The Giberville bucket is a bucket in wood and bronze from a grave of the 5th or 6th century AD excavated in the commune of Giberville, in what is now the Calvados department in Normandy, France. It is now in the Normandy Museum in Caen.
Discovered during excavations of a Merovingian necropolis in the 1970s, the Giberville bucket, dating from Late Antiquity, was found where the ancient practice of burying buckets in graves had been revived in Gaul since the 4th century. The bucket was unearthed in a necropolis that was in use from the late 5th to the 6th century, adding to its historical significance.
Made of yew wood and bronze, the artifact is richly decorated with representations of a Roman emperor and a hunting scene. Because of this decoration, the excavator interprets the bucket as a gift from an emperor to a member of a barbarian community. This object was subsequently kept and buried with a woman at the beginning of the century. It is, therefore, a witness of the transition period between the Western Roman Empire's end and the Merovingian era's beginning.
While fragments of other similar buckets have been found, the Giberville bucket stands out for its exceptional state of preservation and unique iconography, making it an extremely rare and significant object.
Location The bucket was found in 1970s archaeological excavations of a necropolis of 482 graves in Giberville called "Le Martray." Giberville is 2.5 km from the Orne and its tributary, the Gronde, and 7 km south-southwest of the Roman camp at Bénouville.
The name first appears in 1066 and again in 1082 as Goisbertivilla. This is a typical medieval name ending in -ville, meaning "rural estate." The first element, Giber-, comes from the Germanic name Gausbert(us). The name Le Martray is also medieval. It means "martyr." It remembers the place's funerary destination.
History
Background information
The historiographical issue
The last decades of the Western Roman Empire and relations with newcomers from "barbarian people" led to a new way of thinking about history. The Empire accepted the creation of independent political entities within its borders. In French history books from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, "barbarian invasions" was a common term. Historiography exaggerates the negative aspects of these federation agreements.
The question of identity and ethnic and cultural identification looks at Romanity and citizenship. The Edict of Caracalla of 212 changed this by allowing all free men in the Empire to become citizens.
Several research studies have revealed that the Roman Empire and the 'barbarian' world were not as distinct as previously believed. The changes in Gaul during Late Antiquity were intricate, with the region being divided between a struggling and isolated north, Armorican Gaul, and the south, still under the influence of Roman-educated elites until the Western Roman Empire's demise. The federated peoples settled in the Empire and were in client kingdoms within its borders. They pledged allegiance to Rome, providing soldiers in return for money and other benefits. Barbarian kings only ruled their people. Flavius Honorius and his general Constantius set up the client kingdoms in Gaul from 411 onwards. They replaced the old limes system with a new, more practical policy.
Changes in the fifth century
Barbarian kingdoms were groups of different ethnicities who wanted to join the Roman army and take care of their people. Barbarian warriors helped defeat Attila at the Battle of the Catalaunian Fields.
Northern Gaul had fewer troops to maintain the limes because the elite moved closer to Frankish power. The Empire's priority was to protect southern Gaul and Italy. In 439, the Vandals took over Carthage without permission. The Eastern Roman Empire may have accepted the late fifth-century kingdoms because it was impossible to retake the capital of Roman Africa.
In the 5th century, the northern part of Gaul rejected imperial authority. There are few sources, but it may have been linked to Constantine III being overthrown. The usurper was killed in Arles in 411. Troops on the Rhine withdrew during this troubled period. They were protecting the English Channel but could not prevent new arrivals. The central power hunted down supporters of the usurper or those backing the "separatist movement." It regained a foothold and reorganized the defenses around 411-416. However, the Armorican provinces remained in turmoil throughout the century. Their rallying to Clovis could be seen as the religious elites' rallying to a Catholic Christian leader in a context marked by Arianism, particularly among the Visigoths.
History of the site and necropolis
Funerary rites between continuity and change
Roman funeral rites included a banquet, a sacrifice, and the burial of the body or ashes. The burial site was decorated with items for the banquet and the deceased. In Late Antiquity, these rites continued to be necessary. Most burials were in cemeteries, not at home. Christianity replaced this last "legacy of Antiquity," moving the deceased's final resting place closer to the living.
Barbarian mercenaries adopted burial rites that showed the social status of the dead. The body was put in a wooden box in a pit. Graves were covered with a mound of earth or stone and a stone or other marker with the name of the person buried. Burial rites and grave objects continued to be important in Late Antiquity.
Countryside necropolises are family-run. The least furnished graves are for "members of their household." They were set up along communication routes and on territorial boundaries. They lasted from a few generations to two or three centuries. As Christianity spread, chapels appeared in the countryside in the sixth and seventh centuries.
