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A Bronze Mount from Mâcon: A Miniature Masterpiece of the Celtic Iron Age Reappraised

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2011

J. V. S. Megaw
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Extract

In 1872 there came into the possession of the British Museum a small bronze fitting. In length 71 mm. and cast in a single piece, one end is in the shape of a bovine head, the other being a ring set at right-angles to the head, the shank having the appearance when viewed from the side of being bent back on itself to complete the circle; the maximum outer diameter of this ring is 27 mm. The animal's brow is defined by a double ridge which forms the lip of a question-mark-shaped socket whose body is represented by the top of the fitting. The shank has a diamond cross-section swelling gently from the moulded lips of the ring up into the head. The ridge on the rear surface sweeps out towards the top giving the end a triangular section. The casting is technically not wholly successful; the base of the ring has a stress fracture, there is a weak point at the top of the ring, and the sockets in the head (recently filled in with candle-wax) and on the return foot of the ring seem to be due in part to faulty pouring into the mould; certainly in the latter case there seems never to have been any intention to form an inlay setting although there is another possible use (see p. 28 below). Otherwise it must be said that the surface of the bronze has a fine finish with little or no sign of subsequent tooling.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , March 1962 , pp. 24 - 29
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1962

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References

page 24 note 1 The fitting is now in the Department of British and Medieval Antiquities (reg. no. 1872. 3–29. 18) and I am grateful to Mr. J. W. Brailsford for affording me every assistance and allowing me to photograph and publish it. Mr. Brailsford also kindly lightened the burden of reading the proofs. The drawings of the piece included here are the work of Mr. P. R. Ward of the Oriental Antiquities Department.

page 24 note 2 Professor R. J. C. Atkinson has kindly examined the bronze and my remarks with regard to its manufacture are based on his observations.

page 24 note 3 Antiq. Journ. xxix (1949), 48, and pl. viiib.

page 24 note 4 U.J.A. 17 (1954), 94.

page 24 note 5 Early Celtic Art (1944) (here abbreviated ECA) particularly 97–103.

page 24 note 6 Watson's point of association with the Felmer-sham bull and cow, loc. cit.

page 25 note 1 The essential references are summarized by J. Filip, Keltové ve Středni Evropě (1956), pp. 400–1.

page 25 note 2 For illustrations: Maloměřice, Filip, op. cit., Obr. 15; Reinheim, Keller, J. in Neue Ausgrabungen in Deutschland (1958), p. 155Google Scholar, Abb. 5, and pp. 158–9; Waldalgesheim, ECA, no. 387; Le Catillon, ECA, no. 389.

page 25 note 3 Radnóti, A. in Germania, xxxvi (1958), 28–35Google Scholar.

page 25 note 4 Proc. B.A. xxvii (1941), 308; his percipient study on Celtic imagery is still the only thing in print. It is a topic to which I hope to return in the future.

page 25 note 5 Klindt-Jensen, O., Bronzekedelen fra Brå, Jysk Arkæologisk Selskabs Skrifter III (1953). pp. 68–70Google Scholar.

page 25 note 6 Here again see the Brå owls; Klindt-Jensen, of. cit., p. 69.

page 25 note 7 ECA, no. 176b.

page 25 note 8 For an interim report see Penninger, E. in Mitt. G. Salzburger Landeskunde, 100 (1960), 1–14Google Scholar, and Germania, xxxviii (1960); 353–63.

page 26 note 1 Mitt. G. Salxburger Landeskunde, 100, pp. 6–7 and Abb. 3.

page 26 note 2 For a better illustration of this point see K. Willvonseder, Keltische Kunst in Salzburg (1960), Abb. 9.

page 26 note 3 SirFox, Cyril, Pattern and Purpose: Early Celtic Art in Britain (1958), pp. 76Google Scholar, 120, and pl. 52b.

page 26 note 4 Two really striking and instructive illustrations are J. Poulík and W. and B. Forman, Prehistoric Art (n.d.), illust. 130, and Neustupný, J. et al. , Pravěk Českolslovenska (1960), Tab. 70.Google Scholar

page 26 note 5 ECA, no. 175, and telling analysis in Proc. B.A. xxvii, 307–8; for a better photograph of the terret see Varagnac, A. et al. , L'Art gaulois (1956), p. 253, pl. 22Google Scholar.

page 26 note 6 Klindt-Jensen, op. cit., pls. I and III.

page 26 note 7 Found by H. Wankel in 1871 and now in the Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna; see K. Absalon in I.L.N. (19th Oct. 1946), pp. 432–7 and (23rd Nov. 1946), p. 592 for description of the site. For the bull itself E. Beninger in IPEK 8(1932–3), 80–99.

