8 ms·

Berlin Gold Hat

87 points by benbreen 6y ago

poma88 6y ago
Looking at it I had, for the first time in my life in a museum, the feeling of looking at a fake.
- Meerax 6y ago
  I recently finished reading "The Art of Forgery" by Noah Charney and that is the exact same feeling I had. Great book, very interesting, but it will leave you curious and perhaps a little doubtful about all art that you look at afterwards. Things like this are so wild and unlikely (to me at least) that when something like it comes up with zero provenance it just raises a whole lot of questions.
- poulsbohemian 6y ago
  I had a similar kind of "something isn't right here" feeling when I saw the mold cape (linked in wikipedia article on Golden Hats). It was so tiny and would have been so cumbersome to wear that there might be something we are missing. These things might look vaguely like hats, but they don't really make sense as "clothing" even for spiritual purposes.
  - PacifyFish 6y ago
    The Wikipedia article states that it’s a cover for a hat, not meant to be worn.
    - poulsbohemian 6y ago
      Yes, I read that part, including the test on the other ones found, but it still doesn't quite make sense to me - presumably there would have been the hat inside it (oddly) shaped the same way as this, and/or what exactly is a "cover" for a hat?
  - andybak 6y ago
    > the mold cape (linked in wikipedia article on Golden Hats) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mold_cape https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mold_cape
- axegon_ 6y ago
  I honestly didn't get that feeling but I am genuinely obsessed with museums and landing on the museum Island, I had spent the entire day lurking through the museums and by the time I got to the gold had, my brain had turned into melted jelly, I could barely focus my eyes at that point.
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  It wasn't actually a hat, it wwnt onto a hat you were already wearing, like a headpiece. And even then, you'd only wear it a few times a year at ceremonies.
- _fullpint 6y ago
  I had a similar feeling walking through a lot of the Pergamon
jldugger 6y ago
I wonder what people millenia from now will make of of the Stanley Cup.
- ejolto 6y ago
  It's a silver hat used in religious rituals, the bowl goes on your head. The names on the side are religious figures, gods and priests.
  - 082349872349872 6y ago
    My dear colleague, the bowl doesn't go on your head. There was a period local rite of keg standing* and the Stanley Cup, judging from the materials (evidence for an expanded elite trade network), is obviously an apparatus for the temple version of this ritual. * In Great White North, head goes on bowl. ObCanada: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCcWzLAcv4o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCcWzLAcv4o
  - throwaway_jobs 6y ago
    > religious rituals Far to generous...in this instance it’s a “sun cult” It’s kind of funny the worship of the sun, which a) actually exists; and b) is responsible for life on earth (not to mention stars generally are responsible for the elements that make up life) is cult status...but if you worship a “God” that is entirely faith based and more akin to a invisible friend, that is a sacred religion.
    - jon_elbrook 6y ago
      > that is a sacred religion. Some people think all kind of crazy things. Flat earth, vaccine-autism, christianity etc. one is no more sacred to another outside of the believer circles
      - throwaway_jobs 6y ago
        > one is no more sacred to another In the article these hats were associated with a “sun cult” not a “sun religion”. Generally the way the words cult and religion are used, one has a connotation of legitimacy And reverence and the other a negative connotation suggesting illegitimacy.
jmkerr 6y ago
> The amount of gold used would form a cube of only 3 cm dimensions. The average thickness is 0.6 mm. Modelling the hat as a cylinder surface of length 745 mm and 88% gold, the resulting radius is about 1 cm.
- alcio 6y ago
  it weighs 490gr and the gold is 87.7% pure, that results in cube of side 2.8cm https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=490+*+0.877+grams+of+gold https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=490+*+0.877+grams+of+g...
marcus_holmes 6y ago
The tendency to ascribe ancient artifacts to "ritual purposes" or religion always astounds me. This is a calendar. It's proven to be a calendar. We know how it works as a calendar. It's a tool for predicting celestial events. It doesn't need to be hand-wavingly described as "worn by a priest or diety of a sun-god religion". What evidence is there for that? Which sun-god? Why is there never any proof or evidence required for saying an artifact has a religious purpose? It's like saying "this object, that we know to be a screwdriver, must be an item of ritual significance to the god of Sunday Afternoon Home Maintenance, and used by their priests in their rituals"
- kzrdude 6y ago
  I agree, but we can move two ways - we could also make sure we describe more contemporary occurences with the ritual language, and maybe that might clarify what we mean in just the same way, bridging the cultural gap between then and now? I'm not sure about the the screwdriver, but certainly such things as the Sunday Morning Family Waffle Iron, can be described as items for ritualistic purposes, right?
  - marcus_holmes 6y ago
    I think it's the conflating of "religious" and "ritual" that gets out of hand. So if your family has a tradition of Sunday Morning Waffles, then sure it's "ritual" in a very minor sense. But it's not religious. You don't make waffles every Sunday morning to appease the Waffle Gods, or because of some superstition that the next winter will be terrible if you don't. But these are the sorts of things that get associated with "ritual". Archeologists being lazy about their interpretations leads to a view of ancient civilisations that they were all "permeated with magic and superstition". And I don't think the evidence actually supports that.
- kapep 6y ago
  Being made of gold indicates that it was at least not an every day tool. Of course it could still be just a fancy golden calendar. Anyway the German Wikipedia page about Goldhüte [1] says the ritual significance was attributed because there are tomb paintings depicting similar hats being worn in some religious/cultic context. [1:] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldhut https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldhut
imtringued 6y ago
Every time I see these amazing works of art I wonder why they didn't just focus on building a steel lathe [0] as soon as possible and kick start the industrial revolution. It probably had more to do with geography, transportation, culture and unequal development of the planet than the skill of the craftsmen at the time. [0] If you have a lathe you can build more steam machines and locomotives which then enable you to transport coal and steel to build and power even more lathes and steam machines and locomotives...
- baud147258 6y ago
  Even if tools looking like the lathe existed as early as the Bronze Age, I think the knowledge to smelt steel wasn't available until much later. And even then if you smelt steel and build a lathe, the industrial revolution was possible because steam power was also known.

