VESSEL

Roman cast copper alloy cockerel (chicken) shaped vessel, possibly a votive object. The vessel is moulded in the form of a standing cockerel, the tail, wings, wattle and part of the beak are missing to old breaks. The feet have become detached from the body by a modern break across the legs. It is hollow with an opening in the back which, by parallel with other examples, would have been covered by the wings.

The upper part of the beak is complete with a highly arched top and solid lower side, the lower part of the beak is missing due to an old break. The eyes on each side of the head are formed of a raised disk, on each disc is an indented central dot filled with blue enamel surrounded by an incised ring. The flat comb is on top of the head directly above the eye. The front edge is straight, and the rear edge curved, both widen outwards form the head, the curved upper edge has two indents creating three sections. A rough point on the underside of the head below the edge indicates where the wattle was attached.

On the chest are six lines of indented triangular cells arranged 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1, the cells have concave curved lower edges and probably represent feathers. They are filled with green and blue enamel, the green in particular can be hard to distinguish from corrosion products in some cases. The cells in the lower row (of 6) are all filled with blue enamel although that on the left is almost completely empty. The line of five has alternating blue and green enamel with blue at the ends of the rows. The row of four are all blue. The row of three are green, blue, green. The row of two are probably both blue although the left one is unclear. the topmost cell was probably filled with green enamel although this is unclear and may only survive in the bottom left corner.

The legs project separately from the wide base of the body which is indented between the thighs. They project initially backwards but just below the body they bend forward at the knee running in a straight line to the feet. They are round in section narrowing towards the feet. On the inner side of each left just above the feet is a small projecting spur. The feet each have three forward toes and one at the back. They rest on a ground which, by joining the toes, joining the feet at the front and projecting beyond the side of the feet, is penannular, at the back the ends of the break are fresh although this may be from damage to the tip or because the ends were originally joined.

The opening on the back is original with a rounded edge, it starts on the neck and curves out to cover the entire back leaving only shallow sides, particularly above the legs. The tail is lost to a straight break. Above the rim of the opening on the neck is a incised curved line.

It is 68.42mm high excluding the legs, 106.7mm including the legs and base. It is c.72mm beak to tail and 43.3mm wide at the widest point of the body. The two pieces together weigh 104.98g

The object has been published by Worrell (2012, 81-82; figs. 8.14-8.16)