This hoard of eleven small gold rings and eleven gold bracelets was found in 1856.

These date to the Late Bronze Age (1150-800 BC). Unfortunately most of these were sold to a silversmith and melted down. Only two rings and two bracelets now survive in the collections of the British Museum (BM reg. nos WG.15-18).

The exact location where the hoard was found remained a mystery until 1980, when archaeologists were excavating an Early Bronze Age cemetery at Cae Capel Eithin. Excavators were removing plough soil just to the west of the cemetery when they found a crushed gold ring almost identical to the two surviving examples from Gaerwen.

The stone cairn was built over a thousand years before the hoard was deposited but it may have acted as a marker for where the hoard was buried. After all, if you’re going to bury gold you want to know where you put it! A cemetery of at least 17 Early Bronze Age burial pits was also located near the cairn and this may have overall been an important place in prehistory.

But who was burying these gold objects? And why?

We know gold objects were very important to prehistoric communities, and it certainly seems that this was a group effort depositing shared wealth; eleven bracelets and twelve rings is otherwise a lot of bling for one person!

The rings are of a specific form with a hollow, triangular section and are known as “lock-rings”. These occur around the same time as other penannular rings, such as the one from Cladh Hallan, and are commonly produced in Ireland in the Late Bronze Age.

The Cae Capel Eithin lock-ring found in 1980 is on display at Oriel Môn in Anglesey. Visitors can also see the gold ring and ingot fragments from Cwm Cadnant.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Ian Jones for providing information and photos of the Cae Capel Eithin lock-ring.