Berlin Gold Hat

87 points by benbreen 6y ago

poma88 6y ago

Looking at it I had, for the first time in my life in a museum, the feeling of looking at a fake.

Meerax 6y ago
I recently finished reading "The Art of Forgery" by Noah Charney and that is the exact same feeling I had. Great book, very interesting, but it will leave you curious and perhaps a little doubtful about all art that you look at afterwards. Things like this are so wild and unlikely (to me at least) that when something like it comes up with zero provenance it just raises a whole lot of questions.
poulsbohemian 6y ago
I had a similar kind of "something isn't right here" feeling when I saw the mold cape (linked in wikipedia article on Golden Hats). It was so tiny and would have been so cumbersome to wear that there might be something we are missing. These things might look vaguely like hats, but they don't really make sense as "clothing" even for spiritual purposes.
- PacifyFish 6y ago
  The Wikipedia article states that it’s a cover for a hat, not meant to be worn.
  - poulsbohemian 6y ago
    Yes, I read that part, including the test on the other ones found, but it still doesn't quite make sense to me - presumably there would have been the hat inside it (oddly) shaped the same way as this, and/or what exactly is a "cover" for a hat?
- andybak 6y ago
  > the mold cape (linked in wikipedia article on Golden Hats) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mold_cape https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mold_cape
axegon_ 6y ago
I honestly didn't get that feeling but I am genuinely obsessed with museums and landing on the museum Island, I had spent the entire day lurking through the museums and by the time I got to the gold had, my brain had turned into melted jelly, I could barely focus my eyes at that point.
LatteLazy 6y ago
It wasn't actually a hat, it wwnt onto a hat you were already wearing, like a headpiece. And even then, you'd only wear it a few times a year at ceremonies.
_fullpint 6y ago
I had a similar feeling walking through a lot of the Pergamon

jldugger 6y ago

I wonder what people millenia from now will make of of the Stanley Cup.

