 Good afternoon. First of all, I would like to thank the organizers of this session, especially to Mireya Lopepetran that encouraged to present this communication, but also because this presentation is part of a large research project on Iberia and Tarakota from a specific site in eastern Iberia in which Mireya took part and we shared and take some of the ideas to present how according to this session we can observe the iconography, we can observe the Iberian art, not only as a stylistic, iconographic, visual language but going in deep to understand other social aspects and ritual aspects that are important to construct the idea of this Iberian society, Iberian culture that never have understandable text. So we need to recompose the history, the archeology of the Iberian iron age through archeological material record, especially with specific elements like iconography. Well, first of all the Iberians. We used to use the word Iberia for the Iberian peninsula but in archeological, historical studies we talk about Iberian culture or Iberian iron age to mention, to talk about local groups that were placed in the Mediterranean part of the Iberian peninsula and actually our division that is not so shame but in the historiographical tradition divide the Iberian peninsula during the Iron Age in two large areas, the Enduro-European Celtic area and the Mediterranean Iberian area in part for linguistic reasons there are two main groups with other groups in southern Iberia and so on in part for the cultural influences in the Celtic, in the European area the most important influences are coming from western Europe, the Halstath and Latin cultures and in the Iberian area the most important influences are coming from the Mediterranean, from the Phoenician culture first by the Greeks and Romans. So this is the Iberian Iron Age area in which we place different social groups, local territorial groups in the shape of city-state or regional organization in which the most important urban settlements are organizing the territory it's not a unified, polite, but different small polities in this area. Well, in this Iberian Iron Age we know that the most important legal practices like in other cultures in the Mediterranean are the language of the offerings and we know a lot of the ritual symbols and religious practices through the offerings placed in different sanctuaries of all places, some in caves, some in monumental buildings and one important element is that these offerings, these motifs in a specific moment take the form of iconography or items or motifs with specific iconography and this iconography is very important to understand how the Iberians construct their own image so in this case, like in other cultures iconography images of these cultures most focus on ritual elements or religious elements and specific motifs are representing the own Iberians, the people and of course are elite groups that use these images, most of them are the highest status persons but through this iconography we can obtain most of the image of how they can construct local identities and how to express the power through some elements in gestures and dressing and these elements and one important thing is that these motifs in the moment that they acquire the personal aspect are constructing different materials according to regional tradition, for example in the higher Andalusia in the upper Guadalquivir Valley, in the most important sanctuaries in the upper Guadalquivir Valley the most frequent are bronze figurines, in the inland Meseta in the area of Alpacete it's well known as one of the biggest sanctuaries that were used in stone sculptures and in the Mediterranean coast in our case study that I'm going to present are very frequent the sanctuaries but in terracotta most of the scholars understand this use of terracotta because cultural influences of the Punic War because they are dated in the moment of the Punic, Cartagena influence is very strong in the southern part of the Mediterranean well, with this in mind that there are different regions with uses of specific motifs as main representation we studied the Iberian Sanctuary of La Serreta that is one of the most important Iberian erroneous sanctuaries in the southern part of the Iberian Peninsula and has a long tradition it starts suddenly in the third century BC and the moment in which the socio-political organization changed from a different politic to aggregation in one large urban center La Serreta that according to this socio-political process needs the legitimation with the powerful sanctuaries that link the different populations with this territorial place but from the Iberian period after the Roman conquest the power of this cool place shaping the territory, shaping the landscape was so powerful that never was destroyed and remains during more than six centuries after the disappearance of the Iberian culture and growing in Roman times but was changing the motifs according to the new cultural influences by the Romans. Here we can look at the placement of the on the hilltop is a Sanctuary on hilltop that presiding and controlling the surrounding territory well, here in the Iberian Sanctuary of La Serreta during the Iberian period there is possibly the largest collection of motifs with more than 430 figures possibly something more because it was excavated and the collection was taken from the archaeological site in the early 20th century with known very good conditions of excavation but anyway it's one of the most important collection in numbers there are different types of terracotta figurines some of them are small naturalistic figurines representing heads or small figurines like in this case some other are groups, some other are a schematic type made not by mold but with handmade schematic way others are female head shaped burners that is a very typical object in the whole Mediterranean especially in the central part and the western part of the Mediterranean but from this different kind of figurines we can concentrate in what we named terracotta heads that is a kind of figurines very similar to the female terracotta head shaped burners but with clear differences it's from our collection we have only fragments, fragmentary evidence because there are figurines with 25 cm that have been fragmented through the past of the time after the creation of the deposit we reconstruct more than 82 figures according to faces and counting noses and these elements like a number of minimum elements like in other counting of pottery well the construction of these figurines is very complex because it's a mixed manufacturing with turning the face molded and finishing adding elements like jewellery and decoration, garnish, hair rings and so on that are representing in our opinion high status individuals but something more the most close parallel are the terracotta heads from Iberian Edetania another Iberian group 100 km north from our suggestion area with the same chronology and found with a specific context in domestic shrines but also in territorial sanctuaries and has been related to ancestral cult because there are apparitions in specific rooms in the houses where there are heads and evidences of commensality and another recall activity in the domestic sphere but also we have other parallels and different figures in southeastern Iberia but also in other areas here we have some examples but in our opinion the most clear parallel is that he shaped terracottas in other neighboring region in Iberia well what is important here is take into account that we know this female incense burner that is related to the goddess Demeter and Tanit another Mediterranean idea of divinization that used to be a very uniform element without decoration and very standardized production from this corresponding pieces these burners that arrived to the southern part of the Mediterranean peninsula more or less in the early 3rd century of the transition to the 4th to 3rd century coming from the central part of the Mediterranean during the late 3rd century and 2nd century were adopted and transformed by the Iberia society so we can talk about a certain hybridization of active creation adoption of this element in part to create the incense burner named Wabamartite that is an escapatization and simplification of the previous burners with few elements the most important elements that are important for the Iberia people but on the other side the terracotta heads that we are talking about are sharing the same shape the form but adding elements that are important for the Iberians for example are personalized with high status symbols like the aderms, earrings, necklaces, ties that are present in other iconographies for example in the bindings of the Etienne base we can found the necklace for ladies and the ties for young boys of course we have the same earrings that we have found in tomes that are very well represented in these terracotta heads for example the diadems in local coins like these coins in one of the cities in the area so in our opinion they are a personalization of this standardized figure that is the terracotta board name because they are creating a mix between divinity like is the female divinity but adding elements that are actual persons so we can relate that to the creation of divinization of families the creation of ancestors especially related to the uses in domestic shrines so here we can use actively the iconography of the Iberian items to understand how Iberians not only copy or not only receive the Mediterranean influences but transform and adapt to their own purposes and it's possible relate to this cult that has been misunderstood in Iberian studies that is the cult of ancestors of the powerful houses and powerful families and in the arena of differentiation and competition in the ritual sphere between these powerful families and of course creating an elite identity sharing common symbols of high status and adding understanding to how to create power between Iberians and between elite groups is some idea that we need to develop in the future but thank you very much to listen about that