Caergwrle Bowl

The Caergwrle Bowl is a unique object dating to the Middle Bronze Age, c. 1300 BC, originally manufactured from shale, tin and gold, and found in Caergwrle, Wales. It is thought to represent a boat, with its applied gold decoration signifying oars and waves, and either sun discs or circular shields.[2]

See also: Bronze Age Wales, Bronze Age Britain, and Atlantic Bronze Age
The Caergwrle Bowl.[1]

Some researchers have suggested that the Caergwrle Bowl represents a mythological solar boat.[3] Similarities have been noted with the contemporary miniature gold boats from Nors in Denmark, and with the later Broighter gold boat from Ireland.[4][5] The Caergwrle bowl has also been related to the earlier Nebra sky disc from Germany, which is thought to depict a solar boat.[6] Gold lunulae from the Early Bronze Age Beaker culture, including examples from Wales, have also been interpreted as representations of solar boats.[7][8] The gold cape from Mold, which dates from the same period as the Nebra sky disc, was found near to Caergwrle.[9] In Ancient Greek poetry and art the Sun's vessel is depicted as a gold bowl or cup.[10]

The incomplete bowl was found in 1823 by a workman digging a drain in a field below Caergwrle Castle. It was donated to the National Museum Wales in 1912, and sent to the British Museum for restoration where it was originally reconstructed from wax with the decoration attached by an adhesive. Since then the bowl has been rebuilt again as the first conservation failed to be stable.[11]

References
  1. "Caergwrle Bowl". National Museum Wales.
  2. "Caergwrle Bowl". National Museum Wales.
  3. Meller, Harald (2022). The World of the Nebra Sky Disc: The Caergwrle Ship. Halle State Museum of Prehistory.
  4. Meller, Harald (2022). The World of the Nebra Sky Disc: The Nors Boats. Halle State Museum of Prehistory.
  5. Denford, G.T.; Farrell, A.W. (1980). "The Caergwrle Bowl—A possible prehistoric boat model". The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology. 9 (3): 183–192. doi:10.1111/j.1095-9270.1980.tb01296.x. Analogies exist between the concentric circles [on the Caergwrle bowl] and a large body of finds referred to in the literature as sun discs. Butler (1963) refers to "the golden sun disc, symbol of a Bronze Age cult or religion common to the British Isles, northern Europe and wider areas as well". … the concentric circles or 'solar discs' on the Nors Boats must be mentioned here. … Numerous recorded examples exist of sun symbols associated with boats in Scandinavian rock art. The Danish rock-carvings have been dated to the Early Bronze Age and the first period of the Late Bronze Age and so tie in with our dating evidence for the Caergwrle Bowl. This frequent association of sun symbols with boats favours an interpretation of the bowl as a boat model. ... The oval form of the bowl is its most boatlike feature. We know of no other Bronze Age pottery to parallel this. The closest parallel is the Broighter Boat, a gold boat model found at Broighter, Co. Derry, Ireland
  6. Meller, Harald (2021). "The Nebra Sky Disc – astronomy and time determination as a source of power". Time is power. Who makes time?: 13th Archaeological Conference of Central Germany. Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte Halle (Saale). ISBN 978-3-948618-22-3. The celestial ship, which transports or is associated with the sun, finds its earliest known representation in Central Europe on the Nebra sky disc, before appearing sporadically in Northern Europe from around 1600 BC and then being attested in numerous examples in Northern and Central Europe until the late Bronze Age. This is particularly impressively illustrated by the more than one hundred golden boats from Nors, in the region of Nordjylland (Denmark), on some of which the golden solar disc is found in the form of concentric circles. The ship from Caergwrle, Flintshire County (Wales), already discovered in 1823, also bears concentric circles below the railing, which can be interpreted as shields or solar symbols. (Translated from German)
  7. Cahill, Mary (Spring 2015). "'Here comes the sun....: solar symbolism in Early Bronze Age Ireland'". Archaeology Ireland. 29 (1): 26–33.
  8. "Early Bronze Age gold lunula". National Museum Wales.
  9. Meller, Harald (2022). The World of the Nebra Sky Disc: The Mold Cape. Halle State Museum of Prehistory.
  10. West, M.L. (2007). Indo-European Poetry and Myth. Oxford University Press. pp. 208–209. ISBN 9780199280759.
  11. Davis, Mary "Re-conserving the Caergwrle Bowl Archived 2012-03-06 at the Wayback Machine" Museum Wales Website Retrieved on 17 February 2010
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