Updated: 29/03/2011 16:24 | By Charlotte Amelines, contributor, MSN Travel
In pictures: Britain's most priceless treasures

1) Mold cape



Mold cape (© Trustees of the British Museum)
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  • Mold cape (© Trustees of the British Museum)
  • Mappa Mundi (© Reproduced by kind permission of the Dean and Chapter of Hereford)
  • Hinton St Mary mosaic (© Trustees of the British Museum)
  • The king's parade helmet from the Sutton Hoo burial goods (© The trustees of the British Museum)
  • An illuminated page from St Luke's Gospel, taken from the Lindisfarne gospels (© Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
  • King Edward III double leopard (© Ian Nicholson/PA)
  • Crown from the Scottish honours (© PA)
  • A Penny Black (© PA)
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To look at this extraordinary gold cape - by far the oldest treasure in our list - it's hard to comprehend that it's 3,600-3,900 years old. That is, almost as old as Stonehenge. Beaten from a solid sheet of gold, and embossed with intricate bead-like designs, it is thought to have formed part of a ceremonial outfit.

The cape was unearthed in 1840 by men quarrying for stone in a field known as Fairies Hill, in north Wales. But it took many years for experts to even identify it as a cape, let alone reconstruct it. The cape is now one of the British Museum's star attractions.

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