The Gundestrup Cauldron - The Cauldron of Fate?

The Gundestrup cauldron holds a warrior plate which can be understood as a graphical storyteller, telling the story of the warriors who had fallen on the battlefield. Below are a series of fighters, including figures playing on carnyx’s who had just fallen in battle. They are in an intermediate position in the underworld. Warriors move to the left toward a giant figure with a large powerful kettle or cauldron, a deity who decides who shell live and who shell die. The god or goddess dip the fallen worrior one by one in “the cauldron of fate”. The warriors will not be resurrected as people in this world, but resurrected in a heavenly world, and even promoted as officers and riders. Now they ride to the right, in the direction of the light, towards their ultimate goal. A horizontal branch or tree can be seen as the horizontal line that marks the earth with its plants. This horizontal line symbolises the underworld beyond and heaven and the good afterlife above.