What it is

A big cast pot of copper alloy with two upright handles crowned by mushroom-shaped knobs. Cauldrons of this family turn up from Hungary to Central Asia and date to the Hun period, the late fourth and fifth centuries AD. The one from Törtel, on the Hungarian Plain, is the largest found in Hungary, where most stand between 50 and 60 centimetres.

What it was for

Nobody can say for certain, and the honest answer is that it may have been more than one thing. It is far too big for one household's cooking. It was probably used when many people ate or drank together, for a feast, a rite, or both, and then deliberately broken.

You will often read that Hunnic cauldrons were buried beside rivers as offerings to water. Zsófia Masek's 2017 review is sceptical: most archaeological sites lie near water anyway, many cauldrons were ploughed up or washed out rather than excavated, and Törtel itself lies about fifteen kilometres from the Tisza. The idea is possible. The evidence for it is weaker than its popularity.

What it says about the people who made it

The Huns are known to us almost entirely through their enemies, who wrote them up as people who made nothing and built nothing. This is a large, carefully cast object made for a community, and deliberately taken out of use. It is one of the biggest things they left behind, and we still cannot fully read it.