For those of you who have yet to see for yourself one of the most talked about finds of 2001, thr Ringlemere Gold Cup, it will be on dispaly in Dover Museum from October 17th 2006
The Ringlemere Gold Cup was found near Woodnesborough and is almost 4000 years old. It was declared a national treasure and acquired by the British Museum in London in 2002. The British Museum is to loan the cup to Dover Museum for a special exhibition to accompany the equally spectacular 3600 year old Bronze Age Boat found in Dover in 1992. The cup will return to the British Museum at the end of February.
The display of the Ringlemere Cup is part of the celebrations of Bronze Age culture taking place in Dover on the weekend of October 21 and 22. A major academic conference on the Bronze Age is being held at the Dover Cruise Terminal with speakers attending from all over the world, including specialists from Germany, France, Ireland, Belgium and the USA as well as from all over Britain. There will also be a public activity day at Dover Museum on Saturday 21, with demonstrations of gold working, flint knapping and other Bronze Age crafts.
Cllr Mrs Nicholas, DDC Cabinet Member for Housing and Community, said: "We are delighted that the Ringlemere Cup is returning to our district from October 17 to the end of February, and that this will enable the residents of the Dover District to view this wonderful part of their heritage."
The Ringlemere Gold Cup c.1950 - 1750 BC
In November 2001 Cliff Bradshaw was metal-detecting at Ringlemere Farm, Woodnesborough, near Sandwich, when he discovered a 3800 year-old Bronze Age gold cup.
It was a find of both national and international importance, with only six others ever found in Europe. They would have been highly valuable objects and their deliberate burial in graves or at ceremonial sites represents the giving up of a great deal of wealth by the person or community that owned them.
From its style it is likely that the cup was made in southern Britain but the gold it is made from would have come from continental Europe, Western Britain or Ireland and was probably bought to the area by a boat like the Dover Bronze Age Boat. It is made of 184 grams (6 ½ ounces) of sheet gold, alloyed with about 20% silver. The handle was made separately and riveted on.
The cup was declared Treasure and the market value of the cup awarded jointly to Cliff Bradshaw and the landowner. It was purchased by the British Museum with the aid of the Heritage Lottery Fund, National Art Collections Fund and the British Museum Friends.
The Ringlemere Henge
Although there were no known archaeological sites in the Ringlemere area, this highly important cup had surely been buried in some kind of ancient monument and the site needed investigating.
Excavations have shown the site to be complex, with a round mound built inside an earlier and much rarer ceremonial site called a Henge.
The Henge was built around 2600 BC (Late Neolithic) and consisted of a circular enclosure, bounded by a large ditch and bank with a single entrance. It was rather like Stonehenge, but at Ringlemere the structures were of wood rather than stone. The Henge was over 50 metres (164 feet) in diameter and had a small timber building or shrine at the centre.
About 2000 BC (Early Bronze Age), a large barrow mound was placed inside the old enclosure, burying the original shrine, and a new timber structure built on top. Later, a wood-lined pit was dug into the mound next to the timber structure. The gold cup, an object of great rarity and worth, was buried in this pit, together with an amber pendant and some worked flints.The prehistoric monument lay abandoned throughout Iron Age and Roman times but when the Anglo-Saxons arrived in about AD 450, they established a large cemetery on the site containing at least 50 graves. Ringlemere is just west of Woodnesborough near Sandwich and about 10 miles north of Dover.
Image and Press Article courtesy of Dover Museum.
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