Abstract
Scholars have debated the cultural context and image interpretations for the approximately 2000-year-old Gundestrup cauldron since its burial discovery over 125-years-ago in Denmark. Many, including the author contend that it is a ritual object and its five inner-plate scenes seem to depict stories and rites, perhaps seasonal/celestial. The evidence supporting the Thracian or the ‘Celtic’ origin is thought less likely by some due to recent technical studies and changing opinions, causing many to revisit the ideas of never knowing what the scenes depict. Building on an old hypothesis that three Indic motifs inspired three bowl interior motifs, we find two candidate Indus seal impression-plate motif pairs potentially showing parallels for all five inner-plates. Since art critics have not completed detailed evaluations for all five pairs, the author made a visual, descriptive, stylistic, and interpretive analysis using art criticism-theory. The inability to find enough bowl-Indic motif matches, made the past south Asian linking arguments doubtful, but when judged in toto, this paper makes a strong case that all five cauldron interior motifs can be shown to have definitive parallels with five Indic motifs. The study holds promise for a search for further potential parallels between Indic and cauldron art using pictorial narratives, combining art and literary criticism-theory.
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Notes
NOTE: Periodically, sacred texts list 28 nakṣatras, however, priests used the 28th only for calendar corrections to keep the moon aligned with the correct nakṣatra; Texts near start of Christian era list number of stars in each nakṣatra, but I contend priest-observers used these memorized lists to find nakṣatras for a few 100 years prior to recording.
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Petray, T.E. Parallels of Gundestrup cauldron interior art with Indic motifs. Indian J Hist. Sci. 56, 93–108 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43539-021-00013-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s43539-021-00013-1