The Caergwrle Bowl

The Caergwrle Bowl is a unique object dating to the Middle Bronze Age, c. 1300 BC, originally manufactured from shale, tin and gold, and found in Caergwrle, Flintshire, north east Wales.[1] It is thought to represent a boat, with its applied gold decoration signifying oars and waves, and either sun discs or circular shields.[2] At both ends of the boat is a pair of oculi or 'eyes'.[3]

Construction and history

The Caergwrle Bowl may represent a mythological solar boat.[4] Similarities have been noted with contemporary miniature gold boats from Nors in Denmark, which also bear circular solar symbols, and with the later Broighter gold boat from Ireland.[5][6][7] The Caergwrle bowl has been compared to the earlier Nebra sky disc from Germany, which is thought to depict a solar boat, possibly in the form of a bowl.[8][9] The gold cape from Mold, which dates from the same period as the Nebra sky disc, was found near to Caergwrle.[10] Gold lunulae from the Early Bronze Age Bell Beaker culture, including examples from Wales, have also been interpreted as representations of solar boats.[11][12] The zig-zag 'waves' on the Caegwrle bowl further resemble decorations on some Bell Beaker bowls.

Depictions of oculi on boats are also known from ancient Greece.[3] In Ancient Greek poetry and art the 'Sun's vessel' is often depicted as a gold bowl, cup or cauldron that sails or flies across the sea.[13][14][15][16] Both Early Bronze Age gold cups and Late Bronze Age cauldrons from Britain and Ireland have been connected archaeologically and culturally to similar artefacts from Greece.[17][18]

Gold bowls from the Eberswalde Hoard in Germany and from the Nordic Bronze Age also bear circular solar symbols. The symbols on the Eberswalde bowls are thought to represent lunisolar calendars.[19] Similar symbols are found on the Berlin Gold Hat which are thought to represent a lunisolar calendar based on the 19-year Metonic cycle.[20][21]

