Ballyscullion Cauldron

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Ballyscullion Cauldron

Description

The body and rim of this cauldron are made from eight pieces of beaten bronze, each hammered to a thickness of about 1mm and riveted together. The horizontal rows of conical-headed rivets on the exterior are both functional and decorative. The handles are each made of four pieces of bronze: a cast circular ring of complex ribbed cross-section, a sheet-bronze ribbed and flanged U-shaped tube and two other sheet-bronze half-tubes riveted to the rim edges. The rim was strengthened by the attachment of eight vertical slender bronze stays riveted to the body exterior. All but one of these stays are broken. The interior of the base displays many small, irregular indentations, as if hit repeatedly by a hard object.

This cauldron was found in 1880 in Ballyscullion, County Antrim.

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