- Museum number
- 1913,0717.10
- Description
-
Bronze hanging bowl strip, curved; row of circles separated by opposed pairs of triangles once enamelled with glass 'enamel', median line; plain ends.
- Production date
- 550 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Length: 13.20 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- Bruce-Mitford 2005
Discovery and history: Found c. 1851 in a shallow warrior's grave with associated sword and knife (1913,0717.1-2). Purchased by the British Museum in 1913. The bowl fragments were found accidentally while planting trees on the Wedgwood estate in about 1850. Fifty years and more later the then owner of the land, Lawrence Wedgwood, FRGS, who had been present at the discovery, wrote a short report of the find, published in 1906. A contemporary scale plan and section of the grave was also given, drawn by Godfrey Wedgwood, Lawrence's brother (Wedgwood 1906, 148).
The site should be precisely locatable. Miss Amy Wedgwood caused an iron fence to be erected round the site of the grave to mark its position. An admirable account was provided by Romilly Allen in his ‘Archaeologia’ paper (Allen 1898, 44-6). Allen was the cousin of Lawrence Wedgwood who had excavated the burial.
Documents concerning the discovery are filed in the British Museum (Dept of Medieval and Later Antiquities).
Description: Remains of an A rim band bowl, comprising three enamelled hook-escutcheons (1913,0717.7-9), one with part of its frame; one enamelled basal escutcheon (it is not clear whether this was inside or outside the bowl) (1913,0717.5); bowl fragments adding up to most of the rim of the bowl; and also two of the applied bands, with a small portion of a third, all enamelled (1913,0717.10-12). No other remains of the bowl survive, though the base escutcheon is still seated in part of the bowl bottom (1913,0717.4).
The hook-escutcheons: The hooks are cast with the escutcheons. They terminate in animal or bird heads of a simple moulded type. The ears are indicated by projecting wings or flanges. A spur beneath the lower jaw, not the usual step or rebate that many bowls of A type, and all B bowls show, seems to mark the limit of the hook's overlap or contact with the bowl rim. The base of the hook is spread out apron-fashion on the top of the escutcheon, encroaching on the circular ornamental field. The arc of the hook-base stands up about 2 mm above the escutcheon surface. Round the curved edge of this apron is a line of close-set punched dots. On the back of the neck of the hook is a strange engraved device consisting of a block of eight squares divided by a vertical groove which projects at top and bottom.
The hook-escutcheons carried frames that are straight and plain externally, but have an inturned bevel which is decorated with close-set transverse grooves. The overhang of this bevel served to retain the edge of the escutcheon. The frames end at either side of the hook and the ends are plain and recessed to allow for the raised fan at the base of the hook. The basal ring or open escutcheon also had a frame. This was plain and vertical and had no inner step or rebate.
The main hook-escutcheon design is a flaccid swastika-like four-limbed rotary pattern. Triangular fill-up shapes appear reserved in the enamel field. The broad central portion from which the four curved arms emerge has in each case an open circle at the centre containing a single piece of inset millefiori. The three millefiori insets are different, cut from quite different rods. One consists of nine squares of blue-and-white in chess-board manner. The second has sixteen blue-and-white squares, both inlays are distorted and irregular. The third is of a radial pattern in orange and yellow matched only on the Sutton Hoo (1) bowl (1939,1010.110). This inlay is more firmly executed and under control (one of the others was described by Kendrick 1932,174, as 'coarse and badly fired'). The sixteen-square inlay resembles the millefiori used in the Sutton Hoo gold jewellery. No suspension rings were seen by the finders.
Bowl form: Fig. 299 shows the surviving rim above the carination; this latter must have been carried considerably lower than in the standard Irchester-type of bowl. The rim top is clubbed, flat on top with spread to the interior, with a slight external swelling or projection. As for basal shape, Allen (1895, 47) said that it was 'a slight concavity, not nearly so pronounced as in the others'. The shape is to some extent confirmed by the fragment of the base remaining in the British Museum: the base configuration as described by Romilly Allen does seem to be that of the Irchester-type bowls, but it must have been flat enough to carry the base-escutcheon (Fig. 299), which has a diameter of 66 mm.
Both R. A. Smith (1907-9) and Kendrick (1932, 163 and 174) describe the bowl as cast, and Smith also calls it 'heavier than usual' and 'turned on a lathe'. Both are following the excellent account of the bowl in Allen (1898, 46). In the light of experience none of these statements seem valid. The bowl was raised and finished in the usual way. That the bowl was cast and finished off on a lathe is repeated in Laing (1990, 44) but this is not thought to be correct.
