A beautiful intact specimen of cauldron, a bronze laminated vessel generally used in the pre-historic age for cooking food, was found in Cala Gonone-Dorgali. The model, of Cypriot origin, has a biconical shape, with handles fixed to two vertical rings welded to a small plate decorated with four spirals (fig. 1).

Fig. 1 - Bronze cauldron from Cala Gonone-Dorgali (from http://www.museoarcheologicodorgali.it/wp/museo_archeologia_in_sardegna/la-storia-di-dorgali-in-20-reperti/).

Fig. 2 - Graphic reconstruction of the bronze cauldron from Dorgali (from SANTONI 2015, fig. 13, p. 125).

The specimen may be compared to another similar cauldron, found completely crumpled as scrap metal in the storage room of San Francesco di Bologna, and now on display at the Civic Archaeological Museum of Bologna, which has an identical fourfold spiral attachment of the handle (fig. 3).

Fig. 3 - Crumpled cauldron from the storage room of San Francesco di Bologna (from LO SCHIAVO 1990, p. 250, fig. 235).

The cauldrons, with or without attachments, are known and popular in Sardinia during the Nuraghic Age (XII-X centuries B.C.). These bronze sheet vessels are a useful dating element when examining the shape of the handles and the attachments which often recall forms documented in extra-insular contexts from the Aegean and eastern Tyrrhenian areas.

A threefold spiral attachment (fig. 4) relating to a bronze cauldron, framed chronologically between the XII-X century B.C., was found in the Nuraghic complex of Sa Sedda 'e Sos Carros-Oliena.

Fig. 4 - A threefold spiral attachment of a bronze cauldron found in the Nuraghic complex of Sa Sedda ’e Sos Carros of Oliena-Nu (from Salis 2014, p. 342).

The Archaeological Museum of Dorgali displays a drawing and a photo of the artefact from Dorgali.