Discovery
The Gundestrup cauldron was discovered by peat cutters in a small peat bog called Rævemose on May 28, 1891. The Danish government paid a large reward to the finders, who subsequently quarreled bitterly amongst themselves over its division. Palaeobotanical investigations of the peat bog at the time of the discovery showed that the land had been dry when the cauldron was deposited, and the peat gradually grew over it. The manner of stacking suggested an attempt to make the cauldron inconspicuous and well-hidden. A recent investigation of Rævemose was undertaken in 2002, with the results that perhaps the peat bog had been present when the cauldron was buried.
The cauldron was found in a dismantled state with five long rectangular plates, seven short plates, one round plate (normally termed the "base plate"), and two fragments of tubing stacked inside the curved base. In addition, there is a piece of iron coming from a ring originally placed inside the silver tubes along the rim of the cauldron. It is assumed that there is a missing eighth plate because the circumference of the seven outer plates is smaller than the circumference of the five inner plates.
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