Dunaverney meat hook
The meat hook of Dunaverney ( English Dunaverney Flesh-Hook ) is an artifact from the Bronze Age (1050 to 900 BC) Ireland . It is believed that it was used to ceremonially serve cuts of meat from a cauldron. It has been in the British Museum in London since 1856 .
The meat hook was discovered in 1829 on Dunaverney Bog, north of Ballymoney in County Antrim , Northern Ireland . At the time of its discovery, the meat hook was unprecedented and archaeologists could not agree on its age and function for a long time. When more than three dozen more specimens were found in Ireland, Great Britain and along the European Atlantic coast (e.g. in Inveraray and Killeonan in Scotland ), it became clear from their style, technology and context that they belonged to the Bronze Age and Were instruments at festive ceremonies.
Although the Atlantic series is characteristic, it ultimately derives from similar instruments in the east, and Sicilian examples introduce an alternative route of dissemination to the commonly accepted intermediate station of the urnfield culture . The rarity of the meat hooks is striking. Their social role must be taken into account not only in terms of their distinct individuality, technological construction or iconographic features, but also in their relationship to the contemporary prestige meals. The distribution of meat hooks and roasting jacks ( English rotary spits ) includes mutually exclusive in most of the Atlantic Europe. So they worked differently on the ideological level.
The rod-like meat hook from Dunaverney, consisting of three pieces of metal, was connected by two oak rods, only a fragment of which has survived. At the lower end of the stick there are two birds opposite a group of five, two large and three smaller birds on the middle section. The two birds are believed to be ravens, the family of five can be identified as swans. The groups of birds seem to represent opposites: water birds versus air birds; White versus black, fertility versus death (implied by the ravens). The depiction of birds on the Dunaverney meat hook remains unique in north-western Europe to this day.
- Dunaverney meat hook
Raven piece
Swan piece
Hook piece
literature
- Sheridan Bowman, Stuart Needham: The Dunaverney and Little thetford flesh-hooks: history, technology and their position within the Later Bronze age atlantic zone feasting complex , Antiquaries Journal 87 2007 pp. 53-108.