Report from Dr Peter Northover

Materials Science-Based Archaeology Group,
Department of Materials, University of Oxford

27/11/2007

I have now properly re-analysed the two samples from the bowl and can now write up - when I have time. 

Although the two parts of the bowl are quite similar in alloy terms they are otherwise distinct.  The bottom half of the bowl uses a copper we associate with a source in the SW in the Iron Age but which was going out of use by the mid-1st century BC.  As it also has old rivet holes in it we could see an old bottom having a new top fitted but, perhaps, retaining some features of the earlier bowl in the decorative rivets.

The top has a broader date range and could go later in the 1st century BC but not, I think much into 1st AD.  The decoration round the rim is seen as a west country fashion and probably no earlier than the 1st century.