text: Eogan (1994) noted that around 250 surviving gold objects are known to date to the Early Bronze Age, 165 of those from Ireland, and the other 83 from Britain. From analysing the designs of the earliest gold artefacts in Britain, Eogan noted that they "form a homogeneous group" which, when "taken in conjunction with other metal types demonstrate that a new technology was introduced."  Early Bronze Age pieces are generally much smaller, with very thin decorated discs or plaques common.  Two small gold cups have been found in England, the Rillaton Cup and the similar but now crushed Ringlemere Cup.
  Due to its natural resources, Ireland had a "rich Early Bronze Age [metal-working] industry", producing large quantities of metal axes, halberds and daggers, and as a part of this also had a "major gold industry", seeing the production of lunulae and gold disks on a far larger scale than Britain.