The bilingual Pyrgi tablets (500 BC)

The rare and unusual Pyrgi tablets are a real treasure, both from a linguistic and a historical point of view. What makes the tablets so special is that they are bilingual: two tablets are written in Etruscan and translated into Phoenician on the third one, making it possible for researchers to use the Phoenician version to read and interpret the otherwise undecipherable Etruscan.

The tablets date from the beginning of the 5th century BC and are the oldest historical source of pre-Roman Italy among the known inscriptions. They record a dedication of a temple to the Phoenician Goddess Astarte (also known as Ishtar) by Thefarie Velanias, the ruler of Caere (now Cerveteri). From a historical point of view this attests evidence of Phoenician or Punic influence in the Western Mediterranean.

Etruscan Gold Book

An ancient book comprising six pages of 23.82-karat gold (measuring 5 centimeters in length and 4.5 centimeters in width) bound together by gold rings. The plates contain a text written in Etruscan characters and also depict a horse, a horseman, a Siren, a lyre, and soldiers. According to Elka Penkova, who heads the museum's archaeology department, the find may be the oldest complete book in the world, dating to about 600 b.c.

The content of the book suggests that it was made for the funeral of an aristocrat who was a member of the Orpheus cult.1 The Greek philosopher Pythagoras spread the beliefs of the cult (which originated in Thracia) in southern Italy and among the neighboring Etruscan tribes. According to Penkova, about 30 pages from Etruscan books are known from elsewhere, but only in single sheets. The Bulgarian find is the only complete version.

An 87-year-old Bulgarian man from Macedonia, who wishes to remain anonymous, donated the book to the museum. He had discovered the treasure in a tomb unearthed 60 years ago when he was a soldier working on the construction of a canal along the Strouma River in southwestern Bulgaria. According to Bozhidar Dimitrov, director of the museum, the find has been authenticated by experts in Sofia and London. Bulgarian professor Valdimir Georgiev is working on a translation of the text.

Gold Helmet of Leiro

The gold Casco de Leiro ("Helmet of Leiro") is a ritual hemispherical cap probably dating to the end of the Late Bronze Age[1] (circa 1,000 to 800 BC) in northwestern Iberia. The circumstances of its discovery show that technically it constitutes a hoard.

The cap, hammered from a single casting of gold,is entirely covered with registers of repeated repoussé decoration, hammered over bronze molds, of repeated bosses alternating with bands of repeated concentric circles. The central point is applied with a flat-sided point in the form of a truncated cone. Its maximum diameter is 19.5 cm with a height of 15 cm to the base of the point, it weighs 270 grams.
 

Treasure of Villena

Conical golden hats of the Schifferstadt

Its registers of hammered decoration present parallels with the decors of late Bronze Age conical golden hats of the Schifferstadt type and the gold bowls found at Axtroki, Guipúzcoa, or the so-called Treasure of Villena, Alicante. There is a possibility that its uses were twofold: as a ritual basin, though it is decoratively pierced with an awl, and inverted as an emblem of authority.

The Mold cape, Contemporary with the conical hats is a solid sheet-gold object dating from about 1900-1600 BC in the European Bronze Age. It was found at Mold in Flintshire, Wales, in 1833.

The cape is thought to have formed part of a ceremonial dress, perhaps with religious connections. It is housed at the British Museum in London.

The Ardagh Hoard

The hoard was found in 1868 by two boys, Jim Quinn and Paddy Flanagan, digging in a potato field on the south-western side of a rath (ring fort) called Reerasta, beside the village of Ardagh, County Limerick, Ireland. The chalice held the other items, covered merely by a slab of stone; the pieces must have been interred in a hurry, probably temporarily, as though the owner probably intended to return for them at a later time. The brooches found with the chalice show that it was not buried until the Viking period.

The hoard consisted of four brooches, a stemmed cup and a highly elaborate chalice which contained all of the smaller items.

Annular brooch, Ardagh Hoard

As for where the Chalice and its companions had been before then, nobody has any idea. Theories have been floated that it was one of a number of valuable pieces stolen from the monastery at Clonmacnoise in 1125 during a robbery by a Limerick Dane, a crime famous during that period.

