Details

LOT 729

Celtic Iron Age Enamelled Tankard Handle

(Copper-alloy and enamel, 80 grams, 14 cm.).

Circa 1st century AD. A cast bronze tankard handle comprising: at each end a discoid plate with circular void and raised panel developing to an arched band formed as two openwork discs with an s-shaped panel between; the plates and central panel set with red enamel bosses; pierced at the junction of plate and handle for attachment.

Provenance

Found Warminster, Wiltshire, England. Reported to the Wiltshire Finds Liason Officer.

Literature

See Savory, H.N. Guide Catalogue of the Early Iron Age Collections.

Footnotes

Similar to a number of handles in the Seven Sisters Hoard, found in South Wales and connected by some historians to the Roman invasion in the mid-1st century AD and to the handle on the Trawsfynydd Tankard. The style is a highly developed form of La Tène in which sinuous curves and raised bosses and fins combine to form graceful loops with hidden animal faces within the complexities of the design.
The use of red enamel is found in British contexts only in the immediate pre-Roman period, as on the Battersea shield.

CONDITION