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The Cerrig-y-Drudion ‘Hanging Bowl’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2011

Summary

A re-examination of the fragmentary remains from Cerrig-y-Drudion suggests that they belonged to a pair of similar vessels which may have been lids but were certainly not hanging bowls. The recognition of a mistake in the previous reconstruction allows some of the pieces to be rearranged to produce a more or less symmetrical reconstruction of the design on one of Britain's most important pieces of Early Celtic art.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1982

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References

Notes

1 Smith, R. A., Antiq. J. vi (1926), 276–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Smith's drawing has been reproduced many times, e.g. Jacobsthal, P., Early Celtic Art (1944), pl. 279, no. 471Google Scholar, and Fox, Sir Cyril, Pattern and Purpose (1958), p. 2, fig. 1.Google Scholar Photographs have been published by Jope, E. M. in Frere, S. S., ed., Problems of the Iron Age in Southern Britain (1958), pl. ivbGoogle Scholar, and Megaw, J. V. S., Art of the European Iron Age (1970), no. 114.Google Scholar

2 Stead, I. M., The Gauls (1981), no. 255Google Scholar. The co-operation of the National Museum of Wales, through the good offices of G. C. Boon, is gratefully acknowledged.

3 R. A. Smith, op. cit., 276.

4 Davies, Ellis, The Prehistoric and Roman Remains of Denbighshire (1929), p. 85.Google Scholar

5 In a very similar position on the Besançon flagon, and elsewhere in the filling of designs on scabbards in Ireland, France and Hungary. Dr. Barry Raftery is currently tracking this feature throughout Europe.

6 Frey, O.-H., Hamburger Beiträge, iv (1974), 150; P. Jacobsthal, op. cit., p. 95, called them ‘acanthus half-palmettes’; ‘paired split acanthus leaves’ is the term suggested by Professor Jope, who kindly read a draft of this text and made several improvements to it.Google Scholar

7 The two surviving British Iron Age helmets are oddities, and the only examples recorded from Wales—the lost helmets from Ogmore Down—are particularly curious forms (Grant-Francis, G., Archaeologia, xliii (1871), 553–6).Google Scholar

8 Kilian, L., Trierer Zeitschrift, xxiv (19561958), 62–5, pl. 19.Google Scholar

9 Kromer, K., Das Gräberfeld von Hallstatt (1959), e.g. pl. 113, no. 2—there are several vessels of this type from Hallstatt.Google Scholar

10 P. Jacobsthal, op. cit., pp. 95 and 154, revised his original view to ‘made in Britain by an immigrant Gaulish artisan’ (p. 211); H. N. Savory moved in the opposite direction, from the ‘immigrant craftsman’ theory (Bull. Board of Celtic Studies, xx (1964), 470–71) towards favouring its acceptance as an import from Armorica (Excavations at Dinorben, 1965–9 (1971), pp. 66–7); E. M. Jope and P. Jacobsthal, Early Celtic Art in the British Isles (forthcoming), p. 34, conclude that it is an insular product because of the hatched background.Google Scholar

11 Found at Kerné, Quiberon; information from Dr. Frank Schwappach.

12 Bognár-Kutzián, I., Alba Regia, xiv (1975), 38, pl. 1.Google Scholar

13 P. Jacobsthal, op. cit., nos. 381 and 389.

14 Delor, J.-P. and Pellet, C., Rev. Arch. de l'Est et du Centre-Est, xxxi (1980), 2932, figs. 14 and 15. There are late Hallstatt brooches from the grave.Google Scholar

15 The writer is grateful to Miss Judith Swaddling for discussion on this point.

16 There are a couple of La Tène I examples from Champagne: Chouilly (‘Les Jogasses’), Favret, P.-M., Préhistoire, v (1936), fig. 57, no. 3Google Scholar, and Hatt, J.-J. and Roualet, P., Rev. Arch, de l'Est et du Centre-Est, xxxiii (1981), pl. xxix, no. 1393Google Scholar; Loges, Les Grandes, Bérard, L. and Favret, P.-M., Bull. Arch. (1936), 388–9, fig. 16.Google Scholar

17 e.g. P. Jacobsthal, op. cit., nos. 189 and 136; Frey, O.-H., ‘Annales littéraires de l'université de Besançon’, Archéologie, ii (1955)—the latter featuring (pl. VIII)Google Scholar, the three dots in a very similar position at the ends of the fillings of the lotus leaves (see note 5, and pl. XXIVb for the three dots on the Cerrig-y-Drudion fragments).

18 Savory, H. N., op. cit. (1964), 454–5Google Scholar, and 469; Megaw, J. V. S., op. cit., p. 98Google Scholar; Jope, E. M. and Jacobsthal, P., op. cit., p. 34.Google Scholar

19 Jope, E. M., Proc. Prehist. Soc. xxvii (1961), pl. XXIV.Google Scholar

20 For the method see Archaeometry, xviii (1976), 1937.Google Scholar