The collections at the Ashmolean Museum contain material from Wales covering a variety of periods.
These objects are a pair of cast bronze ‘spoons’, which date to the Late Iron Age (c. 50 BC - AD 100). They were found at Penbryn in Ceredigion in Wales. The spoons are wide and shallow with short decorated handles. It is thought that they may have been used for divining (telling the future), with liquid dripped from the spoon with the hole onto the divided spoon. These spoons are extremely rare with only ten other pairs known from Britain.
Click to enlarge
Pair of Spoons from Penbryn
(AN 1836 p 147,508-9)
Other examples of objects from Wales in the Ashmolean's British collections include:
Alabaster figure was found at Caerleon in Monmouthshire and given to the Ashmolean in 1693. It dates to the fifteenth century and depicts the archangel, St Michael.
This small bronze figurine of a boar (AN1936.175) was found by someone exploring 'the Gower Cave near Rhossilly' and was donated to the Museum through J. Edwards in 1936. It is thought to have come from the cave at Paviland in Wales.
Find out more about:
- Highlights of the British collections at the Asmolean Museum
- British Collections Online - searchable database of the collection
January 2012
