Description

Summary: 1 large sepulchral bucket - the Marlborough Bucket - with restored wooden frame held with iron hoops, and two drop handles, the decoration consisting of three broad bands of thin bronze ornamented with grotesque animal forms and human faces and fastened to the (fir tree) wood by bronze headed iron nails, from an Iron Age Barrow within an Iron Age / Roman Cemetery at St Margaret's Mead, Marlborough.

Research results

PhD researcher Rebecca Ellis (2021) has re-examined the bucket as part of her studies into human and animal depictions in Iron Age art. She suggests that there may be a logic to the human depections on the bucket, with the male and female pairs on the uppermost band both having martial and/or high-status associations, particularly the male figures, which are depicted with provincial Roman hair styles. The hair styles surviving on the partial figures of band 3, have more everyday connotations, and appear to have been relatively typical Iron Age hairstyles. The provincial hairstyle is otherwise not depicted in British Iron Age art, and strongly suggests that the bucket was produced in Gaul. This is supported by the depictions of horses and moustachioed males on other bands, which appear to explicitly reference the same imagery as appears on the coinage of the Senones and Parisii in the Paris basin - tribes attested to have been closely aligned politically.

The Marlborough Bucket was discovered in 1807, during excavations of the Late Iron Age and Roman cemetery at St. Margaret's Mead, Marlborough by the Reverend Charles Francis. The bucket dates to the first century BC and was complete when found, and sketches were drawn of it in the trench; although these have sadly been lost they were used as the basis for a series of water colours by Thomas Crocker, which survive to the present day. In his letter to Colt-Hoare, Rev Francis states that "notwithstanding the utmost care and tenderness it would not bear the smallest jar or shake, and it fell to pieces" leaving it in its current state.