The Broighter Boat

In 1991, the Palazzo Grassi Museum in Venice held an exhibition entitled The Celts: a reflection of one Europe. At the centre of this, displayed on its own darkened room, was the Broighter boat, a tiny gold model of the symbolic of the links between European cultures at the turn of the first millennium.

This miniature boat is made from a thin sheet of beaten gold. Miraculously, it and its delicate gold fittings have survived over 2,000 years. Apparently modelled on an ocean going-vessel of the period, it is an exceptional artwork and yields an important glance into marine culture at the dawn of the early historic period in north-western Europe.