Rillaton Barrow is one of the most important Bronze Age monuments on Bodmin Moor. It is situated on Rillaton Moor, on the south east side of Bodmin Moor, within one of Cornwall’s richest upland archaeological landscapes. Bodmin Moor is the largest of the Cornish granite uplands and is known for the exceptional survival of prehistoric, medieval, post medieval, and industrial remains. Across the moor, settlements, field systems, cairns, stone circles, ceremonial monuments, and later mining remains still show how people used this landscape over thousands of years. Rillaton Barrow belongs to this wider prehistoric setting and is especially significant because of the remarkable burial found within it. The monument is a large round cairn, a type of Bronze Age burial mound usually built from earth and stone. Round cairns were used to cover single or multiple burials and are generally dated to the Bronze Age, around 2000 to 700 BC. Some burials were placed in pits, while others were set inside stone lined chambers known as cists. Rillaton Barrow is the largest round cairn on Bodmin Moor, measuring about 34 metres across and rising to around 2.7 metres high. Its position is also important. From the east crest of Rillaton Moor there are wide views across south east Cornwall and the Tamar Valley towards Dartmoor, placing the barrow in a highly visible and meaningful landscape. The barrow is best known for the discovery of the Rillaton Gold Cup, one of the most famous prehistoric finds from Cornwall. The cup was found inside a long stone cist exposed on the eastern side of the mound, along with the remains of a skeleton and other grave goods. Accounts differ over whether the discovery took place in 1818 or 1837, and the find appears to have been made by stone robbers rather than during a formal excavation. The cist measured about 2.2 metres long, 1.1 metres wide, and 0.9 metres high. It was built from stone slabs and placed high in the eastern side of the cairn, suggesting that it was not the original central burial for which the mound was first created, but a later or secondary burial added to the monument. The burial was exceptionally rich. Alongside the human remains were a decorated pot containing a small gold cup, a copper alloy dagger, a copper alloy rivet, fragments of ivory or bone, several beads, probably made of faience, and another fragment described as ornamental earthenware. Most of these objects are now lost, but the gold cup and dagger survive in the British Museum. The cup itself is made from sheet gold and has a rounded, corrugated body, a flared rim, and a riveted handle. It has often been compared with early Bronze Age pottery beakers and is usually dated to around 2000 to 1500 BC. Finds of this quality are rare and are often linked with the rise of high status individuals or elite burial traditions during the early Bronze Age. The later history of the Rillaton Gold Cup is almost as unusual as its discovery. After it was found, the objects were treated as Duchy treasure and were sent to King William IV, but the king died soon afterwards and the cup disappeared from clear record for a time. It was later found by Prince Albert and placed in the royal collection at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. By the twentieth century, it had passed into the possession of the royal family, and King George V is said to have used it as a container for collar studs. In 1936, Edward VIII deposited the cup in the British Museum. By then it had been damaged and altered, and later discussion has focused on whether its base had been flattened after discovery. Despite this complicated history, the Rillaton Gold Cup remains one of the most important early Bronze Age gold objects in Britain. Rillaton Barrow is important not only because of the gold cup, but because it forms part of a wider ceremonial and funerary landscape on Craddock Moor and Rillaton Moor. The surrounding area includes other broadly contemporary prehistoric monuments, showing that this part of Bodmin Moor was a significant place for burial, ritual, and social display during the Bronze Age. The cairn has never been fully archaeologically excavated, which suggests that much of the mound may still contain undisturbed evidence, including possible primary and secondary burials. Although stone robbing has damaged part of the barrow, a substantial amount of the monument survives, making it a valuable source of information about prehistoric belief, burial practice, and the organisation of society in Bronze Age Cornwall. Today, Rillaton Barrow represents a significant prehistoric monument and one of the key archaeological sites of Bodmin Moor. Its size, position, surviving cist, and connection with the Rillaton Gold Cup give it international importance. The gold cup may be the most famous part of the story, but the barrow itself is just as important. It is a surviving link to the people who lived, died, and worshipped the land here more than three thousand years ago.