top). The necklace from Vintarjevec is composed of 
glass, amber, and bone beads. Only 10 of the original 14 
ram’s head beads are intact, the other four are represen-
ted by solely their loops. The beads are made of yellow, 
white, aqua, blue, and dark blue glass. The necklace from 
Valična vas is made of amber and glass beads. Thirty-five 
of the ram’s head beads are made entirely of opaque, light 
blue glass, while one bead is made of white, dark blue, 
and brown glass. It is important to note that the beads 
from Valična vas were strung together for curation, these 
beads are unprovenienced and it is unlikely they were all 
originally part of the same necklace.
Sl. 4: Ogrlici z jagodami v obliki ovnove glavice iz groba 2 
v Vintarjevcu (spodaj) in neznanega konteksta iz Valične 
vasi (zgoraj). Ogrlico iz Vintarjevca sestavljajo steklene, 
jantarne in koščene jagode. Od prvotnih 14 jagod v obliki 
ovnove glavice se jih je v celoti ohranilo 10, od preostalih 
štirih pa le zanke. Izdelane so iz rumenega, belega, mo-
drozelenega, modrega in temnomodrega stekla. Ogrlico 
iz Valične vasi sestavljajo jantarne in steklene jagode, 
med njimi je 34 enobarvnih v obliki ovnove glavice iz 
prosojnega in svetlomodrega stekla, ter ena večbarvna iz 
belega, temnomodrega in rjavega stekla. Jagode so bile 
nanizane za namen hrambe, medtem ko njihov izvorni 
kontekst ni znan, zato prvotna pripadnost isti ogrlici ni 
zanesljiva.
(After / Po Laharnar, Turk 2018, 131 Fig. 151)

97 Women, Sheep, and Textiles: The social significance of ram’s head beads in Early Iron Age Slovenia
lenska gora and a single fibula was identified in 
Grave X/48 at the same site.
33
 There are only two 
situlae depicting sheep, one from Grave 1881/1 at 
Vače – Reber
34
 and another from Grave III/12 at 
Kapiteljska njiva in Novo mesto.
35
 There is also 
an unusual rhyton from Grave IV/47 at Stična.
36
 
This was certainly an import, likely from the east-
ern Adriatic, though there are Greek and Apulian 
examples known as well.
37
The relatively limited corpus of sheep imagery 
beyond ram’s head beads has made interpretati-
ons their symbolic significance difficult. Rams in 
particular do seem to have a ritual function in the 
form of animal sacrifice. The situla from Grave 
III/12 at Novo mesto – Kapiteljska njiva depicts 
a sheep wearing a lead or harness being led by 
a man, while the Vače situla has a similar scene 
though the ram is following a man with an axe. 
The sheep on the Vače situla is identified as a ram 
due to the clearly depicted testes, while the Novo 
mesto situla is too fragmentary to differentiate 
between ram and wether (castrated male) since 
wethers are also horned, though their horns are 
less robust than those of rams. Another line of 
evidence indicating sheep were funerary sacrifices 
is provided by graves, some of which contained 
sheep/goat remains.
38
It has been proposed that rams were symbols of 
fertility in the south-eastern alpine Iron Age. Hr-
voje Potrebica has argued that rams were symbolic 
of fertility and fire based on the presence of glass 
and amber ram’s head beads in female graves as 
well as finds of askoi and other vessels elaborated 
with sheep from Croatia.
39
 However, he does not 
elucidate why rams are thought to be symbolic of 
fertility beyond the association of ram’ s head beads 
with women. The link between fertility symbolism 
and women should be demonstrated rather than 
assumed, or we risk flattening the role of past 
women to nothing more than child bearers.
40
 
And if it is the case that rams are associated with 
33
  Magdalenska gora – Preloge Grave 2/b: T ecco Hvala, 
Dular, Kocuvan 2004, 124–125, Pl. 9. Magdalenska gora 
– Preloge Grave X/48: Hencken 1978, 74, 260, Fig. 298.
34
  Laharnar, Turk 2018, 100–101, Fig. 111; Frie 2020; 
Murgelj 2020.
35
  Križ 1997b, 24–28, Appendix 3.
36
  Wells 1981, 66, 184, Fig. 101.
37
  Hoffmann 1966; Wells 1981, 66.
38
  Frie 2020.
39
  Potrebica 2012, 13–14.
40
  Conkey, Spector 1984; Wylie 2002, 185–199; Brum-
fiel 2006.
female fertility, the question still remains – why 
sheep, and more particularly, why rams?
Mitja Guštin and Pasko Kuzman also support 
the idea that fertility plays a role in ram imagery, 
though they interpret ram imagery as associated 
with male fertility and the fertility of the flock. In 
addition, they connect much of the widespread 
ram imagery of southern Europe with the myth 
of the golden fleece and the Argonauts.
41
It should be noted that securely identifying all 
these images as rams is difficult. In the case of 
intact ram’s head beads, the large, forward-curling 
horns do likely indicate rams rather than wethers 
or ewes. In the larger dataset, imagery depicting 
sheep was identified on the basis of their unique 
horn morphology – the horns sweep backward 
before curling forward around the ears, which 
is most pronounced in rams. The horns of ewes 
sweep backward in a scimitar shape, and do not 
curl forward or become large in the way of rams’ 
horns. Wethers show more variability; they were 
likely horned as well though their horns would 
have grown less quickly and would not have be-
come as robust as the horns of intact rams. In this 
period both rams and ewes were usually horned 
throughout southeastern Europe, though unusu-
ally the remains of a hornless (polled) sheep were 
identified at the hillfort at Cvinger above Vir pri 
Stični, indicating that some variation existed.
42
 So 
while these beads are uniformly called ram’s head 
beads and many sheep in iconography are referred 
to as rams, identifying the sex of the animal and 
differentiating between a ram and a wether is dif-
ficult when the horns have not preserved, which 
is often the case with ram’s head beads.
The ubiquity of ram’s head beads matches the 
significance of sheep in local subsistence – sheep 
are the second or third most common animal
43
 
identified in faunal remains at Dolenjska Hallstatt 
hillforts.
44
 The high quantity of sheep bones may 
indicate a number of things since sheep are sig-
nificant for the production of meat, milk, hides, 
and wool. Cvinger hillfort above Vir pri Stični 
41
  M. Guštin and P . Kuzman, The Chrysomallos, symbol 
of fertility in the antiquity (in preparation).
42
  Bökönyi 1974; 1994, 197.
43 
 We cannot determine if sheep are second most 
common and goats are third or vice versa, since counts of 
sheep and goat remains are aggregated because they usu-
ally cannot be distinguished in archaeozoological analysis 
(Boessneck 1969; Prummel, Frisch 1986; Zeder, Lapham 
2010; Salvagno, Albarella 2017).
44 
 Bartosiewicz 1991; 1996; Bökönyi 1994, 196.

98 Adrienne C. FRIE
has produced the most detailed data concerning 
sheep remains. Though rams, ewes, and wethers 
are all attested, in most cases it was not possible 
to determine the sex of the remains, which would 
otherwise provide insight into herd demographics 
and the importance of milking and wool produc-
tion as compared to exploitation for meat.
45
 Age 
profiles are available, though only for the mixed 
category of sheep/goat. However, these provide 
some insight into culling patterns and indicate 
that while sheep were exploited for meat this was 
likely not their primary purpose, indicated by the 
fact that most animals were kept until they were 
adults or even mature animals.
46
 The ideal age 
for slaughtering sheep for meat is approximately 
two years, while ewes may produce milk until 
they are around seven, and wool is consistently 
available from sheep throughout their lives.
47
 The 
age profiles from Cvinger above Vir pri Stični 
support the possibility that sheep were kept for 
milk and wool and were not slaughtered for meat 
until those secondary products had been utilized 
for several years.
48
Maintaining flocks of sheep would have neces-
sitated significant care and daily interaction by 
Dolenjska Hallstatt people. Lambs are born in 
the spring, and productive milking periods would 
have followed, necessitating close proximity of hu-
man caregivers for frequent milking of ewes and 
care for lambs.
49
 Spring was also a period when 
wool was plucked.
50
 Fall was generally a time for 
slaughter and preparing meat for winter storage. 
Fodder also needed to be gathered and stored to 
maintain the remaining flock through winter.
51
 
Throughout the year sheep were often moved to 
fallow fields to provide fresh grazing material and 
so that their manure could be used as fertilizer.
52
 
