European Iron Age in the context of "Prehistoric Europe"

A torc, also spelled torq or torque, is a large rigid or stiff neck ring in metal, made either as a single piece or from strands twisted together. The great majority are open at the front, although some have hook and ring closures and a few have mortice and tenon locking catches to close them. Many seem designed for near-permanent wear and would have been difficult to remove.

Torcs have been found in Scythian, Illyrian, Thracian, Celtic, and other cultures of the European Iron Age from around the 8th century BC to the 3rd century AD. For Iron Age Celts, the gold torc seems to have been a key object. It identified the wearer—apparently usually female until the 3rd century BC, thereafter usually but not exclusively male—as a person of high rank, and many of the finest works of ancient Celtic art are torcs. Celtic torcs disappeared in the Migration Period, but during the Viking Age torc-style metal necklaces, mainly in silver, came back into fashion. Similar neck-rings are also part of the jewellery styles of various other cultures and periods.

Celtic art is associated with the peoples known as Celts; those who spoke the Celtic languages in Europe from pre-history through to the modern period, as well as the art of ancient peoples whose language is uncertain, but have cultural and stylistic similarities with speakers of Celtic languages.

Celtic art is a difficult term to define, covering a huge expanse of time, geography and cultures. A case has been made for artistic continuity in Europe from the Bronze Age, and indeed the preceding Neolithic age; however archaeologists generally use "Celtic" to refer to the culture of the European Iron Age from around 1000 BC onwards, until the conquest by the Roman Empire of most of the territory concerned, and art historians typically begin to talk about "Celtic art" only from the La Tène period (broadly 5th to 1st centuries BC) onwards. Early Celtic art is another term used for this period, stretching in Britain to about 150 AD. The Early Medieval art of Britain and Ireland, which produced the Book of Kells and other masterpieces, and is what "Celtic art" evokes for much of the general public in the English-speaking world, is called Insular art in art history. This is the best-known part, but not the whole of, the Celtic art of the Early Middle Ages, which also includes the Pictish art of Scotland.

Neck rings, or neck-rings, are any form of stiff jewellery worn as an ornament around the neck of an individual, as opposed to a loose necklace. Many cultures and periods have made neck rings, with both males and females wearing them at various times. Neck rings that are rarely or never removed are a type of permanent jewellery.

Of the two most notable types, one is the torc, an often heavy and valuable ornament normally open at the throat. These were worn by various early cultures but are especially associated with the ancient Celts of the European Iron Age, where they were evidently a key indicator of wealth and status, mostly worn by men.

The Gundestrup cauldron is a richly decorated silver vessel, thought to date from between 200 BC and 300 AD, or more narrowly between 150 BC and 1 BC. This places it within the late La Tène period or early Roman Iron Age. The cauldron is the largest known example of European Iron Age silver work (diameter: 69 cm (27 in); height: 42 cm (17 in)). It was found dismantled, with the other pieces stacked inside the base, in 1891, in a peat bog near the hamlet of Gundestrup in the Aars parish of Himmerland, Denmark (56°49′N 9°33′E / 56.817°N 9.550°E / 56.817; 9.550). It is now usually on display in the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen, with replicas at other museums; it was in the UK on a travelling exhibition called The Celts during 2015–2016.

The cauldron is not complete, and now consists of a rounded cup-shaped bottom making up the lower part of the cauldron, usually called the base plate, above which are five interior plates and seven exterior ones; a missing eighth exterior plate would be needed to encircle the cauldron, and only two sections of a rounded rim at the top of the cauldron survive. The base plate is mostly smooth and undecorated inside and out, apart from a decorated round medallion in the centre of the interior. All the other plates are heavily decorated with repoussé work, hammered from beneath to push out the silver. Other techniques were used to add detail, and there is extensive gilding and some use of inlaid pieces of glass for the eyes of figures. Other pieces of fittings were found. Altogether it weighs just under 9 kilograms (20 lb).