tour 2 of 11
Our Top Ten British Treasures
The Rillaton gold cup
Workmen engaged in construction work in 1837
plundered a burial cairn for stone on part of Bodmin Moor, at
Rillaton. In one side of the mound they came upon a stone-lined
vault, or cist, 2.4 m long and 1.1 m wide. It contained the decayed
remains of a human skeleton accompanied by this gold cup, a bronze
dagger and other objects that have not survived - a decorated
pottery vessel, a 'metallic rivet', 'some
pieces of ivory' and 'a few glass beads'.
The pot and gold cup were set beneath a slab leaning against the
west wall of the
cist.
After discovery the
finds were sent as Duchy Treasure Trove to William IV (reigned
1831-37) very shortly before his death. They remained in the royal
household until the death of King George V in 1936, at which point
the importance of the cup and associated dagger came to be
appreciated, leading to their loan to the British
Museum.
The main body of
the cup was beaten out of a single lump of gold of high purity. The
corrugated profile would have required great skill to achieve. In
addition to being aesthetically pleasing, it added strength to the
thin sheet metal. The handle is decorated with two sets of grooves
and is neatly rivetted to the body through lozenge-shaped
washers.
Similar cups were
made in plain sheet gold as well as in other exotic materials -
silver, amber and shale - in southern England and north-western
Europe. It is thought that they were inspired by pottery cups
current in the later part of the Early Bronze Age in central Europe
(the Aunjetitz, or Únetician culture). Until recently, only two
other corrugated cups of this period were known from temperate
Europe, but in November 2001 another was unearthed by Cliff
Bradshaw at Ringlemere in eastern Kent and was acquired by the
British Museum in May 2003.