Their movements would have required the services 
of shepherds to ensure their safety when away 
from pens. Sheep are social animals and tend to 
45
  Bökönyi 1994, 197.
46
  Ib., 202, Table 10.
47
  Green 1992, 30, 36; Greenfield, Arnold 2008, 838; 
Calder 2011, 19–21.
48
  Green 1992, 11; Bökönyi 1994, 202.
49
  Calder 2011, 20.
50
  Shears did not develop until the Late Iron Age, 
possibly in concert with non-shedding fleece (Grömer 
2016, 68, 275).
51
  Reynolds 1987, 50–60; Green 1992, 16, 30.
52
  Reynolds 1987, 40–44.
bond with their dominant shepherds, both human 
and animal.
53
Daily care and interaction provided a distinctly 
social aspect to human-sheep relationships, and 
their economic importance cannot be denied. 
They provided essential primary and second-
ary resources, allowed increased self-sufficiency 
of households, and can be considered a form 
of mobile wealth.
54
 Sheep may have been more 
widely available than cattle based on the smaller 
expense of both obtaining and maintaining sheep. 
They produce useable resources throughout their 
lives (milk, wool, manure), and when they are 
culled the meat yield is smaller and more suit-
able for household consumption than the meat 
yield from cattle.
55
 They were clearly important 
parts of Dolenjska Hallstatt households, and this 
familiarity and resource significance translated to 
iconographic significance. However, other animals 
were also economically significant including cattle, 
pigs, and goats,
56
 though they appear much less in 
local imagery. Delving into what sets sheep apart 
can provide key insight into their importance in 
local iconography.
One essential quality that differentiates sheep 
from other domesticates is their importance for 
producing wool used in textiles. Unfortunately, due 
to the nature of the archaeological record, perishable 
materials such as textiles may not preserve or may 
be overlooked in archaeological interpretations.
57
 It 
is proposed that ram’ s head beads were particularly 
important to women because they demonstrated a 
woman’s link to the textile economy, an important 
activity both economically and in the definition 
of female roles.
WOOL AND WOMEN
The ubiquity of spindle whorls in settlement 
and grave contexts, as well as loom weights and 
needles to a more limited extent, highlights the 
importance of textile production to local economies. 
In addition, recent work on pre-Roman textiles 
has indicated that Early Iron Age peoples were 
familiar with complex patterns, tablet weaving, 
53
  Clutton-Brock 1999, 73; Mlekuž 2013, 152.
54
  Mlekuž 2013, 155.
55
  Calder 2011, 19.
56
  Bartosiewicz 1991; 1996; 1999; Bökönyi 1994.
57
  Gillis, Nosch 2007.

99 Women, Sheep, and Textiles: The social significance of ram’s head beads in Early Iron Age Slovenia
and dyeing technologies.
58
 The Early Iron Age 
was a period of highly refined textile production, 
to the extent that attached specialist production 
has been proposed. In the Mediterranean, several 
types of specialized production are known: Linear 
B records indicate textile workshops as well as elite 
household production served Mycenaean palace 
centres, elite women in Archaic Greece wove high-
quality textiles with the help of servants, while 
imagery and textile tools in graves indicate that 
textile production was an important aspect of elite 
female identity in Etruria.
59
 By the Late Bronze 
Age it was possible to spin wool into thread of 
just 0.1 mm thickness, and the ubiquitous light 
spindle whorls of later Hallstatt period female 
graves are ideally suited to weaving fine threads 
of this type.
60
While much of the current textile evidence 
comes from the Mediterranean
61
 or the salt mines 
of Hallstatt and Dürrnberg,
62
 finds from Slovenia 
demonstrate that high-quality production was 
prevalent in this region as well. New analysis of 
a preserved textile fragment from Grave 1/6 at 
Pleška hosta near Molnik indicates that it was a 
zigzag twill of unusual fineness. The thread itself 
measures 0.2 mm, and the thread count is between 
28 and 32 threads per cm, which makes it one 
of the finest textiles recovered from the Eastern 
Hallstatt area.
63
 Other textiles from Slovenia have 
thread counts between 20 and 22 threads per cm.
64
 
The apparent high quality of local textile produc-
tion, as well as the frequent finds of spinning and 
weaving tools in settlements and graves indicates 
that cloth production was an important local craft, 
and textiles may have been an important trade 
item circulating in elite networks.
65
The spinning and weaving of wool was apparently 
a female activity, based on the frequent finds of 
spindle whorls and loom weights in female graves, 
58
  Bender Jørgensen 2005; Bichler et al. 2005; Gleba 
2007; 2009; Gleba, Mannering 2012; Rast-Eicher, Bender 
Jørgensen 2013; Grömer 2016; Grömer, Saliari 2018.
59
  Gleba 2009; Grömer 2016, 252–253; Halstead, 
Isaakidou 2017.
60
  Grömer 2016, 87, 91.
61
  E.g., Gleba 2008; 2014b.
62
  E.g., Ryder 1990; Bichler et al. 2005; Stöllner 2005; 
Grömer, Stöllner 2011; Grömer 2012; Grömer et al. 2013; 
Grömer, Saliari 2018.
63
  Grömer, Tolar, Kostajnšek 2017.
64
  Bender Jørgensen 2005, cat. nos. 98, 114; Grömer, 
T olar, Kostajnšek 2017, 212–214; Grömer et al. 2018, 458–459.
65
  Nash Briggs 2003; Grömer 2017.
as well as iconography from the surrounding re-
gions.
66
 Though there are currently no depictions 
of female textile production from Dolenjska, the 
throne from Verucchio Tomb 89 depicts spinning 
and weaving,
67
 while the tintinnabulum from T omba 
degli Ori at Bologna is decorated in the situla art 
style with scenes of elite women carding wool, spin-
ning it into thread, and weaving on an elaborate 
two-story loom (Fig. 5).
68
 Women spinning wool 
and weaving on a loom are also depicted on a ce-
ramic vessel from Tumulus 27 at Sopron –Várhely 
in Hungary (Fig. 6).
69
 In this scene the women are 
accompanied by an individual who may be either 
holding a small weaving frame
70
 or playing the 
lyre.
71
 The latter interpretation supports propos-
als that women, music, and textiles were closely 
linked through the use of repetition in songs and 
poetry to encode complex weave patterns.
72
 This 
would have made weaving an important social as 
well as economic activity for local women, perhaps 
linked to ritual practice through story and song.
73
 
While depictions of women are not very common 
in south-eastern Europe, it is not incidental that 
several of them involve the production of textiles.
74
 
Textile production was not simply women’s work; 
it was an activity intimately tied to expressions of 
prestige, elite gift giving and diplomacy, and may 
have been a ritually significant activity with rich 
symbolic connotations.
75
These varied strands of evidence demonstrate 
an emerging pattern linking women, textiles, and 
sheep. The association between women and textile 
production is clear while the data from ram’s head 
beads also shows an association with women. 
Twelve female graves were identified containing 68 
ram’s head beads, and if we consider the double-
graves containing a woman, we can add another 
three graves and five beads. There are three male 
66
  Bonfante 1985; Eibner 1986; 2005; Barber 1991; 
1994; Teržan 1996; 2004; Primas 2007; Gleba 2009; Huth, 
Kondziella 2017.
67
  Gleba 2008, 28–29; Gleba 2009, 69–70, Fig. 1.
68
  Bonfante 1985, 280–281, 283; Bonfante 2011, 207, 
Fig. 2.
69
  Teržan 2004, 223, Fig. 2; Gleirscher 2009, 217, Fig. 
8; Bonfante 2011, 206, Fig. 1.
70
  Teržan 1996, 526, fn. 52.
71
  Eibner 1986.
72
  Bonfante 1985, 283, Fig. 6; Tuck 2006.
73
  Eibner 2005.
74
  Rebay-Salisbury 2016, 110–136, 223–225, 250.
75
  E.g., Eibner 1986; 2005; T eržan 1996; Rebay-Salisbury 
2016, 223–225.

100 Adrienne C. FRIE
Fig. 5: Bronze tintinnabulum from Bologna – Tomba degli Ori.
Sl. 5: Bronasti zvonec iz Bologne – Tomba degli Ori. (After / Po Turk 2005, 27 Fig. 34)
Fig. 6: Vessel from Tumulus 27 at Sopron – Várhely.
Sl. 6: Lončena posoda iz gomile 27 v Sopronu – Várhely. 
(After / Po Eibner-Persey 1980, Pl. 17, redrawn by author / preris: avtorica)

101 Women, Sheep, and Textiles: The social significance of ram’s head beads in Early Iron Age Slovenia
graves containing twelve ram’s head beads – 11 
glass and one bronze bead. However, these graves 
account for just 12% of the ram’s head beads re-
covered from graves, while female graves account 
for 65%. The ceramic rhyton from grave IV/47 
at Stična is associated with a female individual,
76
 
while sheep/goat remains
77
 were identified in 
Grave 4 from Grofove njive near Drnovo and in 
two graves from Preloge near Magdalenska gora. 
Grave 4 from Grofove njive contained the hind leg 
of a caprovid along with ceramic vessels, bronze 
fibulae, small rings, and a belt plate, and an iron 
arrowhead indicating a possible male burial.
78
 At 
Magdalenska gora, Grave 13/163
79
 belonged to a 
probable female while the gender of the deceased 
in Grave VII/29
80
 could not be determined. Grave 
13/163 also contained a bone needle and spindle 
whorls, providing support for the association 
between sheep and textile production. An asso-
ciation between women and sheep/goat remains 
characterizes some contemporary cultures, Nils 
Müller-Scheeßel and Peter Trebsche noted that 
Hallstatt women’s graves in Central Europe also 
contained deposits of mutton or goat, while men 
were buried with cuts of pork.
81
RAM’S HEAD BEADS AND TEXTILE 
EQUIPMENT
The graves in the study with spindle whorls and 
loom weights were examined further to assess the 
potential association between ram’s head beads 
and textile production (App. 2). A total of nine 
graves containing ram’s head beads also contained 
textile equipment (31%) – eight graves contained 
spindle whorls, while an additional grave contained 
a spindle whorl and two loom weights. To deter-
mine whether a 31% association is meaningful, it 
is necessary to have a better sense of how common 
it was to deposit textile equipment in graves in 
this region. To this end data from the published 
excavations at Novo mesto – Kapiteljska njiva were 
76
  Wells 1981, 66, 184, Fig. 101.
77
  This excludes remains positively identified as 
goats, and only includes the indeterminate identification 
of sheep/goat.
78
  Pavlovič 2014, 493-4.
79
  T ecco Hvala, Dular, Kocuvan 2004, 162, Pls. 123–124; 
Tecco Hvala 2012, 31, 90, Fig. 36.
80
  Hencken 1978, 56; Tecco Hvala 2012, 30, 90, Fig. 36.
81
  Müller-Scheeßel, Trebsche 2007.
assessed,
82
 since this is a large, well-excavated site, 
the centre of ram’s head bead deposition, and a 
probable centre of production.
Nearly a quarter of burials in the published 
tumuli at Novo mesto – Kapiteljska njiva contain 
textile equipment (Fig. 7). This demonstrates that 
the 31% rate of association between ram’s head 
beads and textile equipment is slightly higher 
than one would expect if there were no connec-
tion between these two items. Supplementary 
support comes from the other graves where sheep 
imagery or faunal remains and textile equipment 
co-occur: Grave IV/47 from Stična contains the 
sheep rhyton as well as a spindle whorl,
83
 and as 
previously noted, Grave 13/163 from Magdalenska 
gora – Preloge contains sheep/goat remains along 
with a spindle whorls and needle.
84
 In addition, 
the situla depicting a sheep being led to sacrifice 
was from Grave 1881/1 at Vače – Reber, which 
contained artefacts traditionally associated with 
both males and females including a spindle whorl.
85
 
