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Treasure of Caldas

Caldas de Reis, Caldas, Pontevedra

1 Villages · 4 Monuments · 3 Nature · 1 Curiosities · 2 Historical milestones

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Treasure of Caldas

Curiosity · Caldas de Reis, Caldas, Pontevedra

The treasure of Caldas is a set of 36 gold pieces of more than twenty carats, weighing 14.9 kilos in total, from the Galician Bronze Age, dated according to various hypotheses to between 1500 and 1600 BC. It shows parallels with finds from the British Isles, Ireland, Brittany and Central Europe, which suggests a cultural community with the fisterras of Europe and a hierarchical society in which elites monopolised trade and wealth. Bouza Brey, who first announced the find, ruled out that it was the hiding place of a local goldsmith and interpreted it instead as tribal wealth hidden in the face of a threat of invasion, a hypothesis that Blanco Freijeiro rejected without proposing an alternative. It represents the largest accumulation of gold in the whole of European prehistory, and it is displayed in the Museo de Pontevedra.

Photo: Ángel M. Felicísimo from Mérida, España (CC BY 2.0)

What to see and do in Caldas de Reis