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The Gold Ornament from Mold, Flintshire North Wales

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 May 2014

T. G. E. Powell
T. G. E. Powell
Affiliation:
Department of Prehistoric Archaeology, University of Liverpool
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Extract

The ornamental piece of sheet-gold found near Mold, in the county of Flint, North Wales (fig. 1), is one of the largest and heaviest pieces of prehistoric gold-work so far discovered in Europe, and it has been one of the principal treasures in the collection of prehistoric antiquities in the British Museum for more than a century.

Although the object has been frequently illustrated, no detailed study has been made of it since the original publication of its finding which appeared in Archaeologia in 1836.

In the present study an endeavour is made to restate the circumstances of the discovery, to offer a detailed description of the object itself, and to put forward certain views as to its age and use.

The gold ornament was discovered in 1833 during the destruction of a mound of stones and earth situated in a field named Bryn yr Ellyllon which lay about half a mile E.S.E. of the parish church of Mold, Flintshire. There are three early accounts of the discovery, but none of them are at first hand. They have been brought together by Canon Ellis Davies, and the fullest and most objective of these accounts is the second reproduced by him. In this, which was by the then Vicar of Mold, Rev. C. B. Clough, a fairly clear idea is obtained of the circumstances of the discovery, but it must be emphasized that the actual opening of the grave was not witnessed by him or by any of the other writers. The following reconstruction of, and commentary on, the discovery is, however, mainly based on the Vicar's account.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , December 1954 , pp. 161 - 179
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1953

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References

page 161 note 1 inter alia British Museum Bronze Age Guide (1920), Pl. VII. Wheeler, R. E. M., Prehistoric and Roman Wales (1925), 176Google Scholar and fig. 67. Ebert, , Reallexikon der Vorgeschichte, Band VIIIGoogle Scholar, Tafel, 95. Piggott, S. and Daniel, G., A Picture Book of Ancient British Art (1951), Pl. 27Google Scholar.

page 161 note 2 ‘A Letter from John Gage, Esq., F.R.S. … accompanying a British Gold Corslet …’ Archaeologia, XXVI (1836), 422–31Google Scholar, Pls. L, LI. The plates contain excellent large scale drawings of the goldwork.

page 162 note 1 ‘The Hill of the Spectre’. For comment v. Jones, J. Morris, Y Cymmrodor XXVIII (1918), 1Google Scholar.

page 162 note 2 Davies, Ellis, The Prehistoric and Roman Remains of Flintshire (1949), 256–63Google Scholar and fig. 94.

page 162 note 3 Ellis Davies, op. cit.

page 162 note 4 It is unlikely that this is based on any objective description.

page 163 note 1 Powell, T. G. E., Publications of the Flintshire Historical Society. Vol. for 1953Google Scholar: pending.

page 163 note 2 vide The Flintshire Bronze Age map in Ellis Davies, op. cit.

page 168 note 1 Piggott, Stuart, Proc. Preh. Soc., IV (1938), 78Google Scholar. Coffey, G., The Bronze Age in Ireland (1913), 46 ff.Google Scholar

page 168 note 2 Smith, R. A., British Museum Quarterly, XI (1936) 1 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar. and pl. 2. Piggott and Daniel, op. cit., pls. 10 and 11.

page 168 note 3 It has been pointed out by Ap Simon (Univ. Lond. Inst. Arch. Ann. Report, X (1954), 37–62Google Scholar) that the Rillaton dagger belongs to his Camerton-Snowshill group and should therefore not be earlier than Reinecke A2/B1, and belong to a relatively late phase of the Wessex Culture.

page 168 note 4 Cf. cups from Shaft Grave IV, v. Karo, G., Die Schachtgräber von Mykenai (1930)Google Scholar, pl. 104, nos. 392–3.

page 168 note 5 Maryon, H., Proc. Roy. Irish Acad., XLIV, C. 195 ff.Google Scholar

page 168 note 6 As first pointed out by Armstrong, E. C. R.v. Catalogue of Irish Gold Ornaments, 2nd edit. (1933), 13Google Scholar.

