4000 years old and treasured in CornwallNamed after the crescent moons they resemble, lunulae represent some of the most valuable and beautiful items ever found in Cornwall. Gold lunulae came from Ireland some 4,000 years ago. Whereas in Ireland they were ritual items, in Cornwall they were treasured and buried in the mounds of local chiefs or spiritual leaders.
Of the four examples found in Cornwall in the late 18th and 19th centuries, one was kept in a bank vault for years after being given away as a wedding present in the early 1860s and two others were used, temporarily, to hold up the finder's trouser legs.
Gold Lunulae
Contributed by Royal Cornwall Museum
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About this object
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- Location
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Probably made in Ireland.
- Culture
- Period
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In use between: c.2300 - 1900 cal BC.
- Theme
- Size
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- W:
- 21cm
- Colour
- Material
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Comments
Lunulae are some of the finest peices of gold work from the Bronze Age. To put it into perspective, one wafer thin gold lunulae has a greater weight of gold in it than all the gold artefacts from contempoary british burials combined. Things like that should make us think when we talk about someone being 'rich and powerful' purely on the basis or thier grave goods.
The most telling lunulae discovered were from Kerivoa, Brittany. Here three lunulae were discovered in the remains of a box with some sheet gold and a rod of gold. The rod had its terminals hammered flat in the manner of the lunuae. From this it is thought that Lunulae were made by hammering a rod of gold flat. Decoration was then applied by impressing designs with a stylus. The stylus used often leaves tell-tale impressions on the surface of the gold and it is thought that all 3 lunulae from Kerivoa, and another two from Saint-Potan, Brittany and Harlyn Bay, Cornwall were all made with the same tool. This suggests that all five lunulae were the work of one craftsperson working both sides of the english channel and the contents of the Kerivoa box their tools of trade.