Gundestrup Cauldron

Gundestrup Cauldron. One the most celebrated works of early Celtic religious art was uncovered in a peat bog near the village of Gundestrup, Jutland peninsula, Denmark, in 1880, and is now housed in the museum at Århus. Made of 96 per cent pure silver and originally gilded, the vessel stands 14 in. high, is 25.5 in. in diameter, will hold 28.5 gallons, and weighs nearly 20 pounds. Dismantled when found, the cauldron comprises thirteen parts: a plain base plate, and five inner and seven outer plates decorated with mythological scenes. While the origin and date of the cauldron are still unsettled, commentators generally agree that it was carried, possibly by Teutonic looters, to Gundestrup from a distant place. It may have been transported from Gaul, but stylistic details on the vessel suggest it may have been manufactured as far away as the Balkans, in Thrace or what is now Romania. Many elements depicted, such as torcs, snakes with ram heads, or the boar-headed war trumpet known as the carnyx, are certainly Celtic; other details and motifs are so exotic as not to seem European.

The plates depict gods, conventionally seen as larger than humans, ordinary mortals, and animals. The seated horned god is now commonly accepted as an illustration of Cernunnos. A tall divine figure holding a man over a vat of water is thought to be Teutates accepting human sacrifice. A female divinity flanked by wheels, as if riding in a cart, has been compared with the Irish Medb. The mortals include a troop of infantry in close-knit short trousers and a company of cavalry with a sacred tree. Three sword-bearing warriors are about to execute three huge bulls (see TRIPLISM). Other animals depicted, such as leopards, were unknown in the Celtic world.

Although much studied and, more recently, photographed and reproduced, the Gundestrup Cauldron remains enigmatic to many commentators. The most controversial of them, Garrett S. Olmsted, has asserted that the scenes on the plates anticipate the action of the Irish epic Táin Bó Cuailnge [Cattle Raid of Cooley].

Bibliography

See Garrett S. Olmsted , ‘The Gundestrup Version of the Táin Bó Cuailnge’, Antiquity, 50 (1976), 95–103;
The Gundestrup Cauldron, Collection Latomus no. 162 (Brussels, 1979);
A. Bergquist and and T. Taylor , ‘The Origin of the Gundestrup Cauldron’, Antiquity, 61 (1987), 10–24;
Paul Jacobsthal , Early Celtic Art (Oxford, 1944).