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Scratch marks and gold residues on one of the examined stones
Photo: Devizes / Wiltshire Museum
The decisive clue to the career change is said to have come from a doctor.
It is said that he advised the cloth merchant William Cunnington from the village of Heytesbury in the southwestern English county of Wiltshire to spend more time outdoors.
Cunnington took the advice and began to take an interest in and excavate prehistoric burial mounds.
He also tried to provide a scientific description.
Cunnington stored his finds at Moss House on his estate in Heytesbury.
In 1801, at the Upton Lovell site, the self-made archaeologist dug through a Bronze Age grave in which two adults had been buried.
It's not far from here to Stonehenge.
During his work, Cunnington recovered a large quantity of animal bones.
These, it was assumed, had once adorned a shaman.
Flint goblets, two broken battle-axes and a copper alloy awl were also among the finds – as well as a good number of stones.
Its meaning has only now been clarified, more than 220 years later.
In the specialist magazine "Antiquity", a group led by Rachel Crellin from the University of Leicester reports that it was the tool set of an early goldsmith.
»Humble stone tool« – noble jewellery
According to the team, microscopic analyzes revealed traces of gold on five of the stone tools.
Their composition is similar to that of other Bronze Age gold finds.
Tiny damage showed how the stones were used to flatten and polish the material.
"What our work has brought to light is the humble stone tool used to make gold objects thousands of years ago," says Crellin.
The goldsmith may have covered artefacts made of amber or wood with thin gold plates.
Examples of such jewelry are known from this period.
The objects in the tomb are said to date from between 1850 and 1700 BC and are associated with the so-called Wessex culture.
No settlements have survived from her, just graves.
Members of the culture are said to be responsible for the development of the third phase of Stonehenge and operated a trade network that extended to the European continent.
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