Bronze Age Gold from Wales
Middle Bronze Age gold strip
This is a plain gold strip with near parallel sides and one surviving shaped end, or terminal. The other end has been torn, but has two perforations. Toward the middle of the strip is a band, indicating a point at which the strip was once folded around a larger object and the terminals also show evidence of bending. It is thought probable that this was once a link attached to a gold cuff-armlet, helping to join the overlapping ends of the armlet. Such sheet gold armlets have been found in the Capel Isaf hoard from Carmarthenshire and date to the Middle Bronze Age.
A very close parallel to the Llanmaes strip is a gold strip, folded around a gold cuff-armlet, within the Capel Isaf hoard, Carmarthenshire (Savory 1977, Fig. 1.1). This may have acted to lock the overlapping armlet terminals together by sliding over them. These objects can be dated to the Middle Bronze Age.
Collection Area
Item Number
Find Information
Site Name: Llanmaes, Llantwit Major
Notes: Settlement assemblage. A gold strip was found in 2008 during an archaeological research excavation of a Bronze Age-Iron Age settlement at Llanmaes. The object was found in Trench J, located to the north-north-east of the central settlement, in yellow-brown coloured clay, directly below a metalled, stone surface. It was closely associated with six fragments of Middle Bronze Age pottery (1500-1150BC). 2009.39H/1 was found on the metalled surface above this find.