Daughters of the Sun: Small Human Images in Megalithic Iberia, 4th-3rd Millennium BC

This volume offers the first comprehensive study dedicated to the small anthropomorphic figurines of Neolithic and Chalcolithic Iberia, exploring their form, symbolism, and role within wider megalithic traditions. Produced between the 4th and 3rd millennia BC, these portable images—often characterised by their striking “sun-eyed” motifs—accompanied the development of funerary monuments, domestic practices, and ritual life. Far from being marginal curiosities, they provide crucial evidence for understanding social identities, gender roles, craft specialisation, and long-distance cultural connectivity across Europe.

Through a combination of historiographic review, typological analysis, and contextual study, the authors trace the Iberian record from early discoveries in the nineteenth century to current debates. The work situates these figurines within broader traditions of European prehistoric art while highlighting their unique density and diversity in the Iberian Peninsula. By examining their manufacture, iconography, and circulation, the book demonstrates how these “daughters of the sun” shaped communal narratives of ancestry, inheritance, and ideology, making them a key reference point in the study of symbolic practices in Late Prehistory.