Casgliadau Arlein

Copper alloy bowl with anthropomorphic ring mount in the form of a horned bovine head (ox head) with open mouth. Complete. The horns are rendered with protective spherical horn tips. The body of the bowl is very fragile due to extensive copper alloy corrosion. Rim diameter 190-191 mm. The bovine bowl form and handle may be said to be conceptually (and possibly functionally) similar to the Snowdon Bowl, dated stylistically to c. 1BC – AD 50 (Savory, 1976: Fig. 38a), although the Snowdon Bowl handle appears to be truncated and the whole may have originally resembled a Roman patera, possessing a longer handle than is now represented. See also PAS LIN-70CE92 and similar examples of ox-headed spouts with bulbous horn terminals, which are dated c. 50 BC - AD 100 (May, 1971). Late Iron Age. This vessel, including its handle, exhibits no Roman cultural or technological aspects and it can be firmly attributed to cultural, artistic, and technological traits of the British Late Iron Age, as a British Late Iron Age artefact.