page 168 note 7 Ebert, , Reallexikon, XIGoogle Scholar, Tf. 69. It is now generally agreed that this object, and its compeers, are some kind of ritual vessel, perhaps comparable to the rhyton. It is here illustrated as such in the photograph kindly supplied by Dr Kaiser.

page 168 note 8 Déchelette, , Manuel II, 1Google Scholar, fig. 144.

page 168 note 9 Raschke, G., Germania, XXXII (1954), 1Google Scholar.

page 168 note 10 Raschke loc. cit., pl. 3, and pl. 4, 2 for detail of this ornament.

page 169 note 1 Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scotland, XIX (18—), 134Google Scholar. Childe, V. G., The Prehistory of Scotland (1935), 102Google Scholar and fig. 25. The bracelet is in the National Museum of Antiquities, Edinburgh, and the jet necklace is in the British Museum, London. The two pieces are here illustrated together for the first time.

page 169 note 2 Anderson, J., Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scotland, XXXV (1901), 266 ffGoogle Scholar. and figs. 1–7.

page 170 note 1 Stuart Piggott, op. cit., 82. The broad bracelet or armlet type is presumably related to the ‘cuff-armlets’ of the Unetice Culture.

page 170 note 2 Proc. Preh. Soc. XVII (1951), 31Google Scholar and passim.

page 170 note 3 Information kindly supplied by Prof. Piggott and Mr R. B. K. Stevenson.

page 170 note 4 Anderson, op. cit., 270 fig. 3.

page 170 note 5 Similar bronze beads were associated with a B2 Beaker at Beggar's Haven, Brighton (Curwen, , Arch. Sussex (1937)Google Scholar, pl. XI). Compare, too, the rolled sheet-gold beads, without locality, from Ireland. Armstrong, , Catalogue, 91Google Scholar, ill. XIV, 245.

page 170 note 6 Piggott, , in Neolithic Cultures of the British Isles (1954) p. 380Google Scholar, when discussing the lower limits of the neolithic cultures gives 1500/1450 to 1300 B.C. as the range of the Wessex culture. On the most recent considerations, the present writer believes 1500 not to be too early with perhaps a corresponding shortening of the terminal date. He is indebted to Profs. Hawkes and Piggott for discussions on this particular matter.

page 171 note 1 Bericht Röm. Germ. Komm. 31 (1941), 48Google Scholar, and Abb. 41, p. 56.

page 171 note 2 Piggott, , Proc. Preh. Soc., IV (1938), 77 ff.Google Scholar, and de Navarro, J. M., ‘The British Isles and the Beginning of the Northern Early Bronze Age’ in Early Cultures of N.W. Europe (Chadwick Memorial Studies, 1950), 77 ff.Google Scholar

page 171 note 3 Raschke would tentatively assign the Etzelsdorf find to Reinecke's Hallstatt ‘A’ (Childe's E), but stresses the difficulty of arriving at a date. He draws attention to its relation to the Mold ornament and to the gold bowls of Messingwerk and Werder. (Loc. cit., 4–5).

page 171 note 4 A possible exception may have been the gold object found in Co. Tipperary in 1692 of which the subsequent fate is unknown, v. Wilde, , Catalogue of Antiquities in the Coll. of the Roy. Irish Acad., Pt. 3 (1862), p. 8Google Scholar, fig. 537.

