Ringlemere Cup

Coordinates: 51°15′53″N 1°17′11″E / 51.2647°N 1.2865°E / 51.2647; 1.2865
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Ringlemere Cup
MaterialGold
Created1700-1500 BC
DiscoveredRinglemere barrow in 2001
Present locationBritish Museum

The Ringlemere Gold Cup is a Bronze Age vessel found in the Ringlemere barrow near Sandwich in the English county of Kent in 2001.

Description

The body of the cup was created by hammering a single piece of gold, with the handle cut from a flat strip of gold and attached by rivets.[1] Although badly crushed by recent plough damage[citation needed] it can be seen to have been 14 cm high with corrugated sides. The cup resembles a late Neolithic (approximately 2300 BC) ceramic beaker with Corded Ware decoration, but dates to a much later period.

It is thought that the cup was not a grave good, but a votive offering independent of any inhumation, which was placed at the centre of the barrow in about 1700–1500 BC. No contemporary burials have been found at the site, although later Iron Age ones have since been found, along with a Saxon cemetery.

Only seven similar gold "unstable handled cups" (unstable because round-bottomed) have been found in Europe, all dating to the period between 1700 and 1500 BC. The Ringlemere cup is most similar to the other British example, the

Rillaton gold cup found in Cornwall in 1837. The other examples are two from Germany, two from Switzerland, one now lost from Brittany, and an unprovenanced, perhaps German, example. Two other silver cups and, from Britain, two amber and some shale cups all share the same basic shapes (see Hove amber cup). The finds in Britain are in the approximate Wessex area, and on the continent near the Rhine or the Channel coast, suggesting that the vessels, though probably all made fairly locally to their find spots, related to a specific cross-channel trading zone.[2]

Side view showing lip decoration
Side view showing rivets and pointillé lip decoration.

Discovery, purchase and display

The cup was discovered by

National Art Collections Fund and The British Museum Friends.[3]

After discovery of the cup, the site was excavated between 2002 and 2005 revealing a history starting with activity in the Mesolithic period, a number of Neolithic features and finds, a funerary complex of Early Bronze Age date (approximately 2300 BC), and an Anglo-Saxon cemetery.[6]

The cup was number 10 in the list of British archaeological finds selected by experts at the

documentary Our Top Ten Treasures
which included an interview with Bradshaw.

From 14 May 2004 until 13 January 2006 the cup appeared in the museum's "Buried Treasure" exhibition on treasure trove, both at the museum itself and touring (to the National Museum & Gallery of Wales at Cardiff, Manchester Museum, the Hancock Museum at Newcastle, and the Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery). On its return to London, it was on temporary display in Room 2 of the British Museum, with the Rillaton cup, until 17 October 2006. From 17 October to 26 February 2007 it was on temporary display in Dover Museum, closer to its find-spot, and it is now back in the Prehistory galleries at the British Museum.[3]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Needham et al., p.38
  2. ^ Needham et al., Sections 8, "conclusion" and 9, "catalogue"
  3. ^ a b c "Collection Online – The Ringlemere Cup". The British Museum. Retrieved 20 November 2016.
  4. OCLC 49632006
    . Retrieved 20 November 2016.
  5. OCLC 49632006
    . Retrieved 20 November 2016.
  6. ^ Needham et al., chapter 2

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ringlemere Cup.
This article is about an item held in the British Museum. The object reference is The Ringlemere gold cup.

51°15′53″N 1°17′11″E / 51.2647°N 1.2865°E / 51.2647; 1.2865

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