Object Details

From:NHerts

Name/TitleBronze cauldron with an iron rim and handles

About this objectBronze and iron cauldron. The iron rim is broken into two large and two shorter pieces, its original diameter being about 680 mm, while the section is 22 mm square and 28 mm wide. The rim has a squarish section set diagonally, sharply angled at the top and sides but more rounded a the bottom. The bronze collar of the cauldron penetrates the rim to a depth of about 8 mm. Most of the collar has become detached from the rim and was found broken and flattened, the break happening in most cases where it exits the rim.
There are two iron ring handles, each 180-185 mm in external diameter and roughly circular in section, 20-23 mm in diameter. Each handle pivots in an attachment consisting of three linked semicircular iron bars. At the top, the outer bars pass through the bronze collar of the cauldron and then through an iron back-plate where there ends are secured like river-heads; at the bottom, the central bar is secured in the same way. The handle attachments are about 55 mm wide and 50 mm deep. The back plate on the better preserved of the handles is 77 mm deep and about 68 mm wide, with a marked waist and projects above the handle attachment by about 10 mm. That on the other handle did not project above the line of the attachment.
The bronze collar is 150 mm deep below its junction with the iron rim and is composed of two sheets. These join vertically in lines under the two handles, but are now in several pieces. The joint under the better preserved handle has an overlap of about 18 mm and a line of three rivets at 32 mm intervals; the rivets have large plat heads 11 mm in diameter on the inside, but on the outside, the shank has been hammered over to a diameter of about 6 mm. Below, on the line of the dome-headed rivets that secure the base to the collar, another flat-headed rivet lust just off the line of the others; above this, there is a gap of 52 mm without rivets. Under the less well preserved handle, the two sheets of the collar overlap by about 10 mm and the two surviving rivets are 35 mm apart. The thickness of the collar varies from 0.4 to 0.8 mm and the inside bears clear marks made by a planishing hammer.
At either side of the handle attachments, a bronze know has been riveted into position. The knobs have waisted heads 19 mm high and 20 mm in diameter above a short shank 6 mm long. Each has a domed washer on the underside. They are 110 mm apart and were clearly intended as stops to prevent the heavy iron handles from crashing against the sides of the cauldron and denting it.
At the bottom, the collar overlaps the main body of the cauldron by 20-25 mm; the two parts are joined by large dome-headed rivets whose heads are about 16 mm in diameter and 10 mm high, with shanks 2.5 to 3 mm in diameter. Several of the rivet-holes have been double-struck. The base seems to have been made in a single piece as there are no other rivets or joins, although the remains are very fragmentary. The thickness of the base varies from 0.4 to 0.8 mm and it was too crushed to determine the original depth.
Cauldrons of this type are found in Britain and north-western Europe and belong to the very end of the Middle Iron Age, the third and second centuries BD, and into the Late Iron Age, although the later examples lack domed rivets.
The cauldron was part of a burial dating from about 100 BC, found at The Tene in Baldock, during road construction in December 1967. The grave that contained it was almost circular, 1.6 m in diameter but cut no more than 0.16 m below 20th-century ground level, strongly suggesting that there war originally a mound covering it.
Hertfordshire Historic Environment Record entry.

Date Made150-100 BC

PeriodMiddle Iron Age (400-100 BC)

Medium and MaterialsMetal | Copper alloy
Metal | Iron

Named CollectionLetchworth Museum

Credit LineBaldock Urban District Council/Hertfordshire County Council

Object TypeCauldron

Object number1987.14.202

Copyright LicenceAll rights reserved