the scheme of the shape and composition of the hat, as well as number of ornamental zones and of the number of stamps used for each. Provenance and find history The Golden Hat of Schifferstadt was discovered on 29 April 1835, during agricultural work in a field named Reuschlache, one km north of Schifferstadt. On the following day the find was handed to officials at Speyer, then part of the Kingdom of Bavaria. The known circumstances suggest a cult-related deposition: The hat was buried upright, about 60 cm deep. Its top reached to just below the ground surface. When found the hat stood on a slab of back-burnt clay. It was filled with earth or an earth-ashes mixture, of which nothing remains. The clay slab, which crumbled during its recovery and is now entirely lost, sat on a one-inch layer of sand, placed in a rectangular pit. Three bronze axes were leaning against the cone. Manufacture The hat is hammered from a single piece of gold alloy of 86.37% Au, 13% Ag, 0.56% Cu and 0.07% Sn. Its average thickness is 0.2 to 0.25 cm, except the brim, which is far thinner, at 0.08 to 0.13 mm. The latter may suggest that it had been re-worked at some stage. If the amount of gold used for the hat was moulded into a square bar, it would only measure 2.5 cm square. Such a bar or lump was hammered to the thickness of a modern sheet of printing paper during its production. Because of the tribological characteristics of the material, it tends to harden with increasing deformation (see ductility), increasing its potential to crack. To avoid cracking, an extremely even deformation was necessary. Additionally, the material had to be softened by repeatedly heating it to a temperature of at least 750 °C. Since gold alloy has a relatively low melting point of circa 960 °C, a very careful temperature control and an isothermal heating process were required, so as to avoid melting any of the surface. For this, the Bronze Age artisans used a charcoal fire or oven similar to those used for pottery. The temperature could only be controlled through the addition of oxygen, using a bellows. In the course of its further manufacture, the hat was embellished with rows of radial ornamental bands, chased into the metal. To make this possible, it was filled with a putty or pitch