Bronze Age gold to be exhibited

The museum purchased the jewellery for £38,000

A collection of 17 gold bracelets and neck ornaments thought to be more than 3,000 years old has been bought by the Somerset County Museum in Taunton.

The Priddy Hoard was dug up on the Mendips in 2005.

The jewellery items, known as torcs, still have sharp edges, indicating that the artefacts were used very little before they were buried.

Archaeologists think the hoard was some kind of offering to the gods, rather than it being buried for safe keeping.

Ritual damage

It is also believed the pieces of jewellery were intentionally bent out of shape before being buried in the ground, perhaps as a result of some kind of ritual damage.

The Priddy Hoard is significant because it includes two previously unknown types of object not previously recorded in Britain - the doubled, and hooked, bracelets of ribbon and bar.

Gold was a highly-prized metal in the Bronze Age and finds in Somerset are rare.

The only other examples known in the area are two late Bronze Age bracelets found on Brean Down.

The jewellery came out of the ground as a large ball of intertwined metal, but once prized apart it was revealed to be a collection of torcs.

The museum bought the jewellery for £38,000, with a £14,250 contribution from The Art Fund.