Abstract
The deposit of objects discovered in 2004 at the heart of the Tintignac sanctuary consisted primarily of items with a martial character. These may have been offerings initially displayed within the sacred enclosure, either on the palisades marking its boundaries or on individualized trophies, before being relegated following the dismantling of the wooden structures. Functional weapons (swords and scabbards, spearheads, shields) and previously unknown individual equipment (breastplate discs, ostentatious helmets) were accompanied by other objects evoking the martial sphere (carnyces, standards, horse bits, etc.). These artifacts were deposited haphazardly in a pit alongside items usable in ritual contexts, suchas ceremonial vessels (cauldrons). They were intentionally deformed, disassembled, or broken before being buried during the final decades of the 1st century BC. Despite this treatment, the assemblage is chronologically heterogeneous, if not outright anachronistic, as the items can be dated variously from La Tène B2 to La Tène D, or even to the late first or early second Iron Age in the case of the disk cuirasses. Despite its chronological disparity, this unique assemblage brings together nearly everything known about La Tène-period weaponry and the Gallic warrior, offering a profound reflection on war and its associated imagery. This exceptional discovery, analyzed using modern investigative methods, provides a renewed perspective on the interactions between the material and spiritual dimensions of the Celtic warrior’s universe. The aim of this article is to explore the potential roles these realia might have played both before their arrival at the site and within the sanctuary itself.