Celtiberian fibula, 3rd-2nd century BC.

Celtiberian Fibula, III-II centuries BC.
Bronze.
Measurements: 6 x 7 x 1 cm.
The morphology of this Celtiberian fibula is closely reminiscent of the famous Lancia fibula preserved in the National Archaeological Museum of Madrid, so it clearly belongs to the characteristic repertoire of the pre-Roman goldsmithery of the northwest peninsular, where the Celtiberian elites developed between the second and first centuries BC an ornamental style of their own, marked by the use of bronze, iron and occasionally silver, in pieces intended both to ensure clothing and to express social rank. Like that of Lancia, this fibula combines a robust arched body, topped by a foot decorated with geometric and curvilinear motifs. Its compact appearance, the visual tension of the arch and the presence of incised or embossed details refer to an aesthetic language in which local traditions are fused with Mediterranean influences adopted through the commercial networks of the Iron Age.
The Lancia Fibula owes its name to the discovery in the ancient Asturian-Roman city of Lancia (León). It appeared in the context of excavations carried out in the 20th century and soon attracted attention for its technical quality and its decoration, where a repertoire of scrolls, spirals and curved elements that evoke amplified styles of European Celtic art stands out. It is interpreted as a prestige object belonging to an individual of high rank, possibly a prominent member of the Castro community at a time of intense contact and conflict with Rome. Its design reveals the local assimilation of contemporary Celtic artistic currents, reinterpreted through a peninsular sensibility that favored the monumentality of the arch and the linear dynamism of the ornamentation.
The fibula described here shares all these traits: typical of the late castreño art. Its similarity with the Lancia piece is not only formal, but also cultural: both illustrate the importance of fibulae as markers of identity, as prestige goods and as objects inserted in a complex symbolic system that articulated the social position of the wearer.