In pure form, gold is a fairly useless metal, except for being hard to obtain, being shiny and staying shiny.

That’s why I think it historically, had 3 only uses: as money, to show wealth, and to show power.

Also “ritual” is not a well-defined concept (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritual says it may include coronations, can be part of warfare, etc), so declaring something as “ritual” most of the time isn’t a bold claim. In this case, I would think it mostly says “it doesn’t look like a form of money, and we don’t see people at the time use this to make a living”.

Gold isn't useless. It's very easy to work, especially by beating. It doesn't tarnish or rust, and takes a great polished surface with not much effort. It is heavy, but you can beat it to a really thin surface easily (it doesn't get brittle with beating like so many other metals), so you can make it thinner to offset the weight.

If you were going to make a hat-calendar, for whatever reason, then thinly-beaten gold is not the worst material to choose (evidence: it survived!).

Of course, we have plastic or aluminium as alternatives, and gold has a high value as currency for us, so it would be a terrible choice of material now.