A Royal Misplacement
In 1837, workmen quarrying stone from a large Bronze Age burial mound on Bodmin Moor discovered a stone-lined vault, or cist. The cist, measuring approximately 2.4 meters long and 1.1 meters wide, contained the remains of a human skeleton. Accompanying the burial was a collection of grave goods: a bronze dagger, beads, pottery fragments, and a gold cup.
Because the discovery was made on land belonging to the Duchy of Cornwall, the finds were sent to the reigning monarch, King William IV, as treasure. The cup's archaeological importance was not immediately understood. After passing to King George V, it was reportedly used in his dressing room to hold collar studs. Its significance was only recognized after his death in 1936, at which point it was transferred to the British Museum on a long-term loan from the Royal Collection. The other artifacts found alongside the cup have since been lost.
Bronze Age Engineering and Trade
The Rillaton Gold Cup dates to between 1700 and 1500 BCE. It stands 85 millimeters high and weighs 76.6 grams. The vessel was skillfully beaten from a single ingot of high-purity gold. Its corrugated sides, a series of horizontal grooves, would have added strength to the thin metal sheet. Originally, the cup had a rounded, unstable base, suggesting it was not designed to be set down until empty.
The handle links to distant cultures. It is a separate, flat piece of gold attached to the body with rivets that pass through lozenge-shaped washers on the interior. This specific construction technique is typical of metalwork from Mycenaean Greece, not found in Bronze Age Britain. This suggests a strong connection, likely fueled by the trade of Cornish tin. Recent studies of tin ingots found in Mediterranean shipwrecks confirm that tin from Cornwall and Devon was traded as far as Israel during the Bronze Age. This international commodities network allowed a local Cornish leader to be buried with a drinking vessel whose style was influenced by the elite of the Aegean world.