page 26 note 8 Klindt-Jensen, op. cit., pp. 66–67, and Amandry, P. in The Aegean and the Near East: Studies presented to Hetty Goldman (1950), pp. 239–61Google Scholar. Maxwell-Hyslop, K. in Iraq, xviii (1956), pp. 150–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar, has stressed the probability of Urartian pieces arriving early in Italy and R. D. Barnett in Iraq, xii (1950), p. 39, the possibility of eighth-century refugee craftsmen; is there a hint here as to the introduction of such foreign beasts as our central European griffins?

page 26 note 9 Compare G. Kossack, Studien zum Symbolgut …, R.-G. Forschungen 20 (1954), Taf. 14, with Dollerup and other northern mounts: Voss, O. in Acta Archaeologica, xix (1948), 231–43Google Scholar, and figs. 19, 20, 24–31.

page 26 note 10 Op. cit., p. 60.

page 27 note 1 In P.S.A.S. xci (1957–8), 179–82; add for Britain the Welshpool knobbed horned bucket escutcheon, ? second century but still with lentoid eyes: Boon, G. C. in Antiq. Journ. xli (1961), 25–26, fig. 4 and pl. xGoogle Scholar; a very simple beast is that on the Rose Ash bowl mount: A. Fox in Antiq. Journ. xli, 186–98. From Manching comes a northern-looking twin-headed and knobbed L.T. III example: W. Krämer in Neue Ausgrabungen in Deutschland, 193, Abb. 14, and Antiquity, xxxiv (1960), 197 and fig. 6: 2. For knobbed horns see Jansé, O. in IPEK 10 (1935), 66–72Google Scholar.

page 27 note 2 See Clarke, R. R. in P.P.S. xx (1954), 42–44Google Scholar and pl. vi; I agree with his suggestion as to a first-century date but cannot see why a North Gaulish origin is favoured save that this is always resorted to a home for the problem children of the Northern Iron Age. De Laet prefers the second century for the torcs: The Low Countries (1958), pp. 165–6.

page 27 note 3 In a lecture to the Society of Antiquaries, 26th Jan. 1960.

page 27 note 4 Neumann, G. in Germania, xxxv (1957), 30 and Abb. 2:2.Google Scholar

page 27 note 5 Cyril Fox, op. cit., frontispiece.

page 27 note 6 See p. 26, n. 3 above.

page 27 note 7 Blanchet, A., Traité des monnaies gauloises (1905), pp. 232–6Google Scholar.

page 27 note 8 Wyss, R. in Antiquity, xxx (1956), 27–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar and pl. viiia.

page 27 note 9 Klindt-Jensen, in Aarboger (1952), pp. 209–11Google Scholar.

page 27 note 10 Ibid.in Acta Archaeologica, xx (1949), 143–4.

page 27 note 11 The Celts (1958), pp. 262–3 and Pls. 35–36; note the use of the meander on the ring, repeated on the edge of the Helden disc, whose single bull's head is indeed close to the German pair.

page 27 note 12 E. M. Jope in U.J.A. 17, 92–95.

page 27 note 13 See here Filip, op. cit., Tab. LXXVIII: 5.

page 27 note 14 e.g. ECA, nos. 289, 292, 298, and 306.

page 27 note 15 ECA, no. 279.

page 28 note 1 Basse Yutz, ECA, no. 381, and here particularly pl. 183; Cerrig-y-Drudion, Jope in Problems of the Iron Age …, Inst. Arch. Occ. Paper No. 11 (1961), p. 74 and pl. ivb; Witham, Cyril Fox, loc. cit.

page 28 note 2 ECA, no. 102.

page 28 note 3 A suggestion which I owe to Mr. T. G. E. Powell, see The Celts, pp. 81 and 163; Filip, , Keltská civilisace a jeji dědictvi (1960), pp. 58–62Google Scholar.

page 28 note 4 Livy xxxvi, 40.

page 28 note 5 ECA, nos. 151–2; Jacobsthal's article to which he refers loc. cit. did appear: in ΕΠΙΤϒΜΒΙΟΝ ΧΡΗΣΤΟϒ ΤΣΟϒΝΤ (1940), pp. 391–400. For the Mezek tombs themselves see Filow, B. in Actas y Memorias de la Sociedad Espanñola …, xxii (1947), 21–33Google Scholar.

page 28 note 6 Klindt-Jensen, Bronzekedelen fra Brå, pp. 68–72.

page 28 note 7 Mr. Brailsford has independently come to the same conclusion.

page 29 note 1 A. Fox, loc. Cit.; for a summary of the prehistoric archaeology of drinking sets see Piggott, Stuart in Antiquity, xxxiii (1959), 122–3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 29 note 2 As a postscript on later bulls one may note that Krämer in discussing the bronze bull figurine from Weltenburg prefers a La Tène III date for Trichtingen, Germania xxviii (1944–50),210–13. Krämer also refers to Plutarch's mention of the bronze bull raised by the Cimbri, cf. Marius, 23.