ejolto 6y ago
It's a silver hat used in religious rituals, the bowl goes on your head. The names on the side are religious figures, gods and priests.
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  My dear colleague, the bowl doesn't go on your head. There was a period local rite of keg standing* and the Stanley Cup, judging from the materials (evidence for an expanded elite trade network), is obviously an apparatus for the temple version of this ritual. * In Great White North, head goes on bowl. ObCanada: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCcWzLAcv4o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCcWzLAcv4o
- throwaway_jobs 6y ago
  > religious rituals Far to generous...in this instance it’s a “sun cult” It’s kind of funny the worship of the sun, which a) actually exists; and b) is responsible for life on earth (not to mention stars generally are responsible for the elements that make up life) is cult status...but if you worship a “God” that is entirely faith based and more akin to a invisible friend, that is a sacred religion.
  - jon_elbrook 6y ago
    > that is a sacred religion. Some people think all kind of crazy things. Flat earth, vaccine-autism, christianity etc. one is no more sacred to another outside of the believer circles
    - throwaway_jobs 6y ago
      > one is no more sacred to another In the article these hats were associated with a “sun cult” not a “sun religion”. Generally the way the words cult and religion are used, one has a connotation of legitimacy And reverence and the other a negative connotation suggesting illegitimacy.

jmkerr 6y ago

> The amount of gold used would form a cube of only 3 cm dimensions. The average thickness is 0.6 mm. Modelling the hat as a cylinder surface of length 745 mm and 88% gold, the resulting radius is about 1 cm.

alcio 6y ago
it weighs 490gr and the gold is 87.7% pure, that results in cube of side 2.8cm https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=490+*+0.877+grams+of+gold https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=490+*+0.877+grams+of+g...

marcus_holmes 6y ago

The tendency to ascribe ancient artifacts to "ritual purposes" or religion always astounds me. This is a calendar. It's proven to be a calendar. We know how it works as a calendar. It's a tool for predicting celestial events. It doesn't need to be hand-wavingly described as "worn by a priest or diety of a sun-god religion". What evidence is there for that? Which sun-god? Why is there never any proof or evidence required for saying an artifact has a religious purpose? It's like saying "this object, that we know to be a screwdriver, must be an item of ritual significance to the god of Sunday Afternoon Home Maintenance, and used by their priests in their rituals"

kzrdude 6y ago
I agree, but we can move two ways - we could also make sure we describe more contemporary occurences with the ritual language, and maybe that might clarify what we mean in just the same way, bridging the cultural gap between then and now? I'm not sure about the the screwdriver, but certainly such things as the Sunday Morning Family Waffle Iron, can be described as items for ritualistic purposes, right?
- marcus_holmes 6y ago
  I think it's the conflating of "religious" and "ritual" that gets out of hand. So if your family has a tradition of Sunday Morning Waffles, then sure it's "ritual" in a very minor sense. But it's not religious. You don't make waffles every Sunday morning to appease the Waffle Gods, or because of some superstition that the next winter will be terrible if you don't. But these are the sorts of things that get associated with "ritual". Archeologists being lazy about their interpretations leads to a view of ancient civilisations that they were all "permeated with magic and superstition". And I don't think the evidence actually supports that.
kapep 6y ago
Being made of gold indicates that it was at least not an every day tool. Of course it could still be just a fancy golden calendar. Anyway the German Wikipedia page about Goldhüte [1] says the ritual significance was attributed because there are tomb paintings depicting similar hats being worn in some religious/cultic context. [1:] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldhut https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldhut

imtringued 6y ago

Every time I see these amazing works of art I wonder why they didn't just focus on building a steel lathe [0] as soon as possible and kick start the industrial revolution. It probably had more to do with geography, transportation, culture and unequal development of the planet than the skill of the craftsmen at the time. [0] If you have a lathe you can build more steam machines and locomotives which then enable you to transport coal and steel to build and power even more lathes and steam machines and locomotives...

baud147258 6y ago
Even if tools looking like the lathe existed as early as the Bronze Age, I think the knowledge to smelt steel wasn't available until much later. And even then if you smelt steel and build a lathe, the industrial revolution was possible because steam power was also known.