Bronze cauldron

Iron Age AD 1-50
Found in a ditch at Spettisbury Rings, Dorset, England

Most Iron Age cauldrons were large - about the same size as Late Bronze Age cauldrons, for example the Battersea cauldron. This example from the Iron Age is half the size and would have been able to cook much less food. It was made from pieces of bronze sheet held together rivets, which have large decorative heads. The mouth of the cauldron was strengthened by rolling the bronze sheet around an iron ring.

Metal cauldrons like this are unusual and rare finds. Perhaps most people in Dorset at this time only cooked using pots and did not own a cauldron.

S. James and V. Rigby, Britain and the Celtic Iron Ag (London, The British Museum Press, 1997)

I.M. Stead, Celtic art in Britain before t (London, The British Museum Press, 1987, revised edition 1997)