Gusszapfen

a b c d

a) Neck ring. Bronze Age, Denmark
          b) Neck, arm and foot rings. Bronze Age, northern Germany
       c) Bronze Age, at both legs double-spirals, northern Germany
   d) Detail of 0153. Link between ring and doublle spiral

           a  b  c

a) Georgia. Woman statuette, 300 B.C. wearing golden neck- ear- and armrings
b) Georgia. The gold decoration was made of thin gold wire; on the head four
round disk from thin sheet of gold
c) Geneva lake Villeneuve. A wooden figurine with a neckring which kept three
celtic coins in a fissure in the arm area . A descriptive example of a cash donation
for the ferryman ? An ancient ferryman story of the Pyramidtext still alive surviving
in Europa and Near East ?

So far it is supposed that the ring / torques had been a more or less luxurious status
symbol. So far no religious meaning, but a more amazing finding may be helpfull
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Closed neck rings, too small in diameter to pull it over a head.

.>>Iron-Age traditional costume of the central mountain zone
between Rhine and Thueringer basin<< (Mainz 1992)

R.Heynowski

Inside diameters of closed bronze neck rings, of 10.0 - 19.5 cm in diameter

Closed neck rings, bronze with casting taps left in situ
(Noteworthy that these amazing neck rings were otherwise ´
world wide ´ completedly unusal. Used within a sect ?)

Problem I: A characteristic of these rings is the careless processing. The pieces are manufactured by casting in lost form and remain predominantly without considerable subsequent treatment. Casting remainders and burrs complete the impression of a raw form. There is no a technical reason to leave the rings semifinished.

Poblem II: The rings were certainly worn around the neck, despite being too small in diameter to be pulled over the head. At the first view, this could mean that the ring was put on within the first years of infancy.Thus with progressive growth of the head the ring becomes ´fixed´ to the body, thereby remained around the neck of a grown up long live. Conceivable that this firm connection of a raw-formed ring to the body
must have been intended to proceede in such a way.
(Heynowski)

Though all this assigns an unknown special symbol character to  the rings, 
but it could be that in this special case the ring was casted around the neck 
                not of a living but on the neck of a dead adult.

I
Problem III: What  expected  meaning in an Other World had the golden neck
ring and the primitively  proceeded ring with casting taps left in situ ?

In generall: Only a reference to the rank of the deceased?  Bronze, for ´normal´
people but gold for aristocrats ? 
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A dying Gaul, nacked but with a ring around his neck. Conceivable that the ring proved the deceased to be a member of a certain religious comunity ?.

klick
Dying Gaul Sumer Gundestrup

Comparably Cheops, which shows with the name of his pyramid that he belongs to the horizon of the Gods. Or the Egyptian, who points out that he has a ring a ´circlet ´in the hand.

Egyptean Coffin text. 586 *Hail to you, O Re, wearing your circlet! May you proceed to the councel chamber and reckon up your fathers who whatch for him who destroys doubles. O Blue-eyed one who freshens eyes, whose power is severe —Re in his circlet—Re will stand up, for I have my circlet which is in my hand
.(2100-1900 B.C.)
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    Hypothesis:
   If the *narrow*  ring was casted on the neck of a dead  adult, then the ring could 
        not be lost on the long way onto the other world. Thus the dead one remained 
        recognizable as a member of a distinct religious  community. The ring a passport 
        to show  the neolithic *Petrus*  at the door to the horizon  " I belong to you?" 
        Like a tatooed cross on the arm of a drowned Christean sailor? (it is said)
      
    1-ring-gusszapfen 01.12.03. 25.10.04 up.