THE GUNDESTRUP CAULDRON: IS THIS THE KEY TO THE ENIGMA?

Abstract

The Gundestrup cauldron is one of the most emblematic and studied archaeological relics of the Celtic world but also one of the most mysterious. Observation of the night sky, the symbolism of the cauldron and of numbers five and eight, traces of an Indo-European base-ten computation, the antiquity of the octaeteric calendar system, all suggest a new interpretation of the Gundestrup cauldron, based on the cycle of Venus. The five inner plates would each respectively represent the structure of time, as it appears in a computation close to that of the « octaeteris », rhythmed by the synodic cycle of the planet Venus, of the Moon and of the Sun. As for the eight outer plates, as Paul Verdier had suggested, they would represent astronomical events, or in other words, the dates or the periods associated with the appearance-disappearance of celestial object(s) or constellation(s). We particularly underline the importance of the male and female arm movements seen on the different plates. The shining hands of the divinities would rise just like the diurnal body (the Sun) or the nocturnal body (Venus), rising at dawn and in return setting at twilight. The figures associated with the Deities would evoke the constellations they represent, at times under, or, at other times, just above the horizon or sometimes higher up in the night sky. So each motif would recall nocturnal celestial events, observed at dawn or at twilight, corresponding to the heliacal rising or setting of the constellations detected. The two plates portraying the female divinity, her arms folded away under her shoulder line recalling the earthly horizon, would evoke the disappearance of Venus below the horizon, each of these two plates corresponding to the two periods during which the planet is not visible.