Metalworking technique used in Minoan Crete for making elaborate gold jewellery. Tiny gold spheres known as granules (often smaller that 1mm in diameter) are attached to gold sheet, creating decorative motifs. The granules were usually attached using copper salts, heated and fused to the gold. This specialised and highly skilled technique was known in Troy and Syria as early as the second half of the 3rd millennium BC. In Crete, granulation was adopted in the 2nd millennium, displaying distinctive technical and stylistic features.