Gold Lunula

The Gold lunula is a distinctive type of early Bronze Age necklace or collar shaped like a crescent moon.  

The gold lunula from the Gwithian area, Cornwall © The Trustees of the British Museum

They are normally flat and thin, with roundish spatulate terminals that are often twisted to 45 to 90 degrees from the plane of the body.

Of the more than a hundred gold lunulae known from Western Europe, more than eighty are from Ireland; it is possible they were all the work of a handful of expert goldsmiths, though the three groups are presumed to have had different creators. Several examples have a heavily crinkled appearance suggesting that they had been rolled up at some point.

Lunulae were probably replaced as neck ornaments firstly by gold torcs, found from the Irish Middle Bronze Age, and then in the Late Bronze Age by the spectacular gorgets of thin ribbed gold, some with round discs at the side, of which 9 examples survive, 7 in the National Museum of Ireland.

Gold lunula from Schulenburg, Germany, Provincial, linear group.

Gold lunula  - British Museum - Found in a bog on the Tir Dewin Farm

Flat sheet crescent of beaten gold with quadrangular terminals rotated relative to the crescent. It is decorated with an incised geometric pattern.

The horns are decorated with horizontal patterns of horizontal lines, rows of dots, bands of diamond shaped motifs and void spaces. The horn’s inner and outer edges are decorated with a border of horizontal lines.

A band of three incised lines and two irregular rows of dots separate the horns from the rest of the body.

The decoration extends down the body in the form of a border parallel with the inner and outer edges. The border consists of a series of parallel lines and rows of dots.

Gold lunula from Blessington, Ireland, Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age, c. 2400BC – 2000BC, Classical group

Chevrons and Lozenges incised into the Blessington Lunula.

Incised or punched decoration, confined normally to the horns and the internal and external edges, usually consists of fields of simple geometric patterns, Zig Zags , lozenger , triangles , parallel lines.
 

Llanllyfni, Wales, Britain

The Dresden-Dobritz Hoard

The earliest beaten bronze vessels associated with ceremonial and perhaps ritual feasting
and drinking occur in the Bronze D phase of the thirteenth century BC in Central
Europe.

Beaten bronze cups in a succession of variant forms are characteristic of the Urnfield late Bronze Age ... Friedrichsruhe and Fuchsstadt cups, with decorated variants such as those from the Dresden-Dobritz hoard date from the end of Bronze D through Hallstatt A1 and A2




source:THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF CELTIC ART - D.W. Harding
photo: Landesmuseum fur Vorge-schichte, Dresden, copyright Landesmt fur Archaologie Sachsen 

Later Bronze Age Ceremonial Hats

source:THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF CELTIC ART - D.W. Harding
Photo: Peter Haag-Kirchner

Mold Gold Cape

The Mold Cape 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 currently housed at the British Museum in London.

The cape is considered to be one of the most spectacular examples of prehistoric sheet-gold working yet discovered. It is of particular interest as both its form and its design are unparalleled

The decorative motifs of The Mold Cape 

 Around the neck and base are a line of perforations. There are three zones of decoration on the cape: a band running around the base, a curving panel which dips at the neck and rises over the shoulders, and two matching panels to fill in the upper arm area.

Bronze Age Jewelry for a Lady of Fashion

I took this photo in the Museum of Dijon, in, Côte-d'Or, Burgundy, eastern France, where the Krater of Vix was discoveredin 1953.

This jewelry dates from the late Bronze Age, 1000 B.C. about two hundred years earlier than the arrival of the Hallstatt Celts. The jewelry shows the considerable skill of the goldsmith.