One of only two instances of a ram’s head bead in 
a settlement context comes from Trench 1, Layer 
2 at Špičasti hrib, which contained a ram’s head 
bead as well as spindle whorls.
86
 It is also plausible 
that if there was a symbolic connection between 
ram’ s head beads and textile production, ram’ s head 
beads could have been deposited in lieu of textile 
tools in graves. In this case, a relatively low rate 
of co-occurrence of textile equipment and ram’s 
head beads would be expected, despite the strong 
symbolic associations connecting these items.
While these examples do not definitively dem-
onstrate the association between sheep imagery 
and textile production, they are highly sugges-
tive. Ram’s head beads may have served a similar 
function to spindle whorls in burial deposition 
– that is, both textile equipment and ram’s head 
beads indexed wool and textiles,
87
 and so were 
appropriate grave goods to indicate a woman’s link 
to the textile economy. If this is the case, it may 
have made the deposition of both unnecessary 
82
  Križ 1997b; 2000; 2013. 
83
  Wells 1981, 66, 184, Fig. 101. Though it should be 
noted that this grave is part of the Mecklenburg Collec-
tion, and graves from this collection should be treated 
with caution due to their early excavation and complex 
history – see Božič 2009; Tecco Hvala 2012, 28.
84
  T ecco Hvala, Dular, Kocuvan 2004, 162, Pls. 123–124.
85
  Božič 2015; Dular 2016, 76–77.
86
  Dular, Pavlin, Tecco Hvala 2003, 199–200.
87
  Sensu Peirce 2012: sheep imagery points to and is 
logically linked to wool and textiles.

102 Adrienne C. FRIE
in certain cases. The logical connection between 
ram’s head beads, sheep and wool, and a thriving 
textile economy is worthy of consideration, and 
may provide the missing piece needed to under-
stand the local significance of ram’s head beads 
deposited in female graves.
However, this does not account for the twelve 
ram’s head beads in three male graves, two from 
Kapiteljska njiva in Novo mesto
88
 and one from 
Grave VII/1 at Brezje pri Trebelnem.
89
 The latter 
example from Brezje may not have had the same 
symbolic connotations as the glass examples, since 
the bead itself is a reworked fibula and the grave 
inventory is unusual. However, the two male graves 
from Kapiteljska njiva in Novo mesto contain 
glass ram’s head beads like those found in female 
graves, and they indicate that these items were 
not restricted to females. It may be that these men 
were also textile producers, that these beads were 
a gift from a female mourner, or that these men 
also had a connection to sheep or their products 
that was important to materialize in death. It is 
interesting that these graves are in Novo mesto, 
which is believed to be the centre for production 
of ram’s head beads. It is also possible that these 
men were associated with production of these 
beads
90
 or otherwise had unusual access to these 
primarily female items.
The mortality profiles from Cvinger at Stična 
point to the importance of keeping sheep for wool 
88
  Grave VII/28: Križ, Stipančić, Škedelj Petrič 2009, 
257; Grave XIV/41: Križ 2013, 126, 128, 198–199, Pls. 52–53.
89 
 Kromer 1959, 22–23, Pls. 20; 21; Dular, Križ 1990, 538.
90
  Though it should be noted that there is no evidence 
that the production of glass was a gendered activity.
– a period of many years in which local people 
would have developed relationships with their 
animals. New evidence also indicates that there 
was likely a robust household industry
91
 of textile 
production in this region, one that seems to have 
been dominated by women based on grave finds 
and iconography. It is plausible that the importance 
of sheep iconography was anchored in these lo-
cal relationships, where sheep and their products 
facilitated the distinction of local women through 
the production of textiles for their communities 
and for trade. Depositing ram’s head beads in 
graves may have represented a particular aspect 
of female identity – analogous to the deposition 
of textile equipment, sheep iconography may have 
served to materialize the important relationship 
between women, sheep, and textiles.
THE SOCIAL CONTEXT
OF RAM’S HEAD BEADS
If ram’s head beads were used to signal partici-
pation in textile manufacture, they were doing so 
91
  Currently a household industry is more plausible 
than workshops since there is no evidence in this region 
for the kinds of Early Iron Age textile workshops known 
from Etruria (Gleba 2007; 2009). This could be due to 
relatively limited settlement excavations that have not 
yet exposed evidence for highly centralized or workshop-
style production. However, the continuing importance of 
textile tools in grave contexts indicates that even if there 
was nascent workshop production in this area, a strong 
association between individual women and spinning and 
weaving tools remained, implying the continued importance 
of textile production to female identity.
Tumulus Total Number of Graves
Number of Graves with 
Textile Equipment
Number of Graves with 
Ram’s Head Beads
I 81 18 (22%) 0
II 36 8 (22%) 1
III 56 16 (29%) 1
IV 3 2 (67%) 1
V 74 16 (22%) 3
XIV 55 15 (27%) 1
XV 7 0 (0%) 0
Totals: 312 75 (24%) 7
Fig. 7: Frequency of textile equipment in published tumuli from Novo mesto – Kapiteljska njiva.
Sl. 7: Pogostnost najdb tekstilnih pripomočkov v objavljenih gomilah iz Novega mesta – Kapiteljska njiva.

103 Women, Sheep, and Textiles: The social significance of ram’s head beads in Early Iron Age Slovenia
through the medium of personal display, specifi-
cally through adornment. Personal ornaments are 
quite common in the Dolenjska Hallstatt area, and 
also dominate the dataset for artefacts elaborated 
with animal imagery.
92
 It is clear that animal 
imagery played an important role in signalling 
various aspects of identity and affiliation through 
the medium of bodily display.
93
 Personal orna-
ments are primarily found in female graves, and 
the majority of zoomorphic ornaments are ram’s 
head beads.
94
 Zoomorphic beads are not singular 
items; rather, they appear in groups or with other 
non-zoomorphic glass and amber beads (see App. 
2) indicating that these were parts of larger sets 
of beaded jewellery that were likely meant for 
display. This does not preclude the possibility that 
these beads had an apotropaic value as suggested 
for other parts of Iron Age Europe;
95
 however it 
does not seem that a protective function was their 
sole purpose. Ostentatious display may have been 
an important function of these items – complex 
glass production, especially using multiple colours, 
was a relatively new technology and would have 
presented a colourful novelty,
96
 while the foreign 
origin of glass may have signalled wealth and ac-
cess to long-distance trade networks.
97
The amber ram’s head beads would have also 
made a statement. Amber represented access to 
distant lands and had its own evocative properties 
such as its warmth against the skin, translucence, 
conduction of static electricity, and the ability to 
float, all of which set it apart from other mate-
rials.
98
 Ram’s head beads in general are strongly 
associated with other types of amber artefacts in 
the study region. The 29 intact graves with ram’s 
head beads also contained amber in 22 instances 
(76%, see App. 2). If possession of ram’s head 
beads was related to participation in an elite textile 
economy, this may have allowed these women access 
to imported items such as amber, either through 
direct trade for textiles, or possibly through the 
networks of gift-giving in which textiles and other 
luxury items were circulating.
92
  Frie 2017, 187–212.
93
  Joyce 2005; Castor 2016; Martin, Weetch 2017.
94
  Frie 2017, 195–198.
95
  Pauli 1975, 131; Bakarić, Križ, Šoufek 2006, 67; 
Rebay-Salisbury 2016, 181; Hladíková 2018.
96
  Križ, Turk 2003; Križ, Guštin 2015.
97
  Helms 1993; Šmit, Laharnar, Turk 2020.
98 
 Helms 1993; Grimaldi 1996, 144; Bakarić, Križ, 
Šoufek 2006, 13–21; Causey 2011, 37–41.
It is also quite possible that the display of ram’s 
head beads directly or indirectly signified ties to 
particular sites. If the production of glass ram’ s head 
beads was centred in Novo mesto, the distribution 
of ram’ s head beads outside Novo mesto may signify 
the movement of women between sites, perhaps 
through exogamous marriage patterns.
99
 Tumuli 
V and VI at Kapiteljska njiva have a significant 
concentration of ram’s head beads, and if tumuli 
are centred on families or lineages as has been 
proposed,
100
 these two tumuli may represent the 
centre of a widespread familial network.
The distribution of ram’s head beads suggests 
that the communities at Stična, Magdalenska gora, 
V alična vas, and Vinkov vrh had particularly strong 
ties with Novo mesto (see Fig. 2). The connection 
between Stična, Novo mesto, and Magdalenska gora 
is logical, as they were three of the largest Early 
Iron Age sites in the region and were important 
trade centres. In addition, Janez Dular and Sneža 
T ecco Hvala’ s least-cost path analysis of routes bet-
ween Dolenjska Hallstatt settlements demonstrated 
that the primary north-south route in the region 
ran from Magdalenska gora to Stična and on to 
Novo mesto and connected smaller sites between 
them.
101
 Additional support for these connections 
comes from the position of these sites on the we-
stern edge of the Dolenjska region. Sneža Tecco 
Hvala and Brina Škvor Jernejčič have suggested 
that these sites shared a military nature, evidenced 
by the significance of weapon graves dating to the 
Certosa Fibulae and Negova Helmets phases. They 
suggest that these sites were linked as a line of de-
fence along the western edge of Dolenjska along the 
Krka River and Savska ravan plain, and may have 
even housed garrisons.
102
 If this is the case, these 
sites were linked not only by regional routes and 
geography, but also by a shared defensive role.
103
 
