Image © Trustees of The British Museum
Historians view Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq) as the world’s first truly urbanised society. Fortunately, its gold treasures survive as testament to the ability of its goldsmiths and their very public craft.
This funerary head-dress offers us a glimpse into this early civilisation, where the intrinsic qualities of purity, durability and sheer beauty imbued gold with a particular importance in burial ceremony. Eight intricately hammered leaves, possibly models of Indian rosewood, form a recurring natural motif; the number of leaves would have held a special meaning for this ancient people, as the infinite loop of the number 8 symbolises the soul’s journey into eternity. But this treasure also represents evidence of the beginnings of trade; the carnelians and lapis lazuli would have been especially imported from the region we now call Afghanistan.