Little Thetford meat hook
The meat hooks from Little Thetford ( english Little Thetford Flesh-hook ) is an artifact from the late Bronze Age (1150-950 v. Chr.) England . The meat hook was discovered in 1929 in a former moor in Little Thetford, near Ely in Cambridgeshire , England at a depth of 2.7 m. It is believed that it was used to ceremonially serve cuts of meat from a cauldron. The find is one of 32 other archaeologically significant finds in the area of Little Thetford. It is in the British Museum in London, but has not been on display since 2012.
The Dunaverney meat hook had been discovered 100 years earlier in Northern Ireland . For a long time, archaeologists could not agree on its age and function. When more than three dozen other specimens (e.g. Inveraray and Killeonan in Scotland) were found in Ireland, Great Britain and along Europe's Atlantic coast , it became clear from their style, technology and context that they belonged to the Bronze Age and instruments were 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 stopover of the urnfield culture . The rarity of the meat hooks is striking. Their social role needs to be considered not only in terms of their distinct individuality, technological construction or iconographic features, but also their relationship to contemporary prestige meals. The spread of meat hooks and rotary spits ( English rotary spits ) is mutually exclusive in most of Atlantic Europe. So they worked differently on the ideological level.
The meat hook, which consists of two pieces of metal, was connected by remains of a wooden shaft, which have not been preserved. The British Museum added a contemporary wooden shaft for exhibition purposes. The metal used is a bronze alloy typical of the late Bronze Age. The material was analyzed and contained approximately 85% copper, 10% tin, 3% lead and 2% impurities. An analysis of 36 other meat hooks shows that the combined length of the hook part, end piece and wooden part was 0.76 m.
The metal parts of the artifact were made by casting using a lost wax casting mold.
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.