This may have fostered close connections between 
these sites, increasing exchange of items such as 
ram’s head beads, either as trade items or traveling 
with the women to whom they belonged.
Based on the available information, ram’s head 
beads conveyed complex meanings in Dolenjska 
99
  See Arnold 2005 and Oelze et al. 2012 for discussions 
of Iron Age female mobility in Central Europe.
100
  Gabrovec 1966; 1987; T eržan 2008; T ecco Hvala 2012.
101
  Dular, Tecco Hvala 2007, 191–196, 220–222.
102
  T ecco Hvala 2012, 142–143, 381; T ecco Hvala, Škvor 
Jernejčič 2017, 169–170.
103
  I must thank Boštjan Laharnar from National 
Museum of Slovenia for drawing my attention to the con-
nections between these sites.

104 Adrienne C. FRIE
Hallstatt societies. They indicated economic aspects 
of women’s identities, including participation in 
long-distance trade networks via production.
104
 
Elite or diplomatic gift exchange has long been 
considered an essential aspect of Hallstatt social 
relations, both for establishing long-distance social 
relationships but also for displays of wealth and 
power. While elaborate imports have often been the 
focus of studies of exchange, it is worth considering 
that fine textiles may have also played role in these 
long-distance networks. These systems were not 
only focused on imports and did not confer prestige 
solely on the men who are implicitly assumed to 
control these systems.
105
 Exports also played an 
essential role and may have conferred status and 
economic power on the women who produced 
fine textiles. This brings to light an under-consi-
dered aspect of Early Iron Age society – the role 
of women in the broader socioeconomic networks 
in which textiles circulated via long-distance 
exchange and gift giving. Scenes of women carding 
wool, spinning thread, and weaving together are 
not simply domestic scenes in Iron Age imagery, 
they likely demonstrate the central role of women 
in elite networks. Social capital was not the sole 
purview of elite men, though we often focus on 
the significance of men as warriors and hosts.
106
 
We should consider the possibility that women 
also played a central role in elite networks, and 
brought luxury goods and prestige to themselves 
and their communities through the work of their 
hands.
107
 Ram’s head beads may have materiali-
zed the socioeconomic power of certain women, 
vividly displayed as part of elaborate, colourful 
necklaces that women wore throughout their lives 
and that were significant enough to go with them 
into the grave.
104
  Nash Briggs 2003; Gleba 2009; 2014a; Bonfante 
2011; Grömer 2017.
105
  Frankenstein, Rowlands 1978; Gosden 1985; Diet-
ler 1990; Helms 1993; Arafat, Morgan 1994; Babić 2002; 
Tacla 2008.
106
  Frie 2018a; 2018b.
107
  Bonfante 1985; Eibner 1986; 2005; Teržan 1996; 
2004; Gleba 2009; 2014a.
CONCLUSION
In sum, sheep imagery was likely polyvalent, and 
illuminates two important phenomena. First, the 
zooarchaeological data from settlement contexts, 
textile evidence, and the importance of spinning 
and weaving tools indicate that cloth production 
was an important aspect of the local economy, 
both for the production of domestic items and 
high-quality textiles intended for elite networks 
of trade and diplomacy. The association between 
textile equipment and female graves as well as 
contemporary iconography indicates that this was 
primarily a female activity. The high numbers of 
ram’s head beads in female graves suggest that 
sheep imagery indexed cloth production along in-
tersecting gendered, economic, and symbolic lines. 
Ram’s head beads in graves, like textile equipment 
in the same contexts, may have been an avenue 
for materializing the importance of textiles and 
woman-sheep relationships in Dolenjska Hallstatt 
life. Second, the centrality of Novo mesto in the 
production and distribution of ram’s head beads 
is significant. The distribution of ram’s head beads 
at sites along the western edge of the Dolenjska 
region illuminates social networks that connected 
communities in the later part of the Early Iron Age. 
Stična, Magdalenska gora, and Novo mesto were 
large sites that played key roles in trade as well as 
defence, and the distribution of ram’s head beads 
between them may relate to networks of exchange 
along the main north-south passage through Do-
lenjska. However, it is also quite possible that these 
ram’s head beads were moving with the women 
to whom they belonged. Ties of kinship and the 
alliances created through strategic intermarriage 
may have connected sites on the western frontier 
and these artefact distributions may actually reflect 
networks of women and their families moving across 
the landscape. What is clear is that women played 
an important role in socioeconomic networks of 
the Early Iron Age, and ram’s head beads provide 
a new lens through which to examine the role of 
women in this cultural context, even in the absence 
of written sources.

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110 Adrienne C. FRIE
Jagode v obliki ovnove glavice so s 187 znanimi 
primerki najpogostejše zoomorfne najdbe dolenj-
ske halštatske kulture na območju jugovzhodne 
Slovenije. Temeljno razpravo o njih je napisal 
Markus Egg, obravnaval jih je z vidikov izdela-
ve, časovne in geografske razsežnosti njihovega 
pojavljanja ter predlagal tipološko členitev. Nje-
govo delo ostaja dragocen vir, ki ga v pričujočem 
prispevku dopolnjujem s še nekaterimi primerki 
in podrobnejšo tipologijo. Glavni poudarek v 
tem prispevku pa je na vprašanju, kakšen je bil 
lokalni pomen jagod v obliki ovnove glavice, ki 
je pri Eggu ostalo odprto.
1
Razprostranjenost jagod
v obliki ovnove glavice
V svoji disertaciji sem obravnavala živalski 
imaginarij dolenjske halštatske kulturne skupine, 
pri čemer sem se osredotočila na upodobitve po-
sameznih živalskih vrst in na zvrsti predmetov, 
ki jih upodabljajo, ter na kontekstualne povezave 
in odnose med človekom in živalmi, značilne za 
starejšo železno dobo.
2
 Študija je ob ugotovitvi, 
da so jagode v obliki ovnove glavice najpogostejše 
zoomorfne najdbe v tej regiji, potrdila njihov po-
men, kot ga je prepoznal Markus Egg.
3
 Doslej so 
znane iz 17 najdišč (sl. 2), 104 primerki izvirajo iz 
grobov, 2 sta naselbinski najdbi, 81 je posamičnih 
najdb iz grobiščnih kompleksov ali pa so konteksti 
neznani (pril. 1).
Že Egg je jagode v obliki ovnove glavice z ob-
močja Slovenije časovno opredelil v mlajše faze 
starejše železne dobe in celo v mlajšo železno 
dobo. Po lokalni relativni kronologiji za dolenjsko 
halštatsko kulturno skupino so se pojavile v stopnji 
certoških fibul in so ostale v uporabi še v stopnji 
negovskih čelad (tj. od konca 6. do konca 4. st. 
1
  Egg 2010, 539.
2
  Frie 2017.
3
  Egg 2010.
pr. n. št.).
4
 V Novem mestu v Kandiji
5
 je bila ena 
taka jagoda odkrita tudi v grobu iz latenske dobe, 
zanjo pa se domneva, da jo je v njem pokopana 
oseba morda podedovala.
6
Thea Elisabeth Haevernick in pozneje Borut 
Križ s soavtorji so v svojih študijah nakazali, da bi 
stilska podobnost in razprostranjenost teh jagod 
ter množica steklenih najdb nasploh pričali o 
njihovem izdelovanju v lokalni delavnici nekje na 
območju današnjega Novega mesta.
7
 Čeprav so jih 
najbrž izdelovali lokalno, pa novi izsledki kažejo, 
da so stekleni ingoti oz. steklena masa verjetno 
prišli z levantskega območja ali morda Egipta. 
Nedavne analize PIXE, PIGE steklenih najdb iz 
starejše železne dobe z območja Dolenjske so 
namreč pokazale, da gre za natronsko steklo, 
najbližji viri za zmes natrijevega karbonata in 
bikarbonata pa so v Egiptu in na Bližnjem vzhodu,
8
 