The chalice belongs to a special group of cups known as ‘calices ministrales’, or in other words, chalices used by minor clergymen and lay people before the Catholic Church lifted restrictions on communion for both groups. During mass it would have been filled with Eucharistic wine, which the priest then dispensed to the congregation. At the time of its construction it would have been considered to be an old fashioned style, similar to Byzantine and Western Chalices.

So, why is this chalice so special, apart from the fact that it’s quite old? Because its construction and decoration shows incredible skill highly uncommon for that period of history, that’s why! Although large for a Eucharistic chalice, it is actually quite small, measuring seven inches in height and nine and a half inches in diameter, with the bowl being four inches deep. Within these reasonably small measurements there are a total of 354 different parts, six different types of metal (gold, silver, bronze, brass, copper and lead), small amounts of various other precious materials (glass, amber, malachite and rock crystal), and 48 different designs.

The decorative detail on the Ardagh Chalice is the most important aspect of it, and makes it the most beautiful Irish artefact ever to have been discovered. Everything from engravings, animals, interlaced patterns, and Greek bands feature in the design as well as exquisite ornamentation, known as repouseé and filigree wirework.

Amazing Examples of Ancient Celtic Gold

Celtic gold bracelet found in Cantal, France

A belt made of 2.8 kilograms (6.2 lb) of pure gold, discovered in Guînes, France. 1200-1000 BC

Ancient gold with a twist in its story is put on display

The 3,000-year-old torc was found four years ago in boggy ground at Corrard in Co Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, by a passer-by who at first thought he had found a car engine spring. He realized its significance two years later, and it was declared treasure.

The rare piece weighs 720 grams and is approximately 87% gold, 11% silver and 2% copper. Its design would have been fashionable in Britain, Ireland and France between 1300-1100BC.

Torcs have been closely associated with the Celtic people of Bronze Age Europe since at least Roman times, when figures were often identified as Celtic in sculpture and paintings by the torcs they wore.

Made by smiths who expertly twisted the metal into a ribbon-like appearance (which gives the object its name, from the Latin torqueo, ‘to twist’), torcs were worn around the neck, waist, arm or breast.

However, a mystery surrounds the Ulster torc. In its present condition it could not have been worn anywhere on the body as it has been deliberately coiled like a spring.

The torc’s original design would have been as a large circular hoop with two solid terminals at either end. These are believed to have acted as interlocking clasps, much like a clasp on a necklace.

The reason for the change of shape is a mystery. The practice of deliberately coiling torcs before burial is more common in Southern England. Only one other torc in Ireland has been found in a similar shape.

Some have suggested that the coiling was an act to ‘decommission’ the object after its owner died. Alternatively, it may have been a votive offering; an object made with the intention of deliberately burying it as an offering to the gods.

Ulster Musuem, Belfast

British Musuem: Viking Gold

A gold Viking pendant in the form of 'Thor's hammer'. The pendant is in the form of a double-headed hammer with an elongated pentagonal head. The head is rectangular in cross-section. From the centre of the head extends an integral tapering rectangular-sectioned shaft. The terminal of the shaftis narrowed to form a suspension loop. Both faces of the axe are decorated with punched motifs resembling quatrefoils or perhaps miniature axes.

A gold finger-ring dating to the Viking period. The ring is composed of three tapering, square-sectioned rods twisted together, which are thicker at the front, while at the back the ends are hammered flat together into a plain, narrow band. Gold rings of twisted type from the British Isles and Scandinavia are dated from the late Saxon/Viking periods into the early Middle Ages, from the late 9th century into the 12th century.

An Early Medieval (Viking) gold finger ring dating from the late 9th-10th century. It is made from a strip of gold which tapers to wire terminals which are wound around each other at the back of the hoop. The bezel of the ring is the widest part of the strip, and is an elongated lozenge.

A Viking gold ring ring which consists of a double-banded hoop made from a slightly concavo-convex strip with the ends drawn into wires at the back of the hoop, which are then tightly wound round a constricted section of the strip.