again w the priests/religious connotations for everything.

There was some cult, because through the cult you controlled things that were uncontrollable. Those who had time to deal with knowledge tended to be involved in the cultic activities; hence what astronomy there was. Even geometry was sacred knowledge at some point. The cult provided a brake on the royalty and encouraged stability in all sorts of ways--not just braking but supporting the nobility, not just supporting the rich but also keeping peace with the poor.

There was some sort of royalty or nobility, because order was necessary in more than a small community, allocation of resources, somebody that would cut the squabbling and fighting and just say, "This is how it's going to be." Royalty typically supported the cult, deriving power from it in exchange for not giving it a hard time.

Family and clan, because that provided protection against other families and clans.

With development, merchants started having their own scribes. Most of those, however, were still governmental. By 700 BC in Europe there was trade, some long-distance. But still a lot of cult and local nobility, so that's probably the way to bet.

The more development, the more government and cult mattered in larger things, so the wealthier civilization also had more strictures on the populace. The more rural, the less they mattered, but the more at the whims of nature and brigands you knew yourself to be, and the more local deities and your own penates (or their equivalent) and superstitions mattered.

My guess is that they might have been created by a goldsmith exploring a new technique for making bigger ornaments out of less gold but that he hadn't figured out what to use it to ornament when some sort of disaster struck. In the Bronze Age, there were plenty of disasters to go around.

and I think the Abbot or the king or the warlord or whoever had hired him to produce gold finery would have noticed how much was missing. It's quite a lot, those are over an inch in length.

Then again, it might be why they were lost, they did an assay and off with his head.

It would explain why they are buried.

Could have been hastily buried before an impending raider attack, and nobody who knew about the gold survived the attack.

One group, the purls, are smooth or faceted gold wire wound into coils. They can be attached to an embroidery as they come, stretched to create long spirals, or cut into shorter lengths to stitch on as individual bright accents - or the pieces are stitched on to fill a space which makes a shiny area.

A lot of goldwork is used in ecclesiastical embroidery and English goldwork is only one type that is still done.

Here is a British source for various types of gold work supplies: http://www.golden-hinde.co.uk/Gold-Work/categories.html?iCatID=100


This image shows outlining with gold, filling with continuous gold (the round area has gold threads wound to fill the space), scattered attached pieces of purl (the turquoise areas toward the bottom, concentrated attached pieces of purl (the solidly filled area in the middle top in gold and turquoise, and gold kid (leather covered in gold).

This page has many other examples of English goldwork both traditional and modern: http://www.golden-hinde.co.uk/32/gallery-GoldenHindeGoldworkEmbroidery.html

The Royal School of Needlework also has an online gallery: http://www.royal-needlework.org.uk/galleries/images/24/

Edited to add - all those short, coiled pieces could have been from an embroidery technique from which the cloth and thread has long since rotted away.

Just read about the fur-lined box. These days, goldwork embroiderers often use a velvet lined box to catch the pieces of god as they cut them to the proper length. Otherwise, the pieces tend to fly all over and get lost - not something you want to happen with real gold wire!

but yeah. lathe loops.

After transporting to Earth and seeding the necessary technologies to finally get the current sentients thinking about something other than survival, our lapine benevolents needed to get back home.

Unfortunately, their radios didn't work well through the smokey atmosphere although they tried multiple designs. Their signals have not yet been received, altho they may still be. Be kind to rabbits!

for a prehistoric parade?