kar dodatno pritrjuje hipotezi Markusa Egga, 
da so jagode v obliki ovnove glavice na Dolenj-
skem navdihnili starejši vzhodnosredozemski 
in egipčanski vzori.
9
Večina tovrstnih jagod z območja Dolenjske je 
steklenih, le pet je jantarnih.
10
 Par jantarnih pri-
merkov je bil pridan v grob VI/4 na Kapiteljski njivi 
v Novem mestu, drug tak par je znan iz stiškega 
groba 5/11, oba pa sta datirana v čas 5.–4. st. pr. n. 
št.
11
 Še en jantarni primerek je posamična najdba 
4
  Ib., 532–535. Za relativno kronologijo glej Teržan 
2008, 273–293.
5
  V članku uporabljam najdiščno ime Kandija v Novem 
mestu, ker je širše uveljavljeno kot Znančeve njive, ki se v 
objavah redkeje pojavlja. Najdišče je pod imenom Znančeve 
njive zabeleženo v spletni podatkovni zbirki ARKAS in 
nekaterih drugih objavah (npr. ANSl 1975; Dular, Tecco 
Hvala 2007).
6
  Gr. 56: Križ 2001, 164, kat. št. 542; Egg 2010, 533–534.
7
  Haevernick 1974; Križ, Turk 2003, 78; Bakarić, Križ, 
Šoufek 2006, 11; Egg 2010, 534.
8
  Šmit, Laharnar, Turk 2020.
9
  Egg 2010, 535–539.
10
  Ib., 532.
11
  Novo mesto – Kapiteljska njiva, gr. VI/4: Križ, Turk 
2003, 99, kat. št. 84; Bakarić, Križ, Šoufek 2006, 186, kat. 
št. 269; Stična, gr. 5/11: Kruh 2008, 99.
Ženske, ovce in tekstil:
družbeni pomen jagod v obliki ovnove glavice
v starejši železni dobi na Slovenskem
Povzetek

111 Ženske, ovce in tekstil: družbeni pomen jagod v obliki ovnove glavice v starejši železni dobi na Slovenskem
iz gomile VI v Stični.
12
 Edina bronasta jagoda v 
obliki ovnove glavice s tega območja izvira iz groba 
VII/1 na Brezju pri Trebelnem.
Tovrstne jagode lahko pretežno pripišemo žen-
skam (sl. 3), kajti od spolno opredeljivih kontekstov 
jih 68 izvira iz 12 ženskih grobov.
13
 Število jagod 
v posameznih grobovih je zelo različno: v 52 % 
grobov je bila pridana po ena taka jagoda, v 31 % 
pa po pet ali več skupaj.
Tipologijo zanje je predložil že Egg; ločeval je med 
večjimi (do 2,3 cm dolge) in manjšimi jagodami 
(v povprečju 1,5 cm dolžine), slednje je nadalje 
razdelil v dve skupini – eno predstavljajo jagode 
valjaste oblike z izstopajočimi pecljatimi očesi, 
drugo pa bolj kroglaste z očesi, ki so bila verjetno 
oblikovana s sekundarno toplotno obdelavo.
14
 V tem 
prispevku predlagana tipologija je bolj podrobna 
in nekoliko drugačna od Eggove, uporabna pa je 
tudi v primerih, ko so jagode le fragmentarno 
ohranjene in ko ni mogoče ugotoviti, ali so bile 
toplotno obdelane ali ne. Poleg velikosti in oblike 
se zdi merodajna tudi barvitost, ločevati jih je 
mogoče na enobarvne in večbarvne, med temi pa 
še na jagode, ki imajo očesa in nosnice iz dveh, 
treh ali štirih plasti stekla (glej pril. 1).
12
  Wells 1981, 80, 213, Fig. 161i, v prvotni objavi je 
jagoda napačno označena kot steklena.
13
  Ob tem je treba omeniti, da se ne sklicujem na 
biološko določen spol, ker se zaradi kisle zemlje v tej regiji 
kostni ostanki redko ohranijo. Spolna pripadnost je zato 
opredeljena na podlagi grobnih pridatkov. V redkih primerih 
ohranjenih kosti pa je osteološka analiza potrdila korelacijo 
med določenimi predmeti in spolom pokopane osebe oziro-
ma je pokazala, da se biološki in po pridatkih opredeljena 
spolna pripadnost ujemata, se pravi, da so bili pridatki 
večinoma razporejeni po binarnem principu (Dolinar-Osole 
1956; Gabrovec 1956; 2006; Angel 1968; Hencken 1978; 
Teržan 1985; Tecco Hvala, Dular, Kocuvan 2004). Študija 
upodobitev živali v dolenjski halštatski kulturi vključuje 
številne predmete, na katere se pogosto opira opredelitev 
spola pokopane osebe (npr. zapestnice in jagode; prim. 
Teržan 1985; 2008; Tecco Hvala 2012, 376–384). V izogib 
krožnemu sklepanju pri prepoznavanju spola pokopanih 
oseb se opiram na bolj konservativen sklop predmetov, in 
sicer na orožje, obrambne oprave, britve in brusne kamne 
kot verjetne označevalce moškega spola (T eržan 1985; 2008, 
233–245; Tecco Hvala 2012, 137–143, 341) ter na uhane in 
lasne obročke, nanožnice in tkalske pripomočke za ženskega 
(Tecco Hvala 2007; 2012, 290, 332–333). V primerih, ko 
so v grobu pridatki, značilni za moški in ženski spol, ga 
obravnavam kot dvojni pokop; če ne vsebujejo nobenega 
pokazatelja spola, pa kot neopredeljenega. Za podrobnejšo 
diskusijo o tem glej Frie 2017, 76–80.
14
  Egg 2010, 529–531.
Tip 1: velike jagode (vsaj 2 cm ali večje).
Tip 2: enobarvne jagode (v povprečju velike 1,5 cm).
Tip 3: večbarvne jagode:
varianta 3a. z dvoplastnimi očesci in nosnicami:
– 3a.i. z izstopajočimi očesci in nosnicami (toplo-
tno neobdelane);
– 3a.ii. s ploskimi ali okroglimi očesci in nosnicami 
(toplotno obdelane);
varianta 3b. s triplastnimi očesci:
– 3b.i. z izstopajočimi očesci in nosnicami (toplo-
tno neobdelane);
– 3b.ii. s ploskimi ali okroglimi očesci in nosnicami 
(toplotno obdelane);
varianta 3c. s štiriplastnimi očesci:
– 3c.i. z izstopajočimi očesci in nosnicami (toplo-
tno neobdelane);
– 3c.ii. s ploskimi ali okroglimi očesci in nosnicami 
(toplotno obdelane).
Jagode tipa 1 zaznamuje poleg velikosti tudi 
njihova raznolikost; ta tip je doslej znan zgolj 
iz Novega mesta. Jagode tipa 2 so zastopane v 
manjšem številu v Stični, na Vinkovem vrhu in 
Kapiteljski njivi v Novem mestu, prednjači pa 
Valična vas s 35 primerki. Pri tipu 3 ni povsem 
jasno, ali obstajajo med variantami 3a, 3b in 3c 
pomenljive kronološke ali prostorske razlike ali 
pa je plastovitost očesc in nosnic zgolj slogovna 
izbira. Večja korelacija med toplotno obdelavo ter 
tri- in štiriplastnimi očesci in nosnicami se kaže 
pri variantah 3b in 3c; znaki sekundarne toplotne 
obdelave so opazni pri 25 primerkih variant 3b.ii 
in 3c.ii in le pri dveh jagodah variante 3b.i
15
 ter 
eni variante 3c.i.
16
Koncentracija različnih tipov je očitna v Novem 
mestu, kjer so bile najdene vse variante, z izjemo 
3c.i, kar govori v prid domnevi, da je bilo tu sre-
dišče izdelovanja jagod v obliki ovnove glavice. 
Odkrite so bile pravzaprav le v dveh gomilah – V 
in VI na Kapiteljski njivi. Po velikem številu ja-
god tipa 2 po drugi strani prednjači Valična vas, 
kar bi lahko bil pokazatelj, da je bil ta tip jagod 
izdelan kje drugje ali pa da je njihova distribucija 
potekala po drugih mrežah kot pri ostalih tipih 
jagod v obliki ovnove glavice.
15
  Triplastna očesca in nosnice brez toplotne obdelave 
imata jagodi iz groba V/40 na Kapiteljski njivi v Novem 
mestu (Dolenjski muzej P2503).
16
  Jagoda s štiriplastnimi očesci in nosnicami brez 
toplotne obdelave je znana iz Vinice – Stražni dol, gr. 
122 (Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology 
PM 40-77-40/10977).

