The Mold Cape

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The Mold cape is a solid sheet-gold object dating from about 1900–1600 BC in the European Bronze Age. It was found at Mold in Flintshire, Wales, in 1833. The cape is thought to have formed part of a ceremonial dress, perhaps with religious connections. It is housed at the British Museum in London.

The gold cape was found in 1833 by workmen (accounts vary: either during the filling of a gravel pit[1] or while they were quarrying for stone[2]). The cape was within a Bronze Age burial mound in a field named Bryn yr Ellyllon, the Fairies’ or Goblins’ Hill. The gold cape had been placed on the body of a person who was interred in a rough cist (stone-lined grave) within a burial mound. The preserved remains of the skeleton were fragmentary, and the cape was badly crushed. An estimated 200–300 amber beads, in rows, were on the cape originally, but only a single bead survives at the British Museum.