Bands: There were at least three applied bands. Their curved length is in each case 140 mm (118 mm across the chord of their curves). There was no added basal ring. These bands were soldered onto the shoulder of the bowl between, and joining the three hook-escutcheons. Calculated on escutcheons with frames each measuring 60 mm in diameter, this should give a bowl circumference at escutcheon level of 600 mm. Allen gave the bowl diameter as 9 in. (i.e. c.230 mm), apparently meaning the maximum diameter, at carination or escutcheon level. The curvature of the bands matches that of the rim. The bands are cut across obliquely or bevelled off at either end, on the same side of the strip. The purpose of this must be so that the strips, at carination level, could fit against the upper curves of the escutcheon frames.
The bands are decorated from end to end with a line of seventeen dot-and-circle motifs between raised borders and with a central groove linking each circle to the next, but not continued beyond the two end circles, and giving the effect of a chain. The sunken fields were filled with enamel.
Basal escutcheon: This consists of an open ring, 17 mm wide, with raised borders enclosing a running pattern of spaced alternately inward- and outward-facing pelta outlines linked to, and merged, with the adjoining pelta by S-shaped lines of the same weight. The design was said by Kendrick to be precisely the same as that on a piece of authentic early Iron Age terret from Bapchild in Kent, which he illustrated (Kendrick 1932, pl.v.3).
Associated finds: The grave also contained a long probably double-edged sword (1913,0717.1) and a knife (1913,0717.2). No skeleton was found. No other grave was uncovered during the rest of the tree planting.
If it is accepted that this burial was a barrow burial, as no other graves were found in the surrounding area, a date in the second half of the seventh century may be suggested for this deposition. The sword was a typical Saxon type, with 2 in. wide blade, and the knife of scramasax form.
Discussion: As an A rim bowl, of evidently early shape (with Irchester-type bowl features, see Group 1, no. 13), with what Kendrick classed as 'Ultimate la Tene' ornament, this might be thought of as one of the earlier bowls. It is also a band bowl, though of the simplest kind (no basal ring or vertical bands and no appliqués) and shows affinities with the Hildersham bowl (University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge: 150.D.11). The firm, simplified modelling of the hooks also matches the modelling of the 'early' zoomorphic hooks of the Wilton bowl (South Wiltshire Museum, Salisbury (on permanent loan from the Earl and Countess of Pembroke)), and the Sutton Hoo (1) bowl's boar's heads (1939,1010.110). It is one of the ten bowls that show millefiori decoration.
Bibliography. Jewitt, L.F.W., 1870, ‘Grave-Mounds and their Contents: A Manual of Archaeology: As Exemplified in the Burials of the Celtic, the Romano-British, and the Anglo-Saxon Periods’, London, figs. 434-5; Allen, J.R., 1898, Metal bowls of the late-Celtic and Anglo-Saxon periods, ‘Archaeologia’ 56.1, 44;
Wedgwood, L., 1906, Notes on Celtic remains found at the Upper House at Barlaston, ‘Transactions of the North Staffordshire Field Club’ 40, 148-50, pls. 5-6; Smith, R.A., 1907-9, Bronze hanging bowls and enamelled mounts, ‘Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London’ 2nd ser., XXII, 67; Kendrick, D.T., 1932, British hanging-bowls, ‘Antiquity’ 6, 173; Leeds, E.T., 1933, ‘Celtic Ornament in the British Isles down to AD 700’, Oxford, 147, fig. 39c; Henry, F. 1936. Hanging-bowls, ‘Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland’ LXVI, 237, pls. XXXV.l and 6; Kilbride-Jones, H.E., 1936-7, A bronze hanging bowl from Castle Tioram, Moidart: and a suggested absolute chronology for British hanging-bowls, ‘Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland’ 71, 233, fig. 12.2; Kendrick, D.T., 1938, ‘Anglo-Saxon Art to AD 900’, London, 54, pl. XXVI.5; Henry, F., 1940, ‘Irish Art in the Early Christian Period’, London , 39; Ozanne, A., 1962-3, The peak dwellers, ‘Medieval Archaeology’ 6-7, 41, fig. 9b; Brenan, J., 1991, ‘Hanging Bowls and their Contexts: An Archaeological Survey of their Socio-Economic Significance from the Fifth to Seventh centuries AD’, BAR British Series 220, Oxford, cat.no. 3.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1913
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- 1913,0717.10