112 Adrienne C. FRIE
V grobovih z več tovrstnimi jagodami skupaj 
so te, razen v treh primerih, različnih tipov. Dva 
ali več tipov skupaj je zastopanih v desetih gro-
bovih. Ta heterogeni zbir sestavlja več parov ali 
skupkov takih jagod, pri čemer ni jasno, ali je bila 
ta heterogenost zaželena in izkazuje različne mreže 
distribucije ali delavnice ali pa je šlo za njihovo 
postopno akumulacijo (npr. da so jih ženske z leti 
pridobile več, se pravi, starejše ko so bile ženske, 
več raznovrstnih jagod so zbrale), vendar bi bilo 
treba ta vzorec še preučiti.
Pomembnost ovac
Če izvzamemo jagode v obliki ovnove glavice, 
so druge upodobitve teh živali na Dolenjskem 
presenetljivo redke. Na Magdalenski gori je med 
rekonstruiranimi pridatki groba 2/b par samo-
strelnih fibul z zaključkom noge v obliki naprej 
gledajoče ovnove glavice, še ena podobna je na tem 
najdišču zabeležena v grobu X/48.
17
 Ovca/oven je 
upodobljen samo še na dveh bronastih situlah, ena 
izvira z Rebri na Vačah, iz groba 1881/1,
18
 druga s 
Kapiteljske njive v Novem mestu, iz groba III/12,
19
 
znan pa je tudi nenavaden keramični rhyton v 
podobi ovna iz groba IV/47 v Stični.
20
Ta maloštevilen korpus upodobitev ovac/ovnov, 
če odštejemo jagode, otežuje interpretacijo njiho-
vega pomena. Zdi se, da so imeli predvsem ovni 
ritualno funkcijo kot žrtvene živali. Na situli iz 
novomeškega groba III/12 je upodobljen moški z 
ovco na povodcu, podoben prizor je tudi na situli z 
V ač, na kateri ovnu sledi moški s sekiro. Drugačne 
vrste dokaz za žrtvovanje ovac so živalski ostanki 
drobnice v grobovih.
21
Poleg tega se ovnom pripisuje simbolni pomen 
plodnosti v železni dobi v jugovzhodnih Alpah. To 
domnevo utemeljuje Hrvoje Potrebica z najdbami 
steklenih in jantarnih jagod v obliki ovnove glavice 
v ženskih grobovih z območja Hrvaške ter oblikami 
posod v njihovi podobi, kot so askoi in druge.
22
 
V endar ne pojasni, čemu naj bi bili simbol plodnosti. 
Brez utemeljitve povezav med simboliko plodnosti in 
ženskami tvegamo redukcijo vloge žensk v tedanjih 
17
  Hencken 1978, 74, 260, Fig. 298; T ecco Hvala, Dular, 
Kocuvan 2004, 29, t. 9. 
18
  Laharnar, Turk 2017, 100–101, Fig. 111; Frie 2020; 
Murgelj 2020. 
19
  Križ 1997, 24–28, App. 3.
20
  Wells 1981, 66, 184, Fig. 101.
21
  Frie 2020.
22
  Potrebica 2012, 13–14. 
družbah zgolj na rojevanje.
23
 Četudi bi bili povezani 
z žensko rodnostjo, ostaja odprto vprašanje, zakaj 
prav ovce oziroma še posebno ovni.
Mitja Guštin in Pasko Kuzman v upodabljanju 
ovnov prav tako prepoznavata idejo plodnosti, a jo 
povezujeta z moško plodnostjo in rodnostjo čred, 
široko razprostranjenost upodobitev ovnov v južni 
Evropi pa z mitom o zlatem runu in argonavtih.
24
Omeniti kaže, da je v upodobitvah mnogo-
krat težko razločevati ovne od ovc ali skopljenih 
samcev. Ovni so najbolj izrazito prepoznavni po 
morfologiji rogov, v upodobitvah imajo nazaj 
pomaknjene rogove, ki se ovijajo okoli ušes oz. z 
naprej štrlečimi konci, medtem ko so rogovi pri 
ovcah sabljaste oblike in niso ukrivljeni naprej kot 
pri ovnih. Rogati so bili verjetno tudi skopljeni 
samci, vendar so jim rogovi rasli počasneje in niso 
bili tako robustni kot pri ovnih.
Povsod po jugovzhodni Evropi so imeli tako ovni 
kot ovce v tej dobi običajno rogove, a so očitno 
obstajale tudi variacije, kot kaže arheozoološki zbir 
z gradišča Cvinger nad Virom pri Stični, v katerem 
so bili prepoznani tudi neobičajni ostanki ovc brez 
rogov.
25
 Če rogovi niso ohranjeni, je prepoznavanje 
spola živali in razlikovanje med ovnom in skoplje-
nim samcem toliko težje, kar enako velja za njihove 
upodobitve. Številne ovce se v ikonografiji enači z 
ovni, tudi tu obravnavanim jagodam se enoznačno 
pripisuje oblika ovnove glavice.
Pogostost teh jagod se sklada z zastopanostjo 
ovc v arheozoološkem zbiru z dolenjskih utrjenih 
naselij iz halštatske dobe,
 26
 v okviru katerega so 
druga ali tretja najpogostejša živalska vrsta,
 27
 kar 
kaže na njihovo pomembnost v lokalni samooskrbi 
kot vira pridelave mesa, mleka, kože in volne.
Podrobnejši podatki o kostnih ostankih ovac so 
na voljo s prej omenjenega gradišča Cvinger nad 
Virom pri Stični. Čeprav v večini primerov ni bilo 
možno določiti biološkega spola, kar bi omogočilo 
uvid v demografsko sliko čred ter pomen molže in 
pridobivanja volne v odnosu do mesa, pa so bili 
ugotovljeni ovni in ovce pa tudi skopljeni samci.
28
 
23
  Conkey, Spector 1984; Wylie 2002, 185–199; Brum-
fiel 2006.
24
  Guštin, Kuzman (v pripravi).
25
  Bökönyi 1974; Bökönyi 1994, 197.
26
  Bartosiewicz 1991; 1996; Bökönyi 1994, 196.
27
  V arheozooloških analizah običajno ni mogoče raz-
ločevati kostnih ostankov ovc od kozjih (Boessneck 1969; 
Prummel, Frisch 1986; Zeder, Lapham 2010; Salvagno, 
Albarella 2017), zato je težko ugotoviti, ali drugo mesto 
pripada ovcam in tretje kozam ali obratno.
28
  Bökönyi 1994, 197.

113 Ženske, ovce in tekstil: družbeni pomen jagod v obliki ovnove glavice v starejši železni dobi na Slovenskem
Čeprav so ti živalski ostanki večidel opredeljeni v 
mešano kategorijo ovce/koze, pa analize starostnih 
profilov nakazujejo, da so ovce prvenstveno gojili za 
mleko in volno in manj za meso, saj so jih zaklali v 
starosti, ko so imele manjšo kulinarično vrednost.
29
Bistvena lastnost, po kateri se ovce razlikujejo 
od drugih domačih živali, je njihovo runo, ki se 
uporablja kot surovina za izdelavo tkanin. Ker so 
tkanine hitreje propadajoč material, so v arheoloških 
kontekstih redko izpričane in v interpretacijah teh 
morda celo prezrte.
30
Volna in ženske
Pomen izdelovanja tkanin v lokalnem gospodar-
stvu poudarjajo pogoste najdbe predilnih vretenc 
v grobnih in naselbinskih kontekstih in malo manj 
pogoste najdbe uteži za statve in šivank. Nedavne 
raziskave predrimskega tekstila kažejo, da so ljudje v 
starejši železni dobi poznali dokaj zapletene vzorce 
ter načine tkanja in barvanja tkanin.
31
Večina tekstilnih najdb iz tistega časa je znana 
iz Sredozemlja
32
 ter rudnikov soli v Hallstattu in 
Dürrnbergu.
33
 Bolj redki ostanki tkanin z območja 
Slovenije nakazujejo, da je bilo tudi tu prisotno zna-
nje izdelovanja visokokakovostnih tkanin. Nedavna 
analiza ohranjenega ostanka tkanine iz groba 1/6 v 
Pleški hosti na Molniku kaže na zelo fino tkanje v 
vezavi koničastega kepra; preja debeline 0,2 mm z 
gostoto od 28 do 32 niti na cm pa uvršča to tkanje 
med najfinejše izdelke na območju vzhodnohal-
štatske kulture.
34
 Drugi ohranjeni ostanki tkanin z 
območja Slovenije imajo gostoto od 20 do 22 niti na 
cm.
35
 Visoka kakovost na tem območju izdelanega 
tekstila in pogoste najdbe tkalskih in predilskih 
pripomočkov v naseljih in grobovih pričajo, da je 
bila izdelava tkanin pomembna lokalna obrt in da 
so tkanine imele v obtoku med elito bržkone tudi 
prestižno in tržno vrednost.
36
29
  Ib., 202; Green 1992, 11.
30
  Gillis, Nosch 2007.
31
  Bender Jørgensen 2005; Bichler et al. 2005; Gleba 
2007; 2009; Gleba, Mannering 2012; Rast-Eicher, Bender 
Jørgensen 2013; Grömer 2016; Grömer, Saliari 2018.
32
  Prim. Gleba 2008; 2014b.
33 
 Prim. Ryder 1990; Bichler et al. 2005; Stöllner 2005; 
Grömer, Stöllner 2011; Grömer 2012; Grömer et al. 2013; 
Grömer, Saliari 2018.
34
  Grömer, Tolar, Kostajnšek 2017.
35
  Bender Jørgensen 2005, kat. št. 98 in 114; Grömer, 
T olar, Kostajnšek 2017, 217–218; Grömer et al. 2018, 458–459.
36
  Nash Briggs 2003; Grömer 2017.
Da je bilo predenje in tkanje volne domena 
žensk, pričajo najdbe predilnih vretenc in tkalskih 
uteži pretežno v ženskih grobovih, kot tudi iko-
nografski motivi, znani z Apeninskega polotoka,
37
 
kot denimo na tronu iz groba 89 v Verucchiu, ki 
prikazuje predenje in tkanje,
38
 ali na bronastem 
zvoncu iz Bologne – Tomba degli Ori, okrašenem 
v stilu situlske umetnosti s prizori žensk visokega 
sloja, ki mikajo volno in jo predejo v niti ter tkejo 
na dvonadstropnih statvah (sl. 5).
39
 Predice in 
tkalke so prav tako upodobljene na lončeni posodi 
iz gomile 27 v Sopronu – Várhely na Madžarskem 
(sl. 6),
40
 medtem ko so takšne upodobitve v jugo-
vzhodni Evropi redke, kar še ne pomeni, da se tudi 
tamkajšnje ženske niso ukvarjale z izdelovanjem 
tekstila.
41
 Verjetno ne gre zgolj za upodabljanje 
preprostih ženskih opravil, temveč za dejavnost, 
ki je bila tesno povezana z izkazovanjem prestiža, 
obdarovanjem med elito in z diplomacijo, predsta-
vljala je nemara tudi pomembno ritualno dejavnost 
z bogatimi simbolnimi konotacijami.
42
 
