page_title: Gold lunula
section_title: Typology
hierarchical_section_title: Gold lunula / Typology
caption_attribution_description: Lusitanian lunula made of embossed silver.
context_page_description: The Gold lunula is a distinctive type of late Neolithic, Chalcolithic or early Bronze Age necklace or collar shaped like a crescent moon. They are normally flat and thin, with roundish spatulate terminals that are often twisted to 45 to 90 degrees from the plane of the body. Gold lunulae fall into three distinct groups, termed Classical, Unaccomplished and Provincial by archaeologists. Most have been found in Ireland, but there are moderate numbers in other parts of Europe as well, from Great Britain to areas of the continent fairly near the Atlantic coasts. Although no lunula has been directly dated, from associations with other artefacts it is thought they were being made sometime in the period between 2200–2000 BC; a wooden box associated with one Irish find has recently given a radiocarbon dating range of 2460–2040 BC.
  Of the more than a hundred gold lunulae known from Western Europe, more than eighty are from Ireland; it is possible they were all the work of a handful of expert goldsmiths, though the three groups are presumed to have had different creators. Several examples have a heavily crinkled appearance suggesting that they had been rolled up at some point.
context_section_description: Gold lunulae have been classified into groups as follows:
  Classical, perhaps all made in Ireland, on average the widest, heaviest and also thinnest group. They are thin enough to be flexible when worn, and for the incised decoration to appear as relief on their underside.  One aspect of the skill with which they are made is the variation in thickness across the piece, with the inner edge often three times thicker than the middle and the outer edge twice as thick.
  Unaccomplished, similar but narrower and less skilfully executed, all Irish
  Provincial, only one example found in Ireland. Thicker and more rigid, they were probably all or mostly made outside Ireland. Their decoration can be more varied, and is divided into two groups: "dot-line", found in Scotland and Wales, and "linear", found in Cornwall, Belgium and north Germany, as well as the Irish example. The northern coast of France has both types.  Punches, not otherwise used in lunulae, are used for the dots in "dot-line" types.
  It used to be thought that these groups were produced in chronological sequence, but this is now much less certain, although the Ballinagroun lunula does show Unaccomplished decoration replacing Classical when it was reworked. In one large sample of 39 lunulae, the 19 Classical averaged 54 grams, with the 12 Unaccomplished averaging 40 gm.  Finds of Classical lunulae are concentrated in the north of Ireland, probably near the sources of gold, with Unaccomplished find spots mostly forming a "peripheral border" around this area. A few Classical lunulae have been found on the north Cornish coast and in southern Scotland.
  Three Provincial lunulae were discovered in Kerivoa, Brittany (Kerivoa-en-Bourbriac, Côtes-d'Armor) in the remains of a box with some sheet gold and a rod of gold. The rod had its terminals hammered flat in the manner of the lunulae. From this it is thought that Lunulae were made by hammering a rod of gold flat so it became sheet-like and fitted the desired shape. Decoration was then applied by impressing designs with a stylus. The stylus used often leaves tell-tale impressions on the surface of the gold and it is thought that all the lunulae from Kerivoa, and another two from Saint-Potan, Brittany and Harlyn Bay, Cornwall were all made with the same tool. This suggests that all five lunulae were the work of one craftsperson and the contents of the Kerivoa box their tools of trade.
  
  Lunulae were probably replaced as neck ornaments firstly by gold torcs, found from the Irish Middle Bronze Age, and then in the Late Bronze Age by the spectacular gorgets of thin ribbed gold, some with round discs at the side, of which 9 examples survive, 7 in the National Museum of Ireland. 
  The shape is sometimes found into the Iron Age, now also in silver, though the relation to the much earlier Bronze Age lunulae may be tenuous.  A bronze example from the Welsh Llyn Cerrig Bach lake deposit (200 BC – 100 AD) has an embossed medallion with a triskele-based design in Celtic La Tène style, although it lacks the fastening at the back and has holes that are presumably for fixing it to a surface.  It has been suggested it fitted around the pole of a chariot, or was attached to a shield, or worn by a statue. Two silver examples from Chão de Lamas, Coimbra in Portugal of about 200 BC should perhaps be considered as flattened and widened torcs; similar pieces are worn by figures in sculpture from the same culture.
caption: Lusitanian silver lunula, Miranda do Corvo (Portugal)
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "Silver Lusitanian lunula from the 2nd century BC, found in Chao de Lamas (Miranda do Corvo, district of Coimbra, Portugal). At the National Archaeological Museum of Spain (Madrid).", "Image Make": "EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY", "Image Model": "KODAK EASYSHARE C713 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "0", "Image YResolution": "0", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Centimeter", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 7.0", "Image DateTime": "2009:05:26 00:22:43", "Image Artist": "Luis Garcia ([[User:Zaqarbal|Zaqarbal]])", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Copyright": "Luis Garcia ([[User:Zaqarbal|Zaqarbal]]) publishes this photo in Wikimedia Commons under [[:Commons:GNU Free Documentation License|GFDL]] and [[:Category:CC-BY-SA-3.0,2.5,2.0,1.0|Cc-by-sa-3.0,2.5,2.0,1.0]] licenses.", "Image ExifOffset": "732", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1364", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4752", "EXIF ExposureTime": "49423/1000000", "EXIF FNumber": "3", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "800", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2008:12:03 15:09:56", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2008:12:03 15:09:56", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "433/100", "EXIF ApertureValue": "79/25", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "79/25", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "38/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2143", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2121", "EXIF ExposureIndex": "800", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "45", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "High gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}