In addition, the Lansdowne disc, of bronze with gold foil covering, may have displayed this motif, but the reconstruction published in the British Museum Bronze Age Guide, fig. 91 is unjustified in view of the object's very fragmentary condition.

page 171 note 5 Acta Archaeologica, XIX (1948), 189 ff.Google Scholar

page 171 note 6 Kersten, K., Zur älteren nordischen Bronzezeit (1936)Google Scholar, Tfn. XXI b: cup, XXII: sword, etc.

page 171 note 7 Baier, R., Z. für Ethnologie, XXVIII (1896), 92 ffGoogle Scholar. and Tf. IV.

page 171 note 8 Broholm, op. cit.. 198.

page 171 note 9 Armstrong, op. cit., 13 f. and pls. VIII–X. Coffey, op. cit., 62 ff. and pl. X.

page 171 note 10 Gleeson, D. F., J. Roy. Soc. Antiq. Ireland, LXIV (1934), 138 fGoogle Scholar. and pl. 1. Piggott and Daniel, op. cit. pl. 21.

page 171 note 11 In the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. This gorget is not mentioned by Armstrong, and was only known to Coffey from an 18th Century drawing which he reproduces: op. cit., fig. 61.

page 172 note 1 Armstrong, op. cit., 58 and pl. X, 45.

page 172 note 2 The Archaeological News Letter, Jan./Feb. 1953, p. 177Google Scholar. Résumé of a paper read before Section H of the British Association. The Gorteenreagh gorget fragment, used by Dr Raftery to give a 6th Cent. B.C. date to the whole group, seems to the present writer to be a late and decadent form akin in shape to the specimen from Co. Clare, illustrated by Armstrong op. cit., pl. IX, 44.

page 172 note 3 J. Roy. Soc. Antiq., Ireland, LXXV (1945), 85 ffGoogle Scholar. and figs. 2 and 3.

page 172 note 4 ibid., LXXXI (1951), 53 ff.

page 172 note 5 The Northern bronze halskragen of smooth type, here considered to be ancestral to the Irish gorget, are themselves inspired by the gold lunulae coming from Ireland to the Nordischer Kreis at an earlier date. (v. Petersson, M., K.H.V. Lund, 1949–1950, 99 ffGoogle Scholar. who follows and amplifies Sprockhoff, , Germania, 23 (1939) 1 ff.Google Scholar).

page 172 note 6 Altschlesien V (1934), 179 ffGoogle Scholar. and Tf. XXXII.

page 172 note 7 Proc. Preh. Soc., III (1937), 327Google Scholar.

page 172 note 8 Abercromby, , Bronze Age Pottery, vol. 1Google Scholar, pl. XLVI, 282 (Glenwherry) and pl. XLIII, 236 (Duncraigaig).

page 172 note 9 Broholm, op. cit., 201.

page 173 note 1 Déchelette, J., Monuments Piot, XIX (1911), 185 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar. and pl. XV.

page 173 note 2 The upper figure is offered as a central point for the Wessex culture, while the lower is that for the beginning of Period m to which latter Prof. Hawkes has communicated his agreement.

page 173 note 3 Broholm, op. cit., 202.

page 173 note 4 Déchelette, op. cit., 185 ff., figs. 1 and 2, pl. XV. Ebert, , Reallexikon IVGoogle Scholar, Tf. 57, c, d, e.

page 174 note 1 Compare the nature of the Pontic Greek metal-work for the Scythians, v. Minns, Scythians and Greeks, passim.

page 174 note 2 Cf. Prof.Childe, Gordon's remarks in Proc. Preh. Soc., XIV (1948), 188 f.Google Scholar

page 174 note 3 Clark, J. G. D., Prehistoric Europe (1952), 264Google Scholar.

page 174 note 4 The Prehistoric and Roman Remains of Denbighshire (1929), passim.

page 174 note 5 Flintshire, op. cit., passim.

page 174 note 6 Flintshire, op. cit., pp. 43 ff. and fig. 7.

page 174 note 7 Denbighshire, op. cit., pp. 275 ff. The Prehistory of Wales (Nat. Mus. Wales Catalogue, 1951), p. 87Google Scholar and fig. 28.

page 174 note 8 Flintshire, op. cit., pp. 423 ff. and fig. 182.

page 174 note 9 Maryon, op. cit., 206 ff.

page 174 note 10 Armstrong, Catalogue, op. cit., pp. 20 and 59.

page 175 note 1 Fox, C., Archaeology of the Cambridge Region (2nd edit., 1948), p. 51Google Scholar.

page 175 note 2 Germania, XXII (1938), 7 ff.Google Scholar

page 175 note 3 Piggott, , Proc. Preh. Soc. IV (1938), 95Google Scholar, refers to this hoard in relation to the terminus ante quem of the Wessex culture gold ornaments. Junghans, et al. (Bericht Röm. Germ. Komm, XXXIV (1951–1953), 77Google Scholar) would assign the Regensburg hoard to early Reinecke B rather than A2.

page 175 note 4 Cf. the Caergwrle boat-bowl, Piggott and Daniel, op. cit., pls. 28 and 29, and the hoard from Aberwheeler, found in 1782 but sold, v. Ellis Davies, Flintshire, op. cit., 431 (Denbighshire appendix).

page 175 note 5 For distribution map of faience beads in Britain, v. Stone, , Ant. J., XXXI (1951), 31Google Scholar, and of Tara tores, v. Crawford, , Proc. Soc. Antiq. Lond., XXIV (1911–1912), 41Google Scholar. The Berwyn trade route across North Wales, as denned by Fox, , Personality of Britain (1943), 49 and 70Google Scholar, lies south of the Mold region, but could have served it unless the Flintshire hills themselves provided an alternative land-fall for the Irish Sea trade.

page 175 note 6 Ellis Davies, Fints. op. cit., 259.

page 175 note 7 op. cit., 93.

page 178 note 1 The exact site of the find is uncertain. Armstrong, op. cit., p. 92, following certain older accounts, says ‘at Carrig-a-Crump’. Prof. M. J. O'Kelly believes the burial to have been in a cave in the townland of Knockane about 1 mile east of Martyr, Castle, v. J. Cork Hist, and Arch. Soc. (1945), 23Google Scholar.

page 178 note 2 Armstrong, op. cit., 42 and pl. X, 57 for surviving gold plate.

page 178 note 3 Childe, , Dawn (1947), 327Google Scholar.

page 178 note 4 The following note, supplied by Mr C. Aldred, is potentially of such bearing on European prehistoric studies that it is quoted in full:

‘The traditional Egyptian neck decoration for both men and women was the “broad collar” consisting of rows of vertically strung bugle beads and a lower fringe of drop beads. It might have either semi-circular or hawk-headed terminals (Mace and Winlock: Tomb of Senebtisi, pl. XXIV). It makes an early appearance in history, being the hieroglyph nebew (gold). It was presumably a part of the royal attire the use of which was gradually extended to members of the royal family and the Court and eventually to all who could afford a specimen. In the Middle Kingdom it is depicted on painted wooden coffins among the essential articles of dress. In the New Kingdom, except for special religious occasions it was largely replaced by the floral collar, or its derivatives in gold and faience (cp. Bulletin of Metrop. Mus., XXXV, pp. 66–7Google Scholar). Such collars were developed as early as the reign of Tuthmosis III (Winlock: Treasure of Three Princesses). Besides such collars, single strings of beads were occasionally worn by the upper classes probably for ritual purposes. Thus the famous statue of Re'-hotep at Cairo shows the owner wearing the carnelian sewret bead on a single thread. Strings of beads as distinct from collars enjoyed a fashion among the ruling classes in the XIth Dynasty being worn by the queens of Menthuhotep III (Aldred: M.K. Art, pls. 8 and 9; Bull. Metrop. Mus., Nov. 1921, pt. II, p. 53Google Scholar). In several burials such necklaces were provided as well as broad collars (Bull. Metrop. Mus., 1936, p. 274 ffGoogle Scholar). Such necklaces usually consisted of ball beads or lentoids. The commonest Egyptian beads are spherical, lentoid, and cylindrical rectangular or rhomboidal beads are so rare as to be exceptional’.