"The Staffordshire Hoard" by Kevin Leahy and Roger Bland.
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DESCRIPTION: Softcover. Publisher: British Museum (2009). Pages: 48. Size: 7¼ x 7¼ inches. Summary: On 5 July 2009, a metal-detector user started to unearth some gold objects in a Staffordshire field. Thus began the discovery of the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold ever found. Consisting of over 1600 items - including fittings from the hilts of swords, fragments from helmets, Christian crosses and magnificent pieces of garnet work - the Staffordshire Hoard is set to rewrite history.
This is just the beginning of the story. This is going to alter our perceptions of Anglo-Saxon England in the seventh and early eighth centuries as radically, if not more so, as the 1939 Sutton Hoo discoveries did; it will make historians and literary scholars review what their sources tell us, and archaeologists and art-historians rethink the chronology of metalwork and manuscripts; and it will make us all think again about rising (and failing) kingdoms and the expression of regional identities in this period, the complicated transition from paganism to Christianity, the conduct of battle and the nature of fine metalwork production - to name only a few of the many huge issues it raises.
Absolutely the metalwork equivalent of finding a new Lindisfarne Gospels or Book of Kells. Leslie Webster, former Keeper of the Department of Prehistory & Europe, the British Museum. The quantity of gold is amazing but, more importantly, the craftsmanship is consummate; this was the very best that the Anglo-Saxon metalworkers could do, and they were very good. Tiny garnets were cut to shape and set in a mass of cells to give a rich, glowing effect; it is stunning. Its origins are clearly the very highest levels of Anglo-Saxon aristocracy or royalty. It belonged to the elite.
CONDITION: NEW. New oversized softcover. British Museum (2009) 48 pages. Unblemished, unmarked, pristine in every respect. Pages are pristine; clean, crisp, unmarked, unmutilated, tightly bound, unambiguously unread. Satisfaction unconditionally guaranteed. In stock, ready to ship. No disappointments, no excuses. PROMPT SHIPPING! HEAVILY PADDED, DAMAGE-FREE PACKAGING! Meticulous and accurate descriptions! Selling rare and out-of-print ancient history books on-line since 1997. We accept returns for any reason within 30 days! #8884.1a.
PLEASE SEE DESCRIPTIONS AND IMAGES BELOW FOR DETAILED REVIEWS AND FOR PAGES OF PICTURES FROM INSIDE OF BOOK.
PLEASE SEE PUBLISHER, PROFESSIONAL, AND READER REVIEWS BELOW.
PUBLISHER REVIEWS:
REVIEW: On 5 July 2009 a metal-detectorist started to unearth gold objects in a Staffordshire field. Thus began the discovery of the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon treasure ever found. Consisting of over 1600 items including fittings from the hilts of swords, fragments from helmets, Christian crosses and magnificent pieces of garnet work the Staffordshire Hoard has begun to rewrite history. This new and extended edition of the successful title by Kevin Leahy and Roger Bland delves deeper into the story behind the hoard, using the latest research to fill previous gaps in knowledge and turn some of the original ideas about the discovery on their head. Complete with new photography of the cleaned and conserved objects, showing off the stunning and intricate decoration, this book provides a fascinating account of the history and the discovery of this remarkable hoard.
REVIEW: The first pieces of the Staffordshire Hoard were found in early July 2009 by Mr Terry Herbert while he was metal detecting in a field in southern Staffordshire. An archaeological excavation followed, funded by English Heritage and Staffordshire County Council and carried out by Birmingham Archaeology. Over 1,500 complete artifacts and fragments were discovered. Finds included sword fittings, part of a helmet and three gold Christian crosses. Most of the complete objects are made of gold. Some are decorated with pieces of garnet, a deep red semi-precious stone, others with fine filigree work or patterns made up of animals with interlaced bodies. Current thinking dates the hoard to the later 600s or earlier 700s AD. However, there are still many questions yet to be answered about this astonishing find.
