
Berlin Gold Hat - benbreen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Gold_Hat
======
marcus_holmes
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"

~~~
mrzool
There are people who study and investigate this kind of things who probably
have good reasons to believe this object served some kind of ritualistic
purpose.

> What evidence is there for that? […] Why is there never any proof or
> evidence required for saying an artifact has a religious purpose?

From a related Wikipedia page:

 _It is assumed that the Golden Hats served as religious insignia for the
deities or priests of a sun cult then widespread in Central Europe. Their use
as head-gear is strongly supported by the fact that the three of four examples
have a cap-like widening at the bottom of the cone, and that their openings
are oval (not round), with diameters and shapes roughly equivalent to those of
a human skull. The figural depiction of an object resembling a conical hat on
a stone slab of the King 's Grave at Kivik, Southern Sweden, strongly supports
their association with religion and cult, as does the fact that the known
examples appear to have been deposited (buried) carefully._

I'm sure you can find more precise details if you dig deep enough.

> Which sun-god?

You can read more about this cult here[1] and here[2].

> 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.

Do not project the hyper-rationalistic character of our current society to
societies and civilizations of the pre-industrial era. People in the ancient
times were not as rational and utilitarian as we are. Everything was permeated
by religion, superstition and magic.

[1]:
[https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=...](https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=84391)

[2]: [https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wnja9z/scientists-
reconst...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wnja9z/scientists-reconstruct-
the-life-of-a-bronze-age-sun-worshipping-priestess-2)

~~~
marcus_holmes
> Do not project the hyper-rationalistic character of our current society to
> societies and civilizations of the pre-industrial era. People in the ancient
> times were not as rational and utilitarian as we are.

I think it's much, much more the other way around. Modern archaeologists have
inherited their Victorian predecessors attitudes, who tended to look on
primitive societies as backward and superstitious; "nasty, brutal and short".

> Everything was permeated by religion, superstition and magic.

I don't think there's much evidence to support this. Lots of speculation and
interpretation, but not much actual evidence. A girl wearing a "sun disk" is
interpreted as being a "priestess of a sun religion". On what basis? Can't it
just be decoration?

Again, saying "ritual" or "religious" is easy because it requires no proof. If
you said that the disk was a tool, you'd be required to specify what the tool
was and what it was used for. But you're not required to say what ritual, or
how the item was used in the ritual. It's a different standard of proof.

It would be better if archeologists admitted that they don't know what the
thing is for, until there's more evidence or better understanding of the
culture.

~~~
mrzool
So you trust archeologists without a second thought when they say that this
object was used as a calendar, but you suddenly don't trust them anymore when
they tell you it also had a religious function?

> I think it's much, much more the other way around. Modern archaeologists
> have inherited their Victorian predecessors attitudes, who tended to look on
> primitive societies as backward and superstitious; "nasty, brutal and
> short".

Looks like you have an underlying prejudice against history and archeology
practitioners, you already thought about these issues and you already have
strong opinions on them. That explains your first comment. You might very well
have your reasons in thinking this, but when you say

> I don't think there's much evidence to support this. Lots of speculation and
> interpretation, but not much actual evidence.

I'm sorry, but I really don't know what to tell you. Saying that there's
"evidence" would be an understatement. Just pick up whatever history book. I
suggest you read about pre-Colombian societies in central America, or
shamanism in Africa, or even about religion wars in Europe in the 15th and
16th century. Just to get you started…

~~~
marcus_holmes
it's not a matter of trust. They have shown evidence that it was a calendar,
because they figured out how it worked as a calendar. They provide no
eveidence that it served a religious function.

My "prejudice" stems from re-enactment, and dealing with archeologists who
were experts at digging things up, but completely useless at interpretation.
They didn't know the first thing about any of the crafts of the time, had
never used a forge or even seen a blacksmith at work, yet routinely intepreted
artifacts from a dig where a forge was present. Instead of admitting
ignorance, or asking for expert advice, they'd label stuff as "ritual".

So yes, I'm a bit prejudiced. And reading a report about an artfact where it's
cheerfully labelled as "ritual" with no proof or evidence provided, does get
me ranting in the comments.

------
poma88
Looking at it I had, for the first time in my life in a museum, the feeling of
looking at a fake.

~~~
poulsbohemian
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
The Wikipedia article states that it’s a cover for a hat, not meant to be
worn.

~~~
poulsbohemian
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?

------
jmkerr
> 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
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+g...](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=490+*+0.877+grams+of+gold)

------
imtringued
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
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.

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

~~~
ejolto
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.

~~~
throwaway_jobs
> 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.

~~~
Hoasi
> 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.

It _is_ funny. But then again, almost everything in society relies on
storytelling like that. The mainstream narrative is always flawed or biased,
but everybody pretends it isn't.

