Some Actual Cauldrons
You might remember I was having trouble finding archaeological evidence of cauldrons in early Medieval Ireland. I still am, but there are a couple of items that are giving me some hope, and honestly, even a few bits scattered through the period where I wasn't finding anything give me a lot more confidence.
The issue has been that nearly all the cauldrons excavated have been Bronze Age rather than Iron Age. Or, where they're undated (which is how many of them are, having been extracted from bogs in the 1800s), they're made of bronze and pretty close in design to known Bronze Age cauldrons.
The first exception to this is the Drumlane Cauldron. It was found 75cm or so below the surface in a turf bog "opposite a crannog" on the shores of Drumlane Lough, in Cavan, in 1886 or 1887. It's a similar shape to many of the Bronze Age examples, called "globular", and unusually, it's made entirely of iron. I wrote to the NMI about this one - it's in their Antiquities Collection, in a special storage facility so that it doesn't rust away - and they kindly provided a reference to A Catalogue of Irish Iron Age Antiquities by Barry Raftery, of which I'm probably going to have to get a copy.
This illustration is from that book:
It shows various signs of use and repair, and has the essential details for cauldron-ness of a way to hang it over a fire. There's also a photo on the NMI Listing (which I was able to find easily today, and not at all last Friday - thanks, Internet).
The fact that it is made of iron makes it pretty clearly not-Bronze-Age, although it might be very early Iron Age. As far I can make out, no firm date is available, though.
However, that's not the case for the second item of interest here, the Ballymoney Cauldron. It too was extracted from a bog, in Ballymoney in Antrim in 1903, from a depth of 6m. It's a "copper alloy" (which is basically bronze), and is of the "projecting-belly" shape. It's been fairly extensively patched and repaired. However, there was some carbonised residue in it, and that has, according to the details in a paper called "Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble: Iron Age and Early Roman Cauldrons of Britain and Ireland", been carbon-dated to the first or second centuries CE ("1842 ± 25 BP(UBA-10351); 87–107 cal AD (4.4%), 121–240 cal AD(91.0%)").
That puts it pretty solidly in the middle of the period for which I can find little to no other cookware (600 BCE to 800 CE, give or take), and that's excellent news.
Again, the NMI listing provides a photograph:
The rings or other supports from which to hang it are missing, but, from the listing, "There are two large holes near the rim. It is possible that these mark the location of the handles."
I do note that this is much closer in design to the Derrynaflan Bowl than the much fancier Bronze Age cauldrons with their fancy bosses and decorations.
Both of these discoveries are outputs from the first Research & PIzza Night, which is a thing I'm trying out - inviting people to come over, poke the extensive collection of books-about-medieval-stuff Nessa and I have, do some research, and eat pizza. I'm pleased both with how the night went, and with these two cauldrons.
