Crock of Gold
DatedEst. 2900–800 BCE
Photo Richard Knights · CC BY-SA 2.0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
Overview
The Crock of Gold is a cairn with a stone cist beside the path from Royal Tor over Royal Hill to Hexworthy, east of Princetown in Devon, England. A typological estimate places it between 2900 and 800 BCE.
The cairn is about 4.0 m across and survives to a little over half a metre in height. The cist at its centre has been opened and its capstone displaced.
Read on Wikipedia2 min readCC BY-SA 4.0
Where it sits in time
The site's dated range, placed against world reference points.
The scale is logarithmic: each step to the left is about ten times older than the last.
Article
Crock of Gold
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Crock of GoldCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Crock of GoldCC BY-SA 4.0
The cairn has kerb stones and measures about 4.0 metres in diameter, with a surviving height of a good half metre. At its centre lies a small rectangular excavated cist measuring about 1.0 by 0.5 metres. The capstone has been moved to the west and lies on the cairn. Another cist, at Blakey Tor, lies nearby.
NameSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Crock of GoldCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Crock of GoldCC BY-SA 4.0
The name is rendered in German as Goldkruke. Cists (Cornish kistvaen) in Devon and Cornwall carry names such as money pits, money chests, gold pieces, caves and Roman graves.
One of the earliest mentions of a search for gold dates from 1324, when permission to search was granted by Edward II of England.
Later historySources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Crock of GoldCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Crock of GoldCC BY-SA 4.0
Cists in Devon and Cornwall were robbed in the hope of finding treasure. The idea that ancient graves contain valuable objects is very old. One of the earliest mentions of a search for gold dates from 1324, when permission to search was granted by Edward II of England.
ContextSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Crock of GoldCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Crock of GoldCC BY-SA 4.0
In Britain and Ireland a cist is a small stone-built coffin-like box used to hold the dead, and it is one of the commonest finds in prehistoric graves. The centre of a round barrow, which in Britain was mostly built between 2200 and 1100 BCE, may hold a stone cist or a cut grave.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
British and Irish cists
In Britain and Ireland a cist is a small stone-built coffin-like box used to hold the dead, and it is one of the commonest finds in prehistoric graves. A cist may once have been covered by a cairn or a long barrow, and several are sometimes found together in the same cairn or barrow. Ornaments found in excavated cists point to the wealth or prominence of the person buried. The centre of a round barrow, which in Britain was mostly built between 2200 and 1100 BCE, may hold a stone cist or a cut grave, and the burial may be an inhumation or a cremation placed in a vessel.
The Bell Beaker phenomenon, which reached Britain and Ireland in the late Neolithic, brought individual burials, often under tumuli and with weapons, in place of the collective burials of the earlier Neolithic. Cists of this period are therefore often single graves. The Food Vessel culture of the Early Bronze Age used slab cists, and some of their stones carry cup and ring marks.
Kilmartin Glen in Argyll is the richest area, with numerous cists among its prehistoric monuments, including a linear cemetery of five burial cairns that runs for more than three miles. Several of its cairns and many natural rocks are decorated with cup and ring marks. More than 800 ancient monuments lie within ten kilometres of the village, 150 of them prehistoric.
The Atlas's cists are dated by their position in a barrow, by the pottery or ornaments found with the burial, and by radiocarbon dating of surviving bone. Where none is known, it gives a broad Neolithic to Bronze Age range.
When visiting, look for the slabs set on edge around a pit, and for the cap stone that may have fallen aside.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Cist, Wikipedia: Round barrow, Wikipedia: Kilmartin Glen, Wikipedia: Bell Beaker culture · CC BY-SA 4.0
From the article
Dated moments in the story
- 1324
Eine der ersten Erwähnungen der Suche nach Gold stammt aus dem Jahr 1324. Die Erlaubnis zur Suche wurde von Edward II von England erteilt.
Source
See it in 3D
An interpretive reconstruction of the monument, standing on the real ground at its exact point, under the sun for that place and season. Drag to look around it.
The reconstruction is ours, not a survey: it shows what a monument of this type looks like, at the size the record gives for this one.
Photographs
2 photographs, each with its author and licence
More photographs
Lore
Evidence & Lore
What the sources actually support — and, kept apart, what has been claimed.
What the evidence supports
Dates
Est. 2900–800 BCEHow this date was established: Type comparisonTypical range for cists in United Kingdom; this site has not been dated itself. British barrows of many types were in use from the late Neolithic until the end of the Bronze Age (2900-800 BC) and many contain a stone cist.Source for this date
Where it stands
United Kingdom
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 50°32′28″ N, 3°57′32″ WFor a GPS or map app: 50.54118, -3.95877
Access is as our sources describe it; we have not visited the site to check.
Nearby
The closest sites in the Atlas, by straight line.
Cairn with cist S of Royal Hill4000–800 BCE
Cairn S of Royal Hill4000–800 BCE
Sherberton stone circle 315m SSE of Little Sherberton3200–2500 BCE- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Round barrow on North Hessary Tor4000–800 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Round cairn 280m north-east of Raddick Hill summit4000–800 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Round cairn east of Down Tor, 770m north east of Combshead Tor4000–800 BCE
- Menhir (standing stone)Down Ridge stone circle and outlying standing stone 570m and 650m south of Forest Inn2800–1800 BCE
Bellever Tor Cairns2900–800 BCE
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q32303796wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Image files
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Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
- Cairn with cist S of Royal Hill1.2 km SE
- Cairn S of Royal Hill1.3 km SE
- Sherberton stone circle 315m SSE of Little Sherberton2.6 km E
- Round barrow on North Hessary Tor3.6 km W
- Round cairn 280m north-east of Raddick Hill summit3.7 km SW
- Round cairn east of Down Tor, 770m north east of Combshead Tor4.2 km SW
- Down Ridge stone circle and outlying standing stone 570m and 650m south of Forest Inn4.3 km E
- Bellever Tor Cairns4.4 km NE
- Cairn 550m south-west of Raddick Hill summit forming part of a cairnfield4.5 km SW
- Cairn 560m south-west of Raddick Hill summit forming part of a cairnfield4.5 km SW
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Crock of Gold" (German), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; authors are listed in the page history. Reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read on Wikipedia · Edit history and authors
- Wikipedia (German): Crock of GoldCC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikidata Q32303796CC0