Dacian Gold Bracelets
The Dacian gold bracelets are heavy spiral arm rings of the ancient kingdom of Dacia, hammered from Transylvanian alluvial gold in the mid-first century BC and worn as ornaments and marks of rank, possibly also deposited as votive offerings. The surviving pieces, each forged from a single ingot into five to seven coils that end in serpent or animal heads, weigh between roughly 680 grams and nearly 1.2 kilograms, a concentration of royal wealth unmatched in the Balkans. Around two dozen were looted from ritual pits near the sacred precinct of Sarmizegetusa Regia, the Dacian capital in the Orășt