Golden Hat of Schifferstadt

The Golden Hat of Schifferstadt (German: Der Goldene Hut von Schifferstadt) was discovered in a field near the town of Schifferstadt in Southwest Germany in 1835. It is a Bronze Age artefact made of thin sheet gold and served as the external decoration of a head-dress, probably of an organic material, with a brim and a chin-strap. The hat is one of the group of four similar artifacts known as the Golden hats.

The Schifferstadt specimen was the oldest of a group of (by now) four known Golden hats, cone-shaped Bronze Age head-dresses made of sheet gold. The Schifferstadt hat was the first to be discovered. After the example from Berlin, it is the best-preserved one, fully preserved with the exception of a small part of the brim.

Three associated bronze axes and a comparison with other Late Bronze Age metwalwork date the Schifferstadt Hat to circa 1,400-1,300 BC.

The hat, like its counterparts, is assumed to have served as a religious insignia for the deities or priests of a sun-cult common in Bronze Age Europe. The hats are also suggested to have served calendrical functions.

The Schifferstadt Hat is a 350 g gold cone, subdivided into horizontal ornamental bands, applied in the repoussé technique. It has a blunt, undecorated tip. The shaft is short and squat, with a distinct widening and a wide brim at the bottom. The hat is 29.6 cm high and has a lower diameter of about 18 cm. The brim is 4.5 cm wide.

At its base the gold sheet was wound around a copper wire (now lost) for extra stability.

Along its whole length the hat is subdivided and decorated by rows of horizontal symbols and bands. Five different stamps and a chisel or liner were used to create the horizontal bands of repeated stamped symbols, following a systematic scheme.

The optical separation of the individual ornamental bands was achieved by ring ribs or bands around the whole external face of the hat. The symbols in the bands are mostly disk and circle motifs, usually with an internal disk or buckle, surrounded by up to six concentric circles.

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