Gold in antiquity: Did you mean...?

A gold Mycenaean cup with handles ending in dog's heads. 15th century BCE from Grave circle A, Mycenae. (National Archaeological Museum, Athens)

Hairnet made of finely woven gold wires, 1st century CE (Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, Rome)

A captured German bunker with 50-mm gun at Gold Beach, attacked during the D-Day Normandy landings of 6 June 1944. (Imperial War Museums)

A photograph of liquid gold in a refinery.

Both earrings are placed in a mirror-image position, with the lower surfaces facing each other. Each earring is composed of nine lunar-shaped segments forming a flattened half- ball. The cuneiform signs run vertically...

Both earrings are placed in a mirror-image position, with the lower surfaces facing each other. Each earring is composed of nine lunar-shaped segments forming a flattened half- ball. The cuneiform signs run vertically...

Gold daric from Persia, kingdom of Achaemenids, 5th-4th century BCE. O: King with bow and quiver. R: Incuse oblong.

Roman gold and saphire ring, second half of the 2nd century CE. The ring has a garnet centre stone. From an unidentified marble sarcophagus in Rome. (Palazzo Massimo, Rome)

5-6th century CE gold earrings from the Silla Kingdom (57 BCE - 668 CE) of south-eastern Korea. From a tomb in the Gyeongju area. National Treasure No. 52. (National Museum of Korea, Seoul, South Korea)

A chunk of quartz with gold from the Witwatersrand mines in South Africa. Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.