Discovery and restoration

The incomplete bowl was found in 1823 by a workman digging a drain in a field below Caergwrle Castle. It was donated to the National Museum Wales in 1912, and sent to the British Museum for restoration where it was originally reconstructed from wax with the decoration attached by an adhesive. Since then the bowl has been rebuilt again as the first conservation failed to be stable.[22]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Caergwrle Bowl". National Museum Wales.
  2. ^ "Caergwrle Bowl". National Museum Wales.
  3. ^ a b Davis, Mary; Townsend, Annette (2009). "Modelling the Caergwrle Bowl: ancient, historic and modern methods". In Ambers, J.; Higgitt, C.; Harrison, L.; Saunders, D. (eds.). Holding it all together; ancient and modern approaches to joining, repair and consolidation. Archetype Publications. pp. 177–183.
  4. ^ Meller, Harald (2022). The World of the Nebra Sky Disc: The Caergwrle Ship. Halle State Museum of Prehistory.
  5. ^ "The Nebra Sky Disc: decoding a prehistoric vision of the cosmos". thepast.com. 2022. Archived from the original on 8 June 2023. Retrieved 14 September 2023. Miniature golden boats bearing sun symbols were found in Thy [Nors], Denmark, and can be dated to c. 1700-1100 BC
  6. ^ Meller, Harald (2022). The World of the Nebra Sky Disc: The Nors Boats. Halle State Museum of Prehistory.
  7. ^ Denford, G.T.; Farrell, A.W. (1980). "The Caergwrle Bowl—A possible prehistoric boat model". The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology. 9 (3): 183–192. doi:10.1111/j.1095-9270.1980.tb01296.x. Analogies exist between the concentric circles [on the Caergwrle bowl] and a large body of finds referred to in the literature as sun discs. Butler (1963) refers to "the golden sun disc, symbol of a Bronze Age cult or religion common to the British Isles, northern Europe and wider areas as well". … the concentric circles or 'solar discs' on the Nors Boats must be mentioned here. … Numerous recorded examples exist of sun symbols associated with boats in Scandinavian rock art. The Danish rock-carvings have been dated to the Early Bronze Age and the first period of the Late Bronze Age and so tie in with our dating evidence for the Caergwrle Bowl. This frequent association of sun symbols with boats favours an interpretation of the bowl as a boat model. ... The oval form of the bowl is its most boatlike feature. We know of no other Bronze Age pottery to parallel this. The closest parallel is the Broighter Boat, a gold boat model found at Broighter, Co. Derry, Ireland
  8. ^ Meller, Harald (2021). "The Nebra Sky Disc – astronomy and time determination as a source of power". Time is power. Who makes time?: 13th Archaeological Conference of Central Germany. Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte Halle (Saale). ISBN 978-3-948618-22-3. The celestial ship, which transports or is associated with the sun, finds its earliest known representation in Central Europe on the Nebra sky disc, before appearing sporadically in Northern Europe from around 1600 BC and then being attested in numerous examples in Northern and Central Europe until the late Bronze Age. This is particularly impressively illustrated by the more than one hundred golden boats from Nors, in the region of Nordjylland (Denmark), on some of which the golden solar disc is found in the form of concentric circles. The ship from Caergwrle, Flintshire County (Wales), already discovered in 1823, also bears concentric circles below the railing, which can be interpreted as shields or solar symbols. (Translated from German)
  9. ^ West, M.L. (2007). Indo-European Poetry and Myth. Oxford University Press. pp. 208–209. ISBN 9780199280759.
  10. ^ Meller, Harald (2022). The World of the Nebra Sky Disc: The Mold Cape. Halle State Museum of Prehistory.
  11. ^ Cahill, Mary (Spring 2015). "'Here comes the sun....: solar symbolism in Early Bronze Age Ireland'". Archaeology Ireland. 29 (1): 26–33.
  12. ^ "Early Bronze Age gold lunula". National Museum Wales.
  13. ^ West, M.L. (2007). Indo-European Poetry and Myth. Oxford University Press. pp. 208–209. ISBN 9780199280759.
  14. ^ "Hēraklēs sails across the sea in the golden cup-boat of the sun-god Helios". Harvard.edu. 2019.
  15. ^ Bilic, Tomislav (2021). "Early Identifications of Apollo with the Physical Sun in Ancient Greece Tradition and Interpretation". Mnemosyne. 74 (5): 709–736. doi:10.1163/1568525X-BJA10004. S2CID 225223550. SSRN 4114246. An early identification of Apollo with the sun appears in a specific iconographic representation known through only two examples on Attic vases. First, on a neck-amphora of the Ready Painter dated to the third quarter of the 6th century, Apollo with a cithara is shown in a tripod traveling on the sea, indicated by two dolphins. Another almost identical representation is depicted on a hydria of the Berlin Painter, dated to ca. 480. Here the sea is indicated with fish and an octopus, as well as two dolphins jumping over waves; the tripod is winged, and laureate Apollo carries a bow and quiver on his back and holds a lyre and plectrum. This seems like an interpretation of the sun's voyage in his golden cup, known to the Greeks as early as the second half of the 7th century, adapted to the iconography of Apollo. The artists who decorated these vases therefore seem to have identified Apollo with Helios
  16. ^ Massetti, Laura (2019). "Antimachus's Enigma: On Erytheia, the Latvian Sun-goddess and a Red Fish". Journal of Indo-European Studies. 47: 223–240. synchronic analysis of Greek passages dealing with the journey of Helios reveals that the poetic image of the golden 'cup, vessel' hints at the solar boat.
  17. ^ Gerloff, Sabine (1986). "Bronze Age Class A Cauldrons: Typology, Origins and Chronology". The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland. 116: 84–115. JSTOR 25508908.
  18. ^ Barrowclough, David (2014). Bronze Age Feasting Equipment: A contextual discussion of the Salle and East Anglian cauldrons and flesh-hooks. Red Dagger Press, Cambridge. pp. 1–17.
  19. ^ "Life and Belief During the Bronze Age" Neues Museum, Berlin". Retrieved 13 March 2022. Gold vessels in the Eberswalde hoard bear sun and circular symbols like those on the Berlin gold hat. Some of these contain calendrical information as well. The base of a bowl [from the Eberswalde hoard] is formed from ten, or counting the centre disc, eleven concentric circles topped by a band of 22 circular discs. This corresponds to the number of solar years (10+22=32) and together with the centre disc the number of lunar years (11+22=33) until the solar and lunar calendars are in alignment.
  20. ^ "Golden Ceremonial Hat ("Berlin Gold Hat")". Neues Museum Berlin.
  21. ^ Menghin, Wilfried (2008). "Zahlensymbolik und digitales Rechnersystem in der Ornamentik des Berliner Goldhutes". Acta Praehistorica et Archaeologica. 40: 157–169. doi:10.11588/apa.2008.0.71505.
  22. ^ Davis, Mary "Re-conserving the Caergwrle Bowl Archived 2012-03-06 at the Wayback Machine" Museum Wales Website Retrieved on 17 February 2010
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