Keshcarrigan Bowl

The Keshcarrigan Bowl is an Iron age bronze bowl discovered north of Keshcarrigan village in county Leitrim, in the waterway between Lough Scur and Lough Marrave. It was perhaps a perhaps a ceremonial drinking cup. The bowl would have been a prestigious item in the 1st century Ireland, the bird-shaped handle outstandingly designed and skillfully executed. The Keshcarrigan Bowl is preserved and displayed at the archaeology branch of the Naitional museum of Ireland.

The Keshcarrigan bowl is considered one of the finest classic early medieval cast bronze cups, or drinking vessel. Made of bright-yellow metal, it was discovered c. 1842 – c. 1850 during the building of the "Ulster Canal". The bowl is a fine golden bronze only 14 centimetres (5.5 in) wide and 1 millimetre (0.039 in) in thickness, being cast or beaten into shape before being finished and polished by being spun on a lathe. The neck was finished off against an internal mould. The principal decorative feature of the bowl is its cast bronze zoomorphic handle, following the graceful shape of a bird-beast head of a somewhat nondescript appearance influenced by the flamboyant ornamentation of its time, soldered to the body of the vessel at the base and loosely connected to the vessel neck. The ridge at the front of the bird-head, the 'shield' below, and impression of a beak turning-backward, are all characteristic of the male-Shelduck.

The brilliantly modeled ducks-head handle on the Keshcarrigan bowl is an early masterpiece of the style, comparable to the best continental work of the period such as the bird-finials on the Torrs Chamfrein horns, the stylistic identity of both heads representing ducks, and both having empty slots for studs in the eyes. The Torrs style originated in Britain in the middle or second half of the third century BC. The Keshcarrigan cup is on stylistic grounds be contemporary with the Torrs pieces, with the “crimped” pattern on the rim of the Keshcarrigan bowl perhaps comparable with similar techniques used on the circular Wandsworth boss and the terminal circular insignias on the Witham Shield. The bowl seems to have close affinities to pottery bowls of identical profile from Brittany, which have a similar “crimped” pattern on their inner rims. Being lathe-spun the age of the bowl suggests a comparatively late date at variance with the stylistic evidence. The bowl is of importance in showing the Torrs style is recorded in both Britain and Ireland.

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