Ta različna pričevanja kažejo na korelacijo med 
ženskami, tekstilom in ovcami. Kot je bilo že prej 
omenjeno, je bilo na območju dolenjske halštatske 
kulture najdenih 68 jagod v obliki ovnove glavice 
v 12 ženskih grobovih, h katerim lahko prištejemo 
še pet primerkov iz treh dvojnih grobov, ki so 
vsebovali moške in ženske pridatke, medtem ko so 
znani samo trije moški grobovi, v katerih je bilo 
skupno odkritih 12 takih jagod – enajst steklenih 
in ena bronasta. V skupnem seštevku jagod iz 
grobnih kontekstov predstavljajo moški grobovi 
zgolj 12 %, ženski pa 65 %. Tudi keramični rhyton 
v podobi ovna iz groba IV/47 v Stični naj bi bil 
pridan ženski osebi.
43
 Po drugi strani so iz gomil 
na Magdalenski gori in Grofovih njivah pri Drno-
vem znani živalski ostanki ovc/koz.
44
 V grobu 4 z 
Grofovih njiv je bila najdena kost zadnje okončine 
ovce/koze, od drugih pridatkov pa lončenina, tri 
37
  Bonfante 1985; Eibner 1986; 2005; Barber 1991; 
1994; Teržan 1996; 2004; Primas 2007; Gleba 2009; Huth, 
Kondziella 2017.
38
  Gleba 2008, 28–29; Gleba 2009, 69–70, Fig. 1.
39 
 Bonfante 1985, 280–281, 283; Bonfante 2011, 207, Fig. 2.
40
  Teržan 2004, 223, Fig. 2; Gleirscher 2009, 217, Fig. 
8; Bonfante 2011, 206, Fig. 1.
41
  Rebay-Salisbury 2016, 110–136, 223–225, 250.
42
  Npr. Eibner 1986; 2005; Teržan 1996; Rebay-Salis-
bury 2016, 223–225.
43
  Wells 1981, 66, 184, Fig. 101.
44
  Iz analize so izključeni tisti živalski ostanki, ki so 
bili natančneje opredeljeni kot kozji, vključeni pa so tisti, 
ki so opredeljeni kot ostanki drobnice (ovca/koza).

114 Adrienne C. FRIE
certoške fibule, dva obročka, del pasne spone in 
železna puščična ost, kar kaže na moški pokop.
45
 
Od dveh magdalenskogorskih grobov z živalskimi 
ostanki drobnice je grob 13/163
46
 verjetno ženski, 
medtem ko groba VII/29
47
 ni mogoče pripisati 
določenemu spolu. Grob 13/163 je vseboval še 
koščeno iglo in predilna vretenca, kar podkrepljuje 
pomenljivost povezave ovc z izdelavo tkanin. Pove-
zave med ženskami in živalskimi ostanki ovc/koz 
so zaznavne tudi v drugih sočasnih kulturah na 
območju srednje Evrope. Nils Müller-Scheeßel in 
Peter Trebsche ugotavljata, da se v Hallstattu med 
pridatki v ženskih grobovih pojavljajo ostanki ovc/
koz, v moških pa so bili pridani kosi svinjine.
48
Jagode v obliki ovnove glavice
in tekstilni pripomočki 
Da bi ovrednotili potencialno korelacijo med 
upodobitvami ovac in izdelovanjem tekstila, smo 
analizirali še prisotnost predilnih vretenc in tkalskih 
uteži med pridatki obravnavanih grobov (pril. 2). 
Devet grobov z jagodami v obliki ovnove glavice, to 
je tretjina primerov, je vsebovalo tudi pripomočke 
za izdelovanje tekstila – v osmih primerih predilna 
vretenca in v enem še dve uteži za statve. A je po-
menljivost 31-odstotne korelacije odvisna od tega, 
kako pogosto so v grobovih z obravnavanega območja 
pridani predilski/tkalski pripomočki. S tem namenom 
so bili podrobneje analizirani podatki z objavljenih 
izkopavanj na Kapiteljski njivi v Novem mestu,
49
 
ki je obsežno in dobro raziskano najdišče z veliko 
koncentracijo jagod v obliki ovnove glavice in kjer 
je bilo v bližini verjetno tudi proizvodno središče.
Skoraj četrtina grobov iz objavljenih gomil na 
Kapiteljski njivi vsebuje pripomočke za izdelavo 
tekstila (sl. 7). Potemtakem je 31-odstotni delež 
grobov z jagodami v obliki ovnove glavice in pre-
dilnimi/tkalskimi pripomočki celo nekoliko večji 
od pričakovanega, če med tema zvrstema predme-
tov ne bi bilo pomenljive korelacije. To povezavo 
podpirajo še drugi sočasni grobovi z upodobitvami 
ali živalskimi ostanki drobnice. Kot že omenjeno, 
je stiški grob IV/47 z rhytonom v podobi ovnove 
45 
 Pavlovič 2014, 493-4.
46
  T ecco Hvala, Dular, Kocuvan 2004, 78–79, t. 123–124; 
Tecco Hvala 2012, 31, 90, Fig. 36.
47
  Hencken 1978, 56; T ecco Hvala 2012, 30, 90, Fig. 36.
48
  Müller-Scheeßel, Trebsche 2007.
49
  Križ 1997; 2000; 2013.
glave vseboval predilno vretence,
50
 grob 13/163 s 
Prelog na Magdalenski gori z živalskimi ostanki 
ovce/koze je poleg tega vseboval še šivanko,
51
 pre-
dilno vretence je bilo tudi v grobu 1881/1 z Rebri 
na Vačah, v katerem je bila najdena bronasta situla 
z upodobitvijo ovna kot žrtvene živali poleg drugih 
pridatkov, značilnih sicer za moške pokope.
52
 Ne 
nazadnje sta na Špičastem hribu ležala jagoda v 
obliki ovnove glavice in predilno vretence v isti na-
selbinski plasti nedaleč narazen (sonda 1, plast 2).
53
Četudi ti primeri še ne dokazujejo pomenljivosti 
povezav med upodobitvami ovac/ovnov in izdelova-
njem tekstila, so zagotovo zelo sugestivni. V grobnih 
kontekstih so imele jagode v obliki ovnove glavice 
podobno funkcijo kot predilna vretenca – obe vrsti 
predmetov pa se implicitno navezujeta na volno in 
izdelavo tkanin
54
 ter glede na kontekste, opredeljene 
po spolu, implicirata tudi povezavo žensk s tekstilno 
obrtjo. Enakega pomena pa ni mogoče pripisati 
jagodam v obliki ovnove glavice, najdenim v treh 
moških grobovih – dveh na Kapiteljski njivi
55
 in 
enem z Brezja pri Trebelnem.
56
 Slednjemu je pri-
pisana bronasta taka jagoda, ki je bila sekundarno 
predelana iz zaključka noge figuralne fibule in morda 
ni imela enake simbolne konotacije kot stekleni 
primerki; tudi sicer je ta grobni inventar dokaj 
neobičajen. Jagodi v obliki ovnove glavice iz obeh 
moških grobov s Kapiteljske njive pa sta stekleni 
in podobni tistim iz ženskih grobov, kar bi kazalo 
na to, da take jagode niso omejene zgolj na ženski 
spol. Ob tem je možnih več razlag, kot denimo, da 
sta bila ta moška na neki način povezana z izdelo-
vanjem tekstila ali z ovcami in z njihovimi produkti 
ali pa da sta bili jagodi darilo njunih žalujočih žena. 
Ob tem je zanimivo, da gre za grobova z območja 
Novega mesta, kjer naj bi bilo izdelovalno središče 
teh jagod, zato je prav tako možna razlaga, da sta 
bila povezana z njihovo izdelavo.
57
50
  W ells 1981, 66, 184, Fig. 101. Ob tem kaže opomniti, 
da gre za grobno celoto iz Mecklenburške zbirke, ki jo je 
treba obravnavati s previdnostjo glede na burno preteklost 
te zbirke – glej Božič 2009; Tecco Hvala 2012, 28.
51
  T ecco Hvala, Dular, Kocuvan 2004, 78–79, t. 123–124.
52
  Božič 2015; Dular 2016, 92.
53
  Dular, Pavlin, Tecco Hvala 2003, 175.
54
  Sensu Peirce 2012: upodobitve ovac/ovnov posredno 
kažejo na volno in tekstil in so z njima logično povezane.
55
  Gr. VII/28 in XIV/41: Križ, Stipančić, Škedelj Petrič 
2009, 257; Križ 2013, 126, 128, 198–199, t. 52–53.
56
  Gr. VII/1: Kromer 1959, 61, t. 20; 21; Dular, Križ 
1990, 538.
57
  Dokazov za pripisovanje steklarske dejavnosti dolo-
čenemu spolu sicer ni na voljo.

