The Ringlemere Bronze Age cup will be on display at the Dover Museum, Kent as from October 17th 2006 until the end of February 2007 and will be displayed alongside the permanent exhibit, the Dover Bronze Age Boat. Go to dovermuseum.co.uk and click on the ‘news’ link for further information ...
Articles
Two stories about the fantastic gold cup:
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/3019034.stm
From the BBC website:
A rare gold cup from the Bronze Age has been secured for display by the British Museum.
It is only the second example of its type to come from the UK, with just five cups of this type known across the whole of Europe.
Found in Ringlemere, east Kent, in 2001, the cup has helped provide further evidence of the extensive trading networks that covered Europe during the Bronze Age.
It was “virtually reconstructed” using an endoscope, radiography and x-rays following scientific examination of the cup at the British Museum.
The artefact dates from between 1700 and 1500 BC – the same era as Stonehenge – and reveals a higher level of workmanship than was previously thought possible for this time.
A team of archaeologists has been working on the site where the cup was found, and discovered a previously unsuspected funeral site from the early Bronze Age.
This is how the cup is thought to have originally looked
However the assumption that the cup was dislodged by modern ploughing from a grave remains to be proven.
It was acquired for the museum through funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, The National Art Collections Fund and Friends of the British Museum.
The Ringlemere Cup will be on display in the London museum’s Round Reading Room from Thursday and will feature on BBC Two series Hidden Treasures, which is being shown in the autumn.
And the Guardian’s
at education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,9830,985303,00.html
British Museum’s cup runs over
Maev Kennedy, arts and heritage correspondent
Thursday June 26, 2003
The Guardian
The Ringlemere Cup, a masterpiece of prehistoric gold found in a Kent field 18 months ago, has been bought by the British Museum for £270,000 and will be the star of a spectacular touring exhibition.
The cup is still crumpled, mangled by ploughing which had flattened the burial mound where it was hidden around 1600BC.
However, a 3D computer reconstruction has revealed its sensuous beauty. It is taller and more shapely than the archaeologists assumed, with a narrow waist.
The Ringlemere Cup is one of only five such artefacts found in Europe. They are believed to have been intended for practical use, beaten from single sheets of gold. The cup was found in 2001 by Cliff Bradshaw, an amateur metal-detector enthusiast. He will share the money paid by the museum with the landowner.
The cup has been described as a find which rewrites history. Yesterday the British Museum’s director, Neil MacGregor, described it as “a remarkable birthday present” for the museum’s 250th anniversary.
“Our previous excavations have produced a wealth of information, which we are now starting to piece together. In prehistoric times, the site at Ringlemere must have been one of considerable importance. The story really begins around 2600 BC when a large circular ditched enclosure was constructed on the site, for reasons which still remain unclear to us. This enclosure was probably used for ceremonial purposes. We understand little of the detail but there had been a small rectangular timber building at the centre of the monument at one time, perhaps a shrine. This timber structure was surrounded by pits, holes for wooden posts and several hearths, all of which implies that there had once been considerable activity within the enclosed area.
Years later, perhaps around 2000 BC, a mound of turf and soil was heaped up in the middle of the old enclosure, burying all the earlier features. The mound seems to have created a platform to support a new timber structure, close to the site of the earlier shrine. A large pit dug into the top of the mound nearby may have originally contained the gold cup. By the time the gold cup came to be buried, however, the monument had perhaps already been in use (possibly intermittently) for well over 500 years. Yet, not long after, the site seems to have been abandoned, leaving the mound with its encircling ditch as a monument to the Ancestors, largely ignored by later inhabitants of the region. The Romans came and went without leaving much of a mark on the site. But to generations of local rabbits, foxes and badgers this ancient mound provided an ideal place to dig their burrows – we have excavated numerous examples of them.
Then, in about AD 450 new Anglo-Saxon settlers arrived in the region. To them, the ancient mound showed that this was a place of great importance, which would be very suitable for the burial of their dead. They established a cemetery here which contained over 50 individuals, some cremated. The cemetery went out of use around AD 550 and the area eventually became the farmland that it continues to be today.”
canterburytrust.co.uk/ringlem3.html
From an excellent up-to-date resource on the ongoing excavations at Ringlemere. Recent aerial photographs have turned up more than 20 barrows marked in the immediate vicinity.
After the find an excavation unearthed a burial site in a round barrow near to where the cup was discovered. One side of the cup had been crushed, probably by agricultural work in the field which dragged it from its original site; otherwise it is intact. The cup is strikingly similar to the Rillaton Cup, which is of a similar date, shape, size and design. Both have broad handles attached with lozenge shaped rivets, and were beaten out of a single piece of gold. The Ringlemere Cup is slightly larger though, and has a curved base. It is thought that the Rillaton Cup, which has a flat base, could originally have had a curved base.
Archaeologists found a grave containing fragmentary bones, possibly human. Though no whole skeleton has yet come to light this may be because bones have been dispersed by animals, or eroded by acidic soil. Excavation of the barrow also produced Mesolithic and late Neolithic flint tools and pottery, showing that people have been living near the field at Ringlemere Farm since at least 5,000 BC.
I have also seen this referred to as the ‘Woodnesborough Cup’ (Woodnesborough is the closest village to the farm) and the ‘Kent Cup’. The farm belongs to the Smith family, who agreed to both the metal detectors’ search, and the subsequent excavations which have now been back filled.
I realise this is cheating a bit by adding on a site that isn’t really open, or doesn’t necessarily have anything to see, but Ringlemere Farm is where the famous ‘Ringlemere Cup’ was found in 2002. The cup bears a very striking similarity to the Rillaton Cup, found at Rillaton barrow on Bodmin Moor.
Images of the Ringlemere Gold Cup by Sue White, who was commissioned by the finder to produce a reconstruction.
Excellent close up pic of the cup, all spic and span
Sites within 20km of Ringlemere Farm
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Rubury Butts, Three Barrows Down
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Bay Hill
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Dane John Mound
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North Foreland
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Iffin Wood
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Bigbury Camp
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Clowes Wood
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