Chiemsee Cauldron

rdf:langString Chiemsee Cauldron

rdf:langString The Chiemsee Cauldron (German: Chiemsee-Kessel) is a gold cauldron found at the bottom of Lake Chiemsee in Bavaria in 2001. The cauldron is decorated with figures reminiscent of the style of the Gundestrup cauldron. It has a diameter of 50 centimetres (20 in) and a height of 30 centimetres (12 in), and is made from 10.9 kilograms (24 lb) of 75-80% gold and 20-25% silver. Throughout the time since it surfaced from the lake, the gold Chiemsee cauldron simply has been too grand for its own good. It is like the pearl in Steinbeck’s famous novel. Multiple lawsuits have kept it locked-up in safes, almost continuously, since its discovery. Unfortunately, the similar silver Gundestrup cauldron, which also survives as a witness to the art and the iconography of the Veneti, has been given the wrong origin by many observers from Germany and the British Isles, who see its place of manufacture as within a Celto-Thracian tradition on the lower Danube. The gold Chiemsee cauldron, which also may be a survivor from the Veneti, has fared even worse than the Gundestrup cauldron. It has been seen as a recent production of the Nazis. The proponents of Nazi origin have concocted more-and-more-embellished stories that the cauldron was constructed as the centerpiece of a Heinrich-Himmler-SS cult, thereby tainting its reputation, keeping it out of scholarly perspective. Yet this theory of Nazi production involves far more incredible scenarios (many of them straight out of Indiana Jones) than those demanded by the initial supposition that the piece is genuinely ancient in origin, which should have been followed by a thorough examination to determine if this assumption was valid. Until the discovery of the Chiemsee cauldron, the Gundestrup cauldron was the unique witness to pre-Roman Celtic religious iconographic narration. Because of the Gundestrup cauldron’s uniqueness it is has been difficult to place it in its proper cultural perspective. Because of its uniqueness there has been a great deal of debate about its nature. With the finding of the Chiemsee cauldron, we have a doubling of the information about these pieces. Both cauldrons fit within the cultural milieu of an origin in Armorica just before Caesar’s conquest, the Gundestrup cauldron being constructed 10 to 20 years before the Chiemsee cauldron. Only with the recognition that the Chiemsee Cauldron is a genuine witness alongside the Gundestrup cauldron to the art and religion of the Veneti can we begin to incorporate the vast amount of information these two time-capsules convey to us about this hitherto lost culture.