115 Ženske, ovce in tekstil: družbeni pomen jagod v obliki ovnove glavice v starejši železni dobi na Slovenskem
Družbeni kontekst jagod
v obliki ovnove glavice
Ob predpostavki, da so bile jagode v obliki 
ovnove glavice označevalci tekstilne dejavnosti, se 
je ta funkcija potemtakem izkazovala prvenstveno 
skozi osebni nakit, kot so ogrlice. Te se pretežno 
pojavljajo v ženskih grobovih, v njih pa glavnino 
zoomorfnih upodobitev predstavljajo prav jagode v 
obliki ovnove glavice.
58
 Pojavljajo se v nizih skupaj 
z drugimi oblikami steklenih in jantarnih jagod 
(glej pril. 2), kar bi pomenilo, da so bile ogrlice 
nekakšno sredstvo/medij razkazovanja blagostanja. 
Nemara je bila prav vizualizacija bogastva namen 
barvitega okrasja, ki izkazuje uporabo raznobarv-
nega stekla in tudi dokaj zapletene steklarske 
postopke.
59
 Tudi oddaljeni izvor steklene mase bi 
lahko bil kazalnik bogastva in dostopa do mrež 
trgovanja/menjave na dolge razdalje.
60
 Temu prav 
tako pritrjujejo jagode iz jantarja, ki je tujerodna 
tvarina s svojskimi lastnostmi.
61
Jagode v obliki ovnove glavice se na obravna-
vanem območju na splošno pogosto pojavljajo 
skupaj z jantarnimi najdbami. Od 29 zanesljivih 
grobnih celot s tovrstnimi okrasnimi predmeti 
jih je kar 22 vsebovalo tudi jantar (76 %). Če je 
bilo posedovanje teh jagod povezano s funkcijo v 
elitni tekstilni dejavnosti, bi lahko sklepali, da je 
prav ta dejavnost omogočala ženskam dostop do 
uvoženih predmetov bodisi z neposrednim trgova-
njem s tekstilom bodisi prek mrež obdarovanja, po 
katerih je potekala izmenjava tekstilnih in drugih 
luksuznih izdelkov med elito.
Prav tako bi bilo možno, da je razkazovanje 
jagod v obliki ovnove glavice posredno ali ne-
posredno označevalo poreklo njihovih lastnic, 
razprostranjenost teh jagod pa bi tako kazala na 
mobilnost žensk med lokalnimi skupnostmi oziro-
ma na eksogamne poroke.
62
 V Novem mestu, kjer 
se domneva izdelovalno središče jagod v obliki 
ovnovih glavic, je opazna njihova koncentracija 
v gomilah V in VI na Kapiteljski njivi. Glede na 
to, da so gomile interpretirane kot posamezne 
družinsko-rodovne skupnosti,
63
 bi lahko v teh 
58
  Frie 2017, 195–198.
59
  Križ, Turk 2003; Križ, Guštin 2015.
60
  Helms 1993; Šmit, Laharnar, Turk 2020.
61
  Helms 1993; Grimaldi 1996, 144; Bakarić, Križ, 
Šoufek 2006, 13–21; Causey 2011, 37–41.
62
  Za diskusijo o železnodobni ženski mobilnosti v 
srednji Evropi glej Arnold 2005 in Oelze et al. 2012.
63
  Gabrovec 1966; 1987; T eržan 2008; T ecco Hvala 2012.
dveh novomeških gomilah videli središče širitve 
mreže družinskih povezav.
Razprostranjenost obravnavanih jagod odseva 
tesne vezi Novega mesta s Stično, Magdalensko 
goro, V alično vasjo in Vinkovim vrhom (glej sl. 2). 
Povezava med Novim mestom, Stično in Magda-
lensko goro se zdi logična, saj gre za tri največja 
in najpomembnejša železnodobna središča v tej 
regiji. Stroškovna analiza razdalj med dolenjskimi 
halštatskimi naselji je pokazala, da je glavna pot 
v smeri sever–jug potekala od Magdalenske gore 
do Stične in naprej proti Novemu mestu, druga 
pomembna pot v Novo mesto pa je vodila mimo 
Valične vasi in Vinkovega vrha.
64
 Teh najdišč na 
zahodnem delu Dolenjske pa niso povezovale le 
regionalne poti in geografska lega, temveč tudi 
njihov domnevno skupen obrambni sistem,
65
 o 
čemer naj bi pričali bojevniški grobovi in najdbe 
iz certoške in negovske stopnje na najdiščih vzdolž 
reke Krke do Savske ravni, kjer so bile morda 
nameščene celo vojaške posadke.
66
 Če to drži, bi 
lahko dodatno pripomoglo h krepitvi tesnih stikov 
med temi kraji in k menjavi izdelkov, tudi jagod v 
obliki ovnove glavice, bodisi kot trgovskega blaga 
bodisi z mobilnostjo žensk, ki so jih posedovale.
Iz vsega tega je razviden večplasten pomen jagod 
v obliki ovnove glavice v dolenjski halštatski kul-
turi, ki med drugim kažejo na ekonomske vidike 
identitete žensk v tedanji družbi in na njihovo 
vpetost prek tekstilnih izdelkov v trgovske/me-
njalne mreže na dolge razdalje.
67
 V halštatski dobi 
je elitna ali diplomatska izmenjava daril veljala za 
pomemben vidik ne le pri navezovanju družbenih 
stikov z oddaljenimi skupnostmi, temveč tudi kot 
izkazovanje bogastva in moči. V te mreže menjav 
na dolge razdalje, ki so jih domnevno nadzorovali 
moški, kar jim je dajalo tudi družbeno veljavo, 
pa niso bili vključeni zgolj importi, ki jim je bilo 
doslej v raziskavah namenjeno več pozornosti.
68
 
Pomembno vlogo so imeli tudi izvozni izdelki, 
kot so visokokakovostne tekstilije, ki so morda 
podeljevale poseben družbeni status in ekonomsko 
moč ženskam, ki so jih izdelovale.
64
  Dular, Tecco Hvala 2007, 191–196, 220–222.
65
  Zahvaljujem se Boštjanu Laharnarju, kustosu v 
Narodnem muzeju Slovenije, ki me je opozoril na povezave 
med temi najdišči.
66
  T ecco Hvala 2012, 142–143, 381; T ecco Hvala, Škvor 
Jernejčič 2017, 129–130.
67
  Nash Briggs 2003; Gleba 2009; 2014a; Bonfante 
2011; Grömer 2017.
68
  Frankenstein, Rowlands 1978; Gosden 1985; Dietler 
1990; Helms 1993; Arafat, Morgan 1994; Tacla 2008.

116 Adrienne C. FRIE
Zaključek
Če zaključimo, pomen upodobitev ovac/ovnov je 
verjetno polivalenten in osvetljuje vsaj dva pojava. 
Zooarheološki podatki iz naselbinskih kontekstov, 
ostanki tkanin in pripomočki za predenje in tkanje 
kažejo, da je bila izdelava tkanin pomemben vidik 
lokalnega gospodarstva za pokrivanje domačih 
potreb, medtem ko bi lahko bil visokokakovostni 
tekstil namenjen trgovanju in menjavi ali kot di-
plomatsko sredstvo. Korelacija med pripomočki 
za izdelovanje tekstila in ženskimi grobovi ter 
ikonografijo kaže, da je bila to prvenstveno ženska 
dejavnost z ekonomsko in simbolno vrednostjo, 
katere odsev je mogoče videti tudi v jagodah v 
obliki ovnove glavice, zastopanih v ženskem nakitu.
Po drugi strani je pomenljiva osrednja vloga 
Novega mesta v proizvodnji in distribuciji jagod 
v obliki ovnove glavice. Njihova razprostranjenost 
osvetljuje mrežo stikov in menjave med lokalnimi 
skupnostmi na zahodnem obrobju dolenjske hal-
štatske skupine v poslednjih fazah starejše železne 
dobe. Ključno vlogo v tej mreži pa so igrala večja 
naselja vzdolž poti sever–jug, to so Stična, Mag-
dalenska gora in Novo mesto.
Prav tako je možno, da so se jagode v obliki 
ovnove glavice razširile z mobilnostjo žensk. Morda 
Illustrations: Fig. 1: (photo: Borut Križ, Dolenjski muzej). – Fig. 4: (photo Uroš Acman, Narodni muzej Slovenije). – 
Fig. 5: (drawing: Vesna Svetličič, Narodni muzej Slovenije). – Fig. 6: (redrawn by author). 
Slikovno gradivo: Sl. 1: (foto: Borut Križ, Dolenjski muzej). – Sl. 4: (foto Uroš Acman, Narodni muzej Slovenije). – Sl. 5: 
(risba: Vesna Svetličič, Narodni muzej Slovenije). – Fig. 6: (preris: avtorica).
Adrienne C. Frie
University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh
Department of Anthropology, Global Religions, 
and Cultures
Harrington Hall 303b
800 Algoma Boulevard
Oshkosh, WI 54901
USA
friea@uwosh.edu 
so te skupnosti na zahodni meji Dolenjske krepile 
medsebojne stike s porokami oz. prek sorodstvenih 
vezi. Potemtakem bi v razprostranjenosti jagod v 
obliki ovnove glavice lahko videli odsev mreže 
mobilnosti žensk in njihovih družin. V družbeno-
ekonomskih omrežjih starejše železne dobe lahko 
ženskam pripišemo pomembno vlogo, ki smo jo v 
kontekstu dolenjske halštatske kulture poskušali 
osvetliti skozi prizmo jagod v obliki ovnove glavice.
Prevod: Sneža Tecco Hvala