Mold Gold Cape

he Mold Cape was buried only a matter of miles away from the largest Bronze Age copper mine in northwest Europe, the Great Orme. The copper from here, and the tin from Cornwall, would have provided the ingredients for the vast majority of British bronze objects. The peak of activity at the Great Orme mine has been dated between 1900 and 1600 BC. Recent analysis of the gold-working techniques, and the decorative style of the cape, dates the burial to this very period. So we can only guess, but it's likely that the wearers of this extraordinary object were linked to the mine, which would have been a source of great wealth, and a major trading centre for the whole of north-west Europe

Workmen quarrying for stone in an ancient burial mound in 1833 found this unique ceremonial gold cape, which remains unparalleled to this day. The mound lay in a field named Bryn yr Ellyllon (the Fairies' or Goblins' Hill). I takes several yearrs to be pieced together

The isolated location of the burial site, near the village of Mold, not far from the north coast of Wales, meant that the wider world could easily have continued in ignorance of its existence. That this didn't happen, owes everything to the curiosity of a local vicar, Reverend C.B. Clough, who wrote an account of the find that aroused the interest of the Society of Antiquaries, hundreds of miles away in London.

It would take them over a hundred years to piece together all the different parts.

Before it was restored in the 1960s, it was difficult to tell exactly what shape this remarkable object was. It consisted of flattened fragments of thin gold sheet, some large, some small, with cracks, splits and holes all over them. There were also areas missing.