A British Museum Spotlight Loan, Gathering light: a Bronze Age golden sun

'Gathering light' features the extraordinary gold Shropshire sun pendant and other Bronze Age gold artefacts.

We’re delighted to announce The Collection Museum is a venue for A British Museum Spotlight Loan Gathering light: a Bronze Age golden sun, to be shown in the museum’s archaeology gallery from 11 November 2022 to 20 February 2023.

Gathering light features the extraordinary Shropshire sun pendant (pictured), a gold bulla over 3,000 years old.  It is one of the most significant pieces of Bronze Age metalwork ever discovered in Britain.  The Spotlight Loan reveals the importance of the sun to the lives of Bronze Age ancestors.

Accompanying the sun pendant are other spectacular gold objects, from a gold lunula discovered in an Irish bog to a hoard of Cornish gold torcs and rings.  The exhibition will also feature Bronze Age objects from Lincolnshire, from gold penannular rings to hoards of bronze axes and tools.  Find out more about the landscape and community at the time of the sun pendant, and artefacts recently discovered in Lincolnshire and recorded with the Portable Antiquities Scheme.

A short film by award winning animated documentary maker, Sam Moore, explores the story of the sun pendant from its sacrifice into water to its eventual finding.

Entry to the Spotlight Loan Gathering light is free of charge.

Image: Sun pendant, ornate side, © The Trustees of the British Museum.

Associated events
Gathering light is the inspiration behind our Winter Solstice event on 21 December 2022.

Curator Talk by the British Museum's Curator of Early Europe, Neil Wilkin. Gold in Bronze Age Britain and Ireland.                              Thursday 16 February 2023 at 7pm.  Admission free, please reserve your place here.

The Investigate Learning team include this fantastic exhibition in the Key Stage 2 Prehistory workshop experience day, as well as making Beaker pottery.  To find out more about this exciting workshop please click here.