Casgliadau Arlein

Rim and sheet edge fragment of a multi-sheet bronze bowl with a fragmentary small bronze handle-strap attached. The overall profile of the vessel top is slightly inverted, though the rim is small but everted and has been formed by rolling the sheet top over onto the exterior surface. (Mary – please check if there is a strengthener wire underneath). A distinctive line mark on the X-ray plate indicates an overlap at the sheet join of approx. 23.8mm. This is a handle-strap and simple rim from a globular bowl or cauldron of multi-sheet construction. This combination of features is unparalleled to date in Britain and Ireland. Its positioning precludes its use on any of the known Atlantic A&B cauldrons and buckets of the later Bronze Age in Britain and Ireland. The absence of the use of iron, to form the rim or handle-plate rules out comparison with the Globular Cauldrons of the Late Iron Age and Romano-British periods, where the presence of iron is typical. In this regard, it has some similarity with handle-straps 37 & 39, in seemingly spanning the gap between the Late Bronze Age and Late Iron Age forms. The diminutive size of the handle-strap, together with the internal rim diameter of 180-220mm suggests a handled bowl rather than a cauldron form, most similar to handle-strap 39. In Britain, virtually no bowls or cauldrons are known spanning the Early to Middle Iron Age. However, globular cauldrons of bronze with simple rims are known amongst Halstatt C/D burial groups on the Continent (Kossack 1959; Zürn 1987), though none with the same style of handle plate. The most plausible date for this vessel appears to be Early Iron Age (750-500BC), corresponding with Halstatt C/D, though the handle-strap is unique. This is not inconsistent with the abundance of Llyn Fawr period material on this site (750-600BC), but could extend occupation into the sixth century BC.

The upper handle strap plate, rectangular in shape and with curved edges and with half the loop surviving, has been shifted out of alignment. The original positioning parallel with and beneath the rim is indicated by a rivet hole in the sheet (centring 8mm below the rim) once corresponding with the central rivet on the top strap plate. The left side of the plate has broken, though half of the left rivet hole is visible. The top plate is attached to the vessel by a single rivet on the right hand side, which is secured with a flat irregular ovoid headed rivet on the interior vessel surface. The strap loop is plain, with no ridges and grooves on the upper surface. Some wearing is visible on the right hand loop edge.

Only the right hand side of the lower handle strap plate survives, its terminal being circular, with a narrowing cross-piece running parallel with the rim. The cross-strap has broken across a rivet hole. The lower strap plate is secured to the sheet by a flat irregular ovoid headed rivet, whose head is on the interior vessel surface. A series of three rivet holes are found between the plate and the sheet edge, two vertically placed and in line with the central rivet hole on the top strap plate, the other slightly offset to the left. A further torn rivet hole is broadly aligned with the central rivet holes, probably joining the two sheets. (A less likely possibility is that the handle-strap extended down the vessel beyond the cross-plate to give a cruciform shape, this rivet hole securing the plate terminal to the vessel.)