Gilltown Butter Churn
The churn of Gilltown is a 3,000-year-old custodian with bog butter ( English Bog butter ) at the Gilltown (2009 Irish Island, Brisleáin ) in County Kildare in Ireland was found.
Archaeologists found 3,000 year old butter in the approximately one meter long, 35 kg oak barrel, which was carved in one piece from a tree trunk. The moor near Gilltown has preserved them for thousands of years, even the lid is still on. The butter has now turned into a white, soapy substance with water and salts. It is similar to the corpse wax that is created when animals or people sink into the moor and their fatty tissue decomposes in the absence of air.
Butter containers keep appearing in moors, but most of them were much smaller and more damaged than the one from Gilltown. The find comes from Ireland's early Iron Age and is likely to be an intentional alienation ( sacrifice ) of the surrounding residents.
A similar churn was found in 2011 at Ballard bog, near Tullamore in County Offaly . Scientists have examined the peat butters and found that some are made from dairy products and others are meat-based.
literature
- Liam Downey, Chris Synnott, Eamonn P. Kelly, Catherine Stanton: Bog Butter: Dating Prifile and location . In: Archeology Ireland . 20, Issue 1, 2006, ISSN 0790-892X , p. 32-34 (English).
- Bog butter test . In: New Scientist . No. 2439 , March 20, 2004, ISSN 0262-4079 , p. 18 ( online [accessed December 8, 2011]).