Our conservation team are well underway in their project to meticulously excavate, record and preserve the remains of a remarkable group of eleven Iron Age cauldrons found by a team from ULAS at Glenfield Park, on the fringes of Leicester in 2013.
Back in 2017 CT scans offered a first glimpse of the remains, whilst they were still encased in soil. Since then, conservators Liz Barham and Liz Goodman have been systematically excavating the soil inside them to reveal their crushed remains, and exploring the potential for further research to be done using techniques like residue analysis and metallurgy. Three of the eleven have been investigated so far, but already we are learning more about how the cauldrons were made and repaired over 2000 years ago.
One cauldron, for instance, remains intact enough for us to see that the cauldron bowl was probably made in just two pieces, carefully riveted together, with an iron band and rim with ring handles attached at the top, a deep band of copper alloy forming the upper part of the cauldron bowl, and a base. The basic structure is similar to that of Iron Age cauldrons found in 2004 in Chiseldon in Wiltshire.