People from Romano-Barbaric populations are buried in traditional clothes, but the fabrics are not preserved. Archaeologists can find fibulae. Pins mark women's burials, showing they wore specific headdresses. The burials sometimes have an "ostentatious character" (like at Airan). They show a "late-antique cultural mix" with Gallo-Roman funerary rites and burial in traditional clothes. Specialists can tell that people from other places were there because they found things like fibulae, pins, and combs. Men's graves have belts with buckle plates made in Barbaricum.
The necropolis on the Caen Plain was occupied from the 5th to the 7th century.
This area of the Caen Plain has a long history of human activity. Near Martray, there is evidence of an Indigenous farm and a burial enclosure. Archaeologists found things from the Early Roman period about 1.1 km from the farm. They found a building that might have been a tannery and a bronze tripod.
The Caen Plain had many small settlements. The village had about fifteen families in the Early Middle Ages. Two necropolises have been found in Giberville. The area's burials show the community was "affluent" during the 6th century. This was due to trade from the Roman Empire, not just farming. The skeletons had a thin look, especially the women. The men were about 1.72 m tall, and the women were about 1.59 m tall. This is taller than the people in the Saint-Martin-de-Fontenay necropolis. The community had a better quality of life. In the 7th century, women were taller and slimmer, while men were shorter but more robust. The population started to change, becoming more open to the outside world. About 14% of burials were of non-adults in the sixth century and 17% in the 7th century. More children and young adults are buried than adults. In the sixth century, more young people died than in previous centuries. There are fewer young men and more young women and women over 60 in graves from the century. In the next century, things got better for women but worse for young men. Their share of the necropolis rose from 25% to 39%. This may be linked to a bias in the male sample.
The necropolis was used from the 5th to the 7th century. The tomb with the bucket dates from the early 6th century. Only about 20 of the later tombs have sarcophagi. The graves are in rows facing west and east. Archaeologists found wooden coffins and one cremation. Only about 20 of the later tombs have sarcophagi. The graves are in rows facing west and east. Archaeologists found wooden coffins. One cremation was found.
There are groups of tombs. Archaeologists found that people buried close together were related. A burial enclosure was also found. It was marked by a fence with post-hole marks, 30 to 45 cm in diameter. A 90 cm post contained a "wooden candle" to indicate the cemetery site. The size of the enclosure did not change. The posts were about 1.20 m high, and the candle was twice as high. Stone blocks marked graves.
Christian Pilet and Jean-Yves Marin date the work to the late 4th and early 5th centuries. Marin says the bucket is difficult to date because of the fragmentary inscription. The bucket was found in a woman's grave, where she was buried with weapons. Archaeologists call these graves "chief's graves." Women's graves near these burials had lots of material, including fibulae, necklaces, glass, and wooden tableware.
The first group of graves is east-west and has a palisade. It includes the necropolis' "founder". A wooden palisade and a 5-meter-diameter ditch surrounded the "founder" grave. Later graves are around a core. Archaeologists believe a structure existed a few meters from the first group in a complex dated to the end of the 5th and beginning of the 6th centuries.
The tombs were robbed when the necropolis was in use. Two-thirds of the tombs were looted, and archaeologists found a pile of objects. Looting damaged the graves, but archaeologists found some food and fire pits. Excavations have also found a yellow glass apodous beaker and a Frankish coin from the first third of the 6th century.
The use of these coins, weighing close to a silique and found in soldiers' graves, constitutes "without doubt an important milestone in Frankish coinage at the beginning of the 6th century." The excavations also uncovered elements of a necklace and fibulae "in gilded silver and cloisonné glassware."
Throughout the 7th century, the necropolis maintained its structure, with groups of tombs and overlapping burials, a continuity that extended into the 8th century. The ornamental objects discovered, including arched fibulae, are part of a widespread group from the 6th and 7th centuries, with only two objects bearing a cross. The presence of nineteen Caen stone sarcophagi, 'looted or reused,' is a testament to the Christianization of the local community.
After the necropolis was gradually abandoned in the second half of the 7th century, the deceased were buried not far from the church of Saint-Martin de Giberville, 2 km away, or around a church dedicated to Saint Germain, which has since disappeared and whose toponymy, the "Champ Saint-Germain" or "Dellage Saint-Germain," is still remembered today. Cemeteries were located not far from the "community of the living." The necropolis around the church was in use from the late 7th to the 14th century. The funerary enclosure in the Martray area, "the place of the dead," left its mark on the landscape and people's minds.
Discovery and description of Tomb n° 41