The Sutton Hoo Treasures

All images and text that follow are taken from the British Museum website, unless noted otherwise. Images credited as:

http://www.britishmuseum.org/images/com3926a_m.jpg

In 1938, archaeologist Basil Brown was asked to investigate eighteen low grassy mounds by a local land owner, Mrs Edith Pretty. He began by opening Mound 3, quickly followed by Mounds 2 and 4. All had been robbed in antiquity, although the few scraps of once fine possessions hinted at high-status Anglo-Saxon burials. In the spring and summer of 1939 Brown excavated the largest mound (Mound 1) and uncovered an undisturbed burial, the extraordinarily rich grave of an important early seventh-century East Anglian.

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The Sutton Hoo ship-burial

was excavated in the spring and summer of 1939, just before the outbreak of the

Second World War. Its remarkable finds signalled a radical change in attitude towards early Anglo-Saxon society, which, until then had been thought substantially inferior to life

during the Roman period.

http://www.archaeology.co.uk/

The estate of Dame EdithMay Pretty, in East Anglia, England

The 1939 excavation at Sutton Hoo

Deeply buried beneath a large mound lay the ghost of a twenty-seven metre long oak ship. At its centre was a ruined burial chamber the size of a small room, built with a pitched roof and hung with textiles. In it a dead man lay surrounded by his possessions. He was buried with...symbols of power and authority.

Object # 1: Estimate size, materials, use

Object # 2: Estimate size, materials, use

Object # 3: Estimate size, materials, use

Object # 4: Estimate

size, materials, use

# 5: size, use, etc. ........

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Object # 6: Estimate size,materials, use.

Object # 7: Estimate size, materials, use

Object # 8: Estimate size, materials, use

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Detail: What do you notice about the design at the top?

While the finds from this burial reflect the status of the dead man, they are also a

reminder of the master craftsmen, including swordsmiths

and goldsmiths, who made these remarkable objects.

An iron helmet covered with decorative panels of tinned bronze

The bronze eyebrows are inlaid with silver wire and garnets. Each ends in a gilt-bronze boars-head - perhaps a symbol of strength and courage. Placed against the top of the nose, between the eyebrows, is a gilded dragon-head that lies nose to nose with a similar dragon-head placed at the end of the low crest that runs over the cap. The nose, eyebrows and dragon make up a great bird with outstretched wings that flies on the helmet.

Made from Aurochs horns with silver-gilt mounts

They would have been used for ceremonial drinking and feasting in a great mead hall.

The lid was made to cover a leather pouch containing gold coins. It hung by three hinged straps from the waist belt, and was fastened by a gold buckle.

The lid had totally decayed but was probably made of whale-bone ivory - a precious material in early Anglo-Saxon England.

The purse lid from Sutton Hoo is the richest of its kind yet found.

Text

Music was very much part of Anglo-Saxon life, although finds of

musical instruments are rare. Lyre-like stringed instruments…were made

of maple and are straight-sided with a long sounding box.

What survives are gilded emblems, including a bird-of-prey with predatory beak and cruel talons, and a six-winged dragon with open snapping jaws. These may symbolize the strength and courage of the shield's bearer. At the centre is a heavy iron boss, decorated with pairs of intertwined horses. Around the rim are gilt-bronze panels covered with interlacing animals and flanked by dragon's heads with beady garnet eyes. The shield was held by an iron grip behind the boss; this too is ornamented with dragon and bird heads.

The Anglo-Saxons were avid games players; gaming counters, dice and playing pieces of bone

are found in many men's graves.

This set of gaming pieces was found at the feet of the dead man in the princely burial at Taplow, close to the pair of drinking-horns also in the British Museum.

Their regular spacing when discovered suggests that they may have been laid out on a board or possibly buried in their carrying box.

This magnificent gold buckle weighs 412.7 grams.

The master-craftsman who made it devised a locking system involving a complex system of sliders and internal rods which fit into slotted fixings. These fill the interior leaving little space

for the safe storage of a relic, a function which has been suggested for such hollow, high-status buckles.

Immaculately executed in garnet cloisonné, chequerboard millefiori and intense opaque blue glass,...

...the shoulder-clasps are heavy and made in two halves, which are hinged and fastened by a strong pin. On the back are rows of loops which attached them to light-weight

body armour, which must have been made of leather as no trace remained in the grave.

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The design at the top is two crossed boars. Look for the curly tail above the hind leg at the

Far left and right. The blue checkerboard represents “The hero’s portion,” similar to a turkey drumstick.

What looks like a helmet is the head with ear and snout.