It served as the external covering on a long conical brimmed headdress, probably of an organic material.

It is generally assumed that the hats served as the insignia of deities or priests in the context of a sun cult that appears to have been widespread in Central Europe at the time.

of the ornaments and techniques in conjunction with dateable finds suggests that it was made in the Late Bronze Age, roughly around 1000 to 800 BC.

The Berlin gold hat is a 490 g (15.75 troy ounces) gold hat with a long and slender conical shaft and a differentiated convex foot, decorated all over with repousse traced motifs, applied with small stamps and wheels.

The external edge of the brim is strengthened by a twisted square-sectioned wire, around which the gold leaf is turned upwards.

The individual ornamental bands were optically separated traced ribs and bulges, mostly achieved with the use of cylindrical stamps.

One of the bands is distinctive: It is decorated with a row of recumbent crescents, each atop an almond- or eye-shaped symbol.

A detailed study of the Berlin example, which is the only one fully preserved, showed that the symbols probably represent a lunisolar calendar.

A simple multiplication of such values would also permit the calculation of longer periods, such as metonic cycles.

Apart from ornament bands incorporating differing numbers of rings there are special symbols and zones in intercalary areas, which would have had to be added to or subtracted from the periods in question.

The system of this mathematical function incorporated into the artistic ornamentation has not been fully deciphered so far, but a schematic understanding of the Berlin Golden Hat and the periods it delimits has been achieved.

The overall discrepancy of 2 days to the astronomically accurate value is probably the result of a slight imprecision in the Bronze Age observation of synodic and solar month.

[citation needed] The Berlin Gold Hat was put on sale in the international arts trade in 1995.

In 1996, the Berlin Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte bought it as an important Bronze Age artefact.

In the course of its further manufacture, the Berlin Hat was embellished with rows of radial ornamental bands, chased into the metal.

To make this possible, it was probably filled with a putty or pitch based on tree resin and wax - in the Schifferstadt specimen, traces of this survived.