My mother was a tailor... Women from the Middle La Tène culture cemetery Zvonimirovo-Veliko polje who made the spinning threads and clothes

Abstract

The Zvonimirovo-Veliko polje cemetery, located in the Middle Drava valley, close to Virovitica, is the only systematically researched cemetery of the La Tène culture in northern Croatia. On the basis of its finds, it can be dated to LT C2 phase. Aside from the warrior’s graves, there are notable female burials with distinctive costume and jewellery and food offerings. The article deals with the female graves LT 90 and LT 91 contained particular everyday objects such as iron knives, ceramic spindle-whorls and iron sewing needles. These items indicate everyday household work done by women. An exceptional find in the grave LT 91 is an iron pin with a zoomorphic head. Similar pin was found in the Kapiteljska njiva cemetery at Novo mesto, also in a female grave dated to LT C1. Iron and bronze pins with a curved head and smooth or twisted body are known from the Late La Tène settlements in Central and Eastern Europe. Similar pins appeared toward the end of the 2nd century BC in the cemeteries along the Baltic Sea. They are also known from the Roman period contexts, mostly from settlements and rarely from female graves, and only exceptionally in male graves. The pin from the grave LT 91 in Zvonimirovo, together with a spindle whorl, could be associated with spinning as a spindle-hook. The finds associated with the production of spinning threads and clothes in the female graves in Zvonimirovo are characteristic of a certain gender and age. At the symbolic level they show the roles of women in the family and the community