simple facts
Name: Caergwrle bowl
What is it: shale bowl with gold and tin decoration
Birthplace: Caergwrle Castle, Wales
Created: From around 1300 BC to around 1150 BC
About 200 years ago, while excavating in a Welsh swamp, a worker struck an unusual ancient bowl in the shape of a ship. Named after a nearby castle, Caergwrle Bowl demonstrates the importance of seafaring travel in Britain’s Middle Bronze Age (ca. 1500-1000 BC).
The inside of the vessel is undecorated, but the outside and rim are decorated with various shapes of tin covered with gold leaf.
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“We believe the zigzags around the base are waves and the long triangles are oars,” a Wales Museum representative wrote. “The symbol of the eye protected the sailors. The circle is the shield of the heroic voyager.”
However, in a study of this bowl in 1980, a slightly different interpretation was put forward by marine archaeologists.
Rather than seeing the gold-rimmed concentric circles as a shield, the researchers argued that the closest parallels could be seen to Bronze Age solar symbols. For example, Nebula’s Sky Disk, which also depicts a ship, and the Nordic “Chariot of the Sun”. And instead of a zigzag line representing a wave, that line could depict the wooden frame of the boat visible through the skin stretched over it.
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Regardless of the exact meaning of Cargulle Bowl’s design, its discovery in a bog near the River Arran, which flows into the Irish Sea, strongly suggests it was created as a representation of a boat, according to the Museum of Wales. And given that many Bronze Age solar artefacts have been found in bogs as offerings to the gods, it is likely that Cargurre Bowl was intended to be an ancient votive offering by sailors seeking safe passage.
For more amazing archaeological discoveries, check out our Astonishing Artifacts archive.
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