Killing the Cauldron: Experimental Research on Dented Bronze Cauldrons from the (post)Medieval Period

Abstract

Bronze cauldrons from the late Middle Ages, and the 16th and 17th century are hardly ever discovered during archaeological excavations but are usually unearthed by detectorists having discovered the find of their life. Many of these vessels happen to be damaged. Sometimes one or two legs are lost, or a piece of the rim is missing, more often they exhibit one or more dents. We know that in prehistory the ritual destruction of objects was common practice (Chapman, 2000; Verbaas and Van Gijn, 2007; Gerloff 2010; Knight, 2017; 2019). Could this practice also have been performed on bronze cooking ware in a Christian setting in The Netherlands in the Medieval and Postmedieval periods? Considering the robustness of the bronze cauldrons, there are suspicions that many of the dents were not caused by someone accidentally dropping the vessel, but by a deliberate blow, for example with an axe. Experimental research is required to verify this hypothesis.

Keywords

• container / vessel
• bronze
• late middle ages
• newer era
• the netherlands