Lock Rings

These must be my favourite of all Bronze Age jewellery.  At a glance they look simple and easily made but they are probably the most intricate pieces from this era. They are made of tiny rings of gold wire which have been soldered together to form cone shapes. The wire had to be cut from thin sheets of gold and possibly drawn through holes that decreased in size on a metal plate to make them uniform and thin.

   These are plates used by jewellers today to pull wire through to get different gauges.

When the wire was formed it was twisted onto a stick such as the one in the picture below, but the stick used for making lock rings was tapered.

Each of these rings were cut and soldered at the seams. They were then placed on top of each other in order of size and soldered to the ones above and below. The solder residue was cleaned off the outside of the ornaments so much so that the technique used is only evident when you examine the inside of these amazing creations. Look at the picture of the lock rings and see how thin the wire is and how many individual strands went into creating these hair ornaments.
Jewellers today would not be able to recreate these by hand without years of practice and plenty of ruined work along the way.
Who has that time? Although, Bronze age man lived only 30 to 40 years.