Gold Cape Views

Clothing & Accessories

The cape was within a Bronze Age burial mound in a field named Bryn yr Ellyllon, the Fairies' or Goblins' Hill. The gold cape had been placed on the body of a person who was interred in a rough cist (stone-lined grave) within a burial mound. The preserved remains of the skeleton were fragmentary, and the cape was badly crushed. An estimated 200-300 amber beads, in rows, were on the cape originally, but only a single bead survives at the British Museum. Also associated with the cape were remains of coarse cloth and 16 fragments of sheet bronze which are likely to have been the backing for the gold: in places the gold was riveted onto the bronze sheeting with bronze rivets. There also were two gold 'straps' among the artefacts found. An urn with large quantities of burnt bone and ash was 0.6–0.9 m from the grave.

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 cape is oval in shape and would cover the shoulders, upper arms, and upper chest of the person wearing it, being higher at the back and lower in the front.

The craftsmanship with which the cape was constructed is exceptional. The object was beaten out of a single ingot of gold, a task which would have taken considerable time and skill, and was then intensely decorated with repoussé concentric rings of ribs and bosses. The decoration almost totally fills the object's outer surface, so that very little plain gold remains. It has been suggested that this decorative motif may mimic multiple strings of beads and/or the folds of cloth.[2]

The Wessex region of England during the Bronze Age was noted for the wealth of its grave goods, particularly the exquisite goldwork in up to 15% of its graves. Fifteen findspots of goldwork are known for Wessex, compared to five in four other southern English counties (Cornwall, Devon, Essex, and Norfolk) with an apparent complete absence in the rest of the country. It is thought that much of this Wessex goldwork was the product of a single master craftsman, and that all may have been a product of his workshop.[6] The Mold cape is the only other piece of Bronze Age goldwork which challenges the Wessex material in its richness; however, the decorative motifs employed in the cape are dissimilar to those found in the Wessex material.[7]