page_title: Gold working in the Bronze Age British Isles
section_title: Styles and development
hierarchical_section_title: Gold working in the Bronze Age British Isles / Styles and development
context_page_description: Gold working in the Bronze Age British Isles refers to the use of gold to produce ornaments and other prestige items in the British Isles during the Bronze Age, between circa 2500 and c.800 BCE in Britain, and up to about 550 BCE in Ireland. In this period, communities in Britain and Ireland first learned how to work metal, leading to the widespread creation of not only gold but also copper and bronze items as well. Gold artefacts in particular were prestige items used to designate the high status of those individuals who wore, or were buried with them.
  Around 1,500 gold objects dating to the Bronze Age survive in collections, around 1000 of them from Ireland and the other 500 from Britain; this is a much smaller number than would have been originally crafted, leading archaeologists to believe that "many thousands of gold objects were made and used" in the Bronze Age British Isles.
  Records indicate that Bronze Age gold artefacts had begun to be discovered by the 18th century at the least, although at the time many were melted down or lost.
context_section_description: Bronze Age goldwork is marked by an elegant simplicity of design and fine execution, with decoration usually restricted to relatively simple geometric patterns such as parallel lines, chevron, zig-zag and circular patterns, often extremely small and perfectly executed, especially in Ireland, as can be seen by enlarging the lunula and Irish bracelet illustrated.  The objects are nearly all pieces of jewellery, and include clothes-fasteners (somewhat like large one-piece cuff-links), torcs, bracelets, gold lunulae, smaller ornaments that were perhaps worn in the ear, nose or hair, or on clothing as brooches, and a range of thin disc or plaques probably sewn to clothing or worn in the hair. The ends of objects that are essentially bars bent into a round shape often thicken before ending in a flat or concave face, as for example in the Milton Keynes Hoard. The thickening is typically slight in torcs and bracelets, but extreme in clothes fasteners and ear decorations.  Tightly wound spirals in pairs are popular, as they were on the continent.
caption: The Mold Cape is a unique survival from North Wales. British Museum
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