REVIEW: A new, extended edition that tells the story of The Staffordshire hoard - an important collection of Anglo-Saxon artifacts. On 5 July 2009 a metal-detectorist started to unearth gold objects in a Staffordshire field, only to discover the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon treasure ever found. Consisting of over 1600 items – including fittings from the hilts of swords, fragments from helmets, Christian crosses and magnificent pieces of garnet work – the Staffordshire Hoard has begun to rewrite history.
This new and extended edition delves deeper into the story behind the hoard using the latest research to fill previous gaps in knowledge. Complete with new photography of the cleaned and conserved objects, showing off the stunning and intricate decoration, this book provides a fascinating account of the history and the discovery of this remarkable hoard. £1 from the sale of every book will go to the Staffordshire Hoard appeal fund.
REVIEW: On 5 July 2009 a metal-detector user started to unearth some gold objects in a Staffordshire field. Thus began the discovery of the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold ever found. This title consists of over 1600 items including fittings from the hilts of swords, fragments from helmets, Christian crosses and pieces of garnet work.
REVIEW: On 5 July 2009 a metal-detectorist started to unearth gold objects in a Staffordshire field. Thus began the discovery of the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon treasure ever found. This book delves into the story behind the hoard, using the research to fill previous gaps in knowledge and turn some of the original ideas about the discovery on their head.
REVIEW: Roger Bland is Head of Portable Antiquities and Treasure at the British Museum. He is the co-author of “The Frome Hoard” (British Museum Press).
REVIEW: Kevin Leahy is National Finds Adviser for the Portable Antiquities Scheme, with responsibility for early medieval metalwork. Roger Bland is Keeper of Prehistory and Europe at the British Museum and Head of the Portable Antiquities Scheme.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Discovery.
Investigation.
Aftermath.
Conservation.
The Contents of the Hoard.
How Were the Objects Made?
Dating and Decoration.
Why was it Buried?
Anglo-Saxon England.
The Sutton Hoo Ship Burial.
The Treasure Act and Portable Antiquities Scheme.
The Next Steps.
PROFESSIONAL REVIEWS:
REVIEW: A book produced by the British Museum on The Staffordshire Hoard is now available and £1 from the sale of every book will go towards The Art Fund’s campaign to save the hoard for the West Midlands. Written by Dr Kevin Leahy and Roger Bland this short introduction to the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon treasure ever found, tells the remarkable story of the hoard’s discovery, describes the fascinating collection of objects it contains, and offers insight into the significance of the treasure. The Staffordshire Hoard, by Kevin Leahy and Roger Bland, is published by The British Museum Press. The photographs are exquisite, and the prose clear, lucid, and fascinating.
READER REVIEWS:
REVIEW: [First Edition Review] This is a booklet rushed out by the British Museum after this hoard was discovered, to meet the great needs generated by the discovery, its early display and to profit from the publicity surrounding it. It is a good work and professionally done, but do not expect it to be a
definitive coverage - that will come with later publications. The photos are a 'teaser' and many of the golden artifacts have obviously not yet been conserved or cleaned when the photos were taken. Information on this hoard has been updated for the general public such as with the PBS special on the hoard and the excellent National Geographic magazine article dated November, 2011.
This hoard will be like Sutton Hoo, with the British Museum and experts involved in the conservation and study of this find in Staffordshire bringing out many future titles for both the layman as well as professional archaeologists and historians. So get a copy of this for your bookshelf while it is still available if, like me, you can't get enough of the wonders that are still turning up in the soils and waters of the British countryside.
If you google 'hoards' on Wikipedia, you will also be led to what is known about many other significant treasure hoards going back into antiquity. If you are motivated to start or increase your metal detecting - do so with landowner permission and know a local historian or archaeologist to contact if you are one of the fortunate ones to find a site of historical interest, so that it can be put in context for the enjoyment of future generations.
REVIEW: The Staffordshire Hoard book is an excellent overview of the discovery and how it was discovered. It also has an excellent collection of photographs to illustrate what was found and shows close up photos of the early Anglo-Saxon pagan art style. In the discussion it talks about ideas on why this gold/silver and metal art treasure was located at this particular place, and discusses some of the art style and its similarity to the Sutton Hoo find in 1939.
This is an excellent book for anyone to have if you are interested in Anglo-Saxon history and pagan art. Hopefully in the next coming years there will be a detailed publication and analysis showing what the items look like when they are fully cleaned, art illustrating showing what the items looked like undamaged, and a detailed comparison of this Anglo-Saxon Pagan Art style with earlier and later Anglo-Saxon art styles.
REVIEW: [First Edition Review] A few months back the most incredible hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold was found in a field in Staffordshire. This was on display for a few weeks in Birmingham and is now viewable in Hanly Museum. If you can't get to Hanley Museum, in North Staffordshire, England, to see the Staffordshire Gold then this little book will keep you going until you are able to see the real thing.
I heard Kevin Leahy speak the other week and he is the real thing as far as archaeology goes. He was among the first of the professionals to realize that it made sense to reach a rapprochement with the metal detectorists. The logical outcome of that is the discovery of the Staffordshire hoard. And if you want to know where Camelot really is then look also at his book on Lindsey. (That is Lincolnshire for those who are not in the know.) Lindsey: The Archaeology of an Anglo-Saxon Kingdom.
REVIEW: This is an interesting book about the discovery and finds in the Staffordshire Hoard. The pictures of the artifacts are very good and their workmanship amazing. Linking this find to the Sutton Hoo ship burial and the burial site finds at Taplow Bucks is interesting as there are a lot of similarities .
REVIEW: This book is worth buying as it provides some insights and photos of the Staffordshire Hoard that I've not seen elsewhere. The hoard, for those who don't follow such things, is probably the biggest and most diverse example of preserved original material we have found showing the ancient metalwork techniques of the British Isles. It shows native examples objects made by casting, carving, chasing, repousse, soldering, inlay, hammering and lots more. It demonstrates design motifs which have been largely lost and those which have changed over the centuries.
REVIEW: Nice introduction to the Hoard. A nice little book which shows some of the beautiful pieces from the Staffordshire Hoard. Unlike Sutton Hoo, these pieces are presented with little or no context due to the way they were deposited and then excavated. They're not a part of a burial, they don't tell us about an individual but they do tell us a lot about the glorious quality of the work of Anglo-Saxons and show us a lot about what kind of artwork produced then in jaw-dropping amounts, strictly for male adornment. The photos are excellent, and will make you want to know more about this enigmatic find.
REVIEW: [First Edition Review]. Magnificent hoard! Great value even though a smallish book as pictures were of high quality and glossy nature. Made a perfect gift starter to the items mentioned, with my dad hoping to now want to see the items in the flesh! Now looking for a bigger hardback with even bigger glossy pictures and detail.
REVIEW: [First Edition Review] I was incredibly impressed that they got this little book out in only a couple months after the announcement of the find. It's a lovely little book, and I'm glad I have it. I certainly was panting for it at the time. It's merely introductory material, but at the same time, it gives more context than the average person has, and that helps understand how important this find was.
REVIEW: [First Edition Review] This slim volume has appeared very quickly and gives an excellent overview of the Staffordshire Hoard, despite its brevity. Visiting from abroad last autumn, we weren't able to invest the time to queue for the exhibition in Birmingham, so only a family friend's short tour of the actual field the hoard was found in had to suffice and from that point of view, this is a great introduction to what has been going on with this exciting find. Now we look forward to a comprehensive catalogue of the Hoard in this same quality.
REVIEW: Bought this book for my mum, who is very interested in archaeology but unfortunately not well enough to visit the treasure in person. She appreciated the background detail, the descriptions of the finds and the photos. Don't let the size or length of the book fool you, this was good value for money.
REVIEW: [First Edition Review] Superbly illustrated. All you can reasonably want to know about the Hoard until expert analysis of the artifacts has been completed. Many pages of detailed illustrations and an authoritative overview. Good reference sources for further reading.
REVIEW: Fascinating and well produced. Good photos and clear text, this booklet accompanies the museum exhibition, providing an enjoyable read whether or not you have seen it. The one question which will remain is "Why didn't I stumble across it when out for a ramble?"
REVIEW: Brilliant. Cracking little book. Dark ages not. Workmanship is exquisite, how did they do it? All by eyesight with automation or optical tools. Brilliant.
REVIEW: Buy this book! Totally brilliant explanation of the hoard and its significance to British archaeology.
REVIEW: Excellent little book, packed with fantastic images of the hoard finds, highly recommended to anyone with an interest in the Staffordshire hoard or Anglo Saxon Britain.
REVIEW: A treasure about treasure! About Celtic gold in England. The usual good work from there. This adds greatly to my knowledge of the Celts and their gold.
REVIEW: When ordering I was a little unsure how good or how many photos there would be. It is excellent. Photograph quality and quantity is great and the information is well written and interesting.
REVIEW: An excellent synopsis of this discovery produced at very short notice.
REVIEW: Usual high-quality work from the British Museum Press. Can't get enough of this stuff!
REVIEW: I bought this as a gift, and it is a super little book. Excellent color photos and good information.
REVIEW: [First Edition] Rather brief, but I'm sure that further study of the hoard will later result in more detailed publications.
REVIEW: I bought this for my dad. He loves history so it was well worth it.
REVIEW: Five stars! Lovely little book. Excellent photography.
REVIEW: Five stars! Excellent!
REVIEW: Five stars! A great read, fabulous photos.
REVIEW: Five stars. Good pictures of the Treasure.
REVIEW: Five stars! Beautiful illustrations and photographs.
ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND:
REVIEW: One day, or perhaps one night, in the late seventh century an unknown party traveled along an old Roman road that cut across an uninhabited heath fringed by forest in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia. Possibly they were soldiers, or then again maybe thieves—the remote area would remain notorious for highwaymen for centuries—but at any rate they were not casual travelers. Stepping off the road near the rise of a small ridge, they dug a pit and buried a stash of treasure in the ground.
For 1,300 years the treasure lay undisturbed, and eventually the landscape evolved from forest clearing to grazing pasture to working field. Then treasure hunters equipped with metal detectors—ubiquitous in Britain—began to call on farmer Fred Johnson, asking permission to walk the field. "I told one I'd lost a wrench and asked him to find that," Johnson says. Instead, on July 5, 2009, Terry Herbert came to the farmhouse door and announced to Johnson that he had found Anglo-Saxon treasure.
The Staffordshire Hoard, as it was quickly dubbed, electrified the general public and Anglo-Saxon scholars alike. Spectacular discoveries, such as the royal finds at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk, had been made in Anglo-Saxon burial sites. But the treasure pulled from Fred Johnson's field was novel—a cache of gold, silver, and garnet objects from early Anglo-Saxon times and from one of the most important kingdoms of the era. Moreover, the quality and style of the intricate filigree and cloisonné decorating the objects were extraordinary, inviting heady comparisons to such legendary treasures as the Lindisfarne Gospels or the Book of Kells.
Once cataloged, the hoard was found to contain some 3,500 pieces representing hundreds of complete objects. And the items that could be securely identified presented a striking pattern. There were more than 300 sword-hilt fittings, 92 sword-pommel caps, and 10 scabbard pendants. Also noteworthy: There were no coins or women's jewelry, and out of the entire collection, the three religious objects appeared to be the only nonmartial pieces. Intriguingly, many of the items seemed to have been bent or broken.
This treasure, then, was a pile of broken, elite, military hardware hidden 13 centuries ago in a politically and militarily turbulent region. The Staffordshire Hoard was thrilling and historic—but above all it was enigmatic. Some pieces of the treasure were twisted or broken as if they had been forced into a small space.
Celts, Roman colonizers, Viking marauders, Norman conquerors—all came and went, leaving their mark on Britain's landscape, language, and character. But it is the six centuries of Anglo-Saxon rule, from shortly after the departure of the Roman colonizers, around A.D. 410, to the Norman Conquest in 1066, that most define what we now call England. Barbarian tribes had been moving westward across Europe since the mid-third century and may have made raids on Britain around this time. In the early fifth century the restless tribes menaced Rome, prompting it to withdraw garrisons from Britannia, the province it had governed for 350 years, to fight threats closer to home. As the Romans left, the Scotti and Picts, tribes to the west and north, began to raid across the borders.
Lacking Roman defenders, Britons solicited Germanic troops from the continent as mercenaries. The Venerable Bede—whose Ecclesiastical History of the English People, written in the eighth century, is the most valuable source for this era—gives the year of the fateful invitation as around 450 and characterizes the soldiers as coming from "three very powerful Germanic tribes, the Saxons, Angles, and Jutes." Modern scholars locate the homelands of these tribes in Germany, the northern Netherlands, and Denmark.
Enticed by reports of the richness of the land and the "slackness of the Britons," the soldiers in the first three ships were followed by more, and soon, Bede noted, "hordes of these peoples eagerly crowded into the island and the number of foreigners began to increase to such an extent that they became a source of terror to the natives." The British monk Gildas, whose sixth-century treatise On the Ruin of Britain is the earliest surviving account of this murky period, describes the ensuing islandwide bloodshed and scorched-earth tactics at the hands of the invaders: "For the fire of vengeance … spread from sea to sea … and did not cease, until, destroying the neighbouring towns and lands, it reached the other side of the island."
According to Gildas, many in the "miserable remnant" of surviving native Britons fled or were enslaved. But archaeological evidence suggests that at least some post-Roman settlements adopted Germanic fashions in pottery and clothing and burial practices; in other words, British culture vanished at least in part through cultural assimilation. The extent of the Anglo-Saxons' appropriation of Britain is starkly revealed in their most enduring legacy, the English language. While much of Europe emerged from the post-Roman world speaking Romance languages—Spanish, Italian, and French derived from the Latin of the bygone Romans—the language that would define England was Germanic.
On a farm near his home Terry Herbert shows off the metal detector that led him to the gold. “I just couldn’t stop the items from coming out of the ground,” he says. He received half the treasure’s assessed value of almost $5.3 million. The discovery of a treasure hoard in an English field was not in itself remarkable. Such finds surface everywhere in Britain. Coins, silver objects cut up for scrap metal, dumps of weapons, even a magnificent silver dinner service—all from British, Roman, or Viking times—have been found in the soil. In the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf the warrior Sigemund has killed a dragon guarding "dazzling spoils," and the aged hero Beowulf battles a dragon guarding gold and "garnered jewels" laid in the ground.
Treasure was buried for many reasons: to keep it out of enemy hands, to "bank" a fortune, to serve as a votive offering. Given the era's scant documentation, the motive behind the burial of the Staffordshire Hoard is best surmised from the hoard itself. The first clue is its military character, which suggests that the assemblage was not a grab bag of loot. The nature of the hoard accords with the militarism of the Germanic tribes, which was impressive even to the military-minded Romans. The historian Tacitus, writing in the late first century, noted that "they conduct no business, public or private, except under arms," and that when a boy came of age, he was presented with a shield and spear—"the equivalent of our toga."
Warfare formed England. The consolidation of land gained by warfare and alliances was the likely origin of the tribal kingships of early Anglo-Saxon England. The first Mercians are thought to have been Angles who moved inland along the River Trent, establishing themselves in the valley in the vicinity of the hoard. Mercia was not only one of the most important of the seven principal Anglo-Saxon kingships into which England was roughly divided but also one of the most belligerent. Between A.D. 600 and 850 Mercia waged 14 wars with its neighbor Wessex, 11 with the Welsh, and 18 campaigns with other foes—and these are only the named conflicts.
The apex of Teutonic military craft was the long cutting sword. Averaging about three feet, blades were pattern welded, a sophisticated technique by which twisted rods and strips of iron or steel were hammered together. Forged from this intricate folding, the polished blades rippled with chevron or herringbone patterns. As one appreciative recipient recorded in the early sixth century, they appear "to be grained with tiny snakes, and here such varied shadows play that you would believe the shining metal to be interwoven with many colors."
Modern studies of wounds on skeletons found in an Anglo-Saxon cemetery in Kent show that these beautiful swords also worked: "Male, aged 25-35 years … has a single linear cranial injury 16 cm long," states the clinical report. "The plane of the injury is almost vertically downwards." The number of sword pommels in the Staffordshire Hoard, 92, roughly corresponds with the number of men noted as making up one nobleman's troop of retainers.
The hoard, then, could represent the elite military gear that distinguished the retinue of a certain lord. Often a sword was issued by a lord to his retainers along with other equipment and even horses, together known as a heriot, repaid if the retainer died before his lord. In a will written in the tenth century a district official bequeaths "to my royal lord as a heriot four armlets of … gold, and four swords and eight horses, four with trappings and four without, and four helmets and four coats-of-mail and eight spears and eight shields." Swords were also buried with their warrior owners or passed down as family heirlooms.
But sometimes swords were buried without warriors. In a practice in northern Europe dating from the Bronze Age through Anglo-Saxon times, swords and other objects, many conspicuously valuable, were deposited in bogs, rivers, and streams as well as in the ground. "We can no longer see hoards only as piggy banks," says Kevin Leahy, an authority on Anglo-Saxon history who was entrusted with the task of cataloging the Staffordshire treasure.
Ritual deposits, as opposed to caches buried for safekeeping, are found not only in Britain but also in Scandinavia, homeland of some of England's Germanic tribes. Significantly, many weapons—and sometimes other objects, such as a craftsman's tools—were, like the objects in the hoard, bent or broken before burial. Perhaps "killing" a weapon dispatched it to the land of spirits or rendered it a votive offering to the gods, its destruction representing the donor's irrevocable surrender of the valuable weapon's use.
"This is a hoard for male display," says Nicholas Brooks, an emeritus historian at the University of Birmingham, who calls the glittering objects found in Staffordshire "bling for warrior companions of the king." Gold, weighing in at more than 11 pounds, accounts for nearly 75 percent of the metal in the hoard. According to Brooks, "the source is a mystery." The origin of most gold in England was ultimately Rome, whose later imperial currency had been based on the solidus, a solid gold coin.
Imperial gold had fallen to the Germanic tribes as plunder following the sack of Rome, and caches found in England may have been recirculated and recycled. By the date of the Staffordshire Hoard, gold supplies were dwindling, and silver and silver alloy were being used instead. Similarly, the source of garnets—like gold, a striking feature of the hoard—had shifted, from India to Bohemia and Portugal.
Historian Guy Halsall has estimated the value of the hoard's gold in its day as equivalent to 800 solidi, about 80 horses' worth. Modern valuation of the find has been set at £3,285,000, or just under $5.3 million. In its own time, however, the hoard's worth was surely calibrated by other considerations. The gold dazzles, but from a practical point of view the most valuable part of the weaponry—"the long, sharp, pointy bit you killed people with," as Halsall notes dryly—is not present in the hoard, and it is possible that the sword blades were cannily retained for reuse.
Above all, the pieces in the hoard were forged and buried in a world in which mundane events and acts could be suffused with magic; misfortune, for instance, was commonly attributed to tiny darts fired by malicious elves, and many charms against attacks survive. The magic properties an object possessed trumped its material worth. Gold was valued not only for being precious but also because, alluring and indestructible, it was infused with magic, and therefore used in amulets.
Germanic myths tell of the gods' great hall of gold, and as Christian churches and monasteries gained wealth, they acquired golden sacramental objects. In many cultures the very art of metallurgy is magical, and Nordic sagas have vivid details of the smith's magic arts, from Odin's spear and gold ring to Thor's hammer. Magic may also account for the only three obviously nonmilitary objects in the Staffordshire Hoard: two gold crosses and a slender strip of gold inscribed with a biblical quotation. Christianity first came to Britain with the Roman occupation, faded as the Romans faded, and was vigorously reintroduced to Anglo-Saxon England by missionaries, most from Ireland and the Continent.
There was a "perception of the conversion event as a spiritual battle," writes Karen Jolly, an authority on Anglo-Saxon popular religion. Conversion was a battle for the soul—effectively warfare, something the Germanic pagans understood. And the cross was a militarily useful symbol that had figured dramatically in actual battles. Bede tells the story of the Northumbrian king Oswald, who before the Battle of Heavenfield against the Welsh in 634 "set up the sign of the holy cross and, on bended knees, prayed God to send heavenly aid to His worshippers in their dire need." He and his men then "gained the victory that their faith merited." Remarkably, one of the hoard's two crosses was determinedly bent and folded, like so many of the other pieces in the hoard. Was this to "kill" its military potency, as with the swords?
This possibility is made more compelling by the only other apparently nonmartial object: The slender strip of gold, inscribed on two sides with the same biblical quotation is, strikingly, also folded. "[S]urge d[omi]ne disepentur inimici tui et [f]ugent qui oderunt te a facie tua—Rise up, Lord, may your enemies be dispersed and those who hate you flee from your face." The quotation is from the Latin Vulgate text of Numbers 10:35 and the Psalm now numbered 68:1—verses that may have been put to unexpected use.Generally wielded with one hand, the single-edged seax was more versatile than a full sword, serving as a hunting knife as well as a dagger. A blade of finely patterned iron and steel would have been a valued part of such a weapon, but none was included in the treasure.
In the Life of Saint Guthlac, written around 740, Guthlac is beset by demons, whereupon he "sang the first verse of the sixty-seventh psalm as if prophetically, 'Let God arise,' etc.: When they had heard this, at the same moment, quicker than words, all the hosts of demons vanished like smoke from his presence." Even the hoard's nonmartial objects, it seems, might have had militarily useful, magical functions. Generally wielded with one hand, the single-edged seax was more versatile than a full sword, serving as a hunting knife as well as a dagger. A blade of finely patterned iron and steel would have been a valued part of such a weapon, but none was included in the treasure.Generally wielded with one hand, the single-edged seax was more versatile than a full sword, serving as a hunting knife as well as a dagger. A blade of finely patterned iron and steel would have been a valued part of such a weapon, but none was included in the treasure.
Hadrian’s Wall, named for the second-century Roman emperor who built it, stretches 73 miles across Britain. It separated the civilized realm of Rome from the “barbarians”— restless Picts in the north. As the Romans withdrew, the northern tribes stormed across the border. The Mercians were aggressive border raiders—Mercia takes its name from the Old English mierce, meaning "frontier people"—which may account for the apparent range of regional styles in the hoard. "The hoard was found on a frontier zone, which is always interesting," Kevin Leahy says.Generally wielded with one hand, the single-edged seax was more versatile than a full sword, serving as a hunting knife as well as a dagger. A blade of finely patterned iron and steel would have been a valued part of such a weapon, but none was included in the treasure.
"It was on the border between Mercia and Wales." In other words, in contested territory. Around 650, in Staffordshire's Trent Valley near Lichfield, an obscure battle was fought involving the Mercians and their Welsh neighbors. Much plunder was carried away—possibly down the old Roman road Watling Street, which leads past the site where the Staffordshire Hoard was found. Event and place are commemorated in the Welsh poem "Marