La diosa de Galera, fuente de aceite perfumado

Abstract

The Goddess from Galera was found in a tomb of the Iberian cemetery of Tutugi (Granada) dated c. 450 BC with a structure similar to the royal tomb of Pozo Moro. The Galera-Goddess is an alabaster sculpture dated in the VIII BC. from a Syrio-Phoenician workshop. It was a sacred vase for perfumed oil, devoted to the ritual anoint of god sculptures and sacred kings. The vase represents the goddess Astart, seated in her throne between two sphinxes and conceived as the Tree of Life. From her breasts come out the sacred perfumed oil which give life to the King, protect him magically and give him the Everlasting Life, as shown in oriental texts and iconography. Thereafter, it was not a keimélion brought trough Phoenicians trade, but a sacred object arrived to the Far West from a Nord-Syrian royal context trough the koiné of the Phoenician colonisation. As it was found in an Iberian royal tomb, it documents the origin of the ideology and ritual from the Tartessian and Iberian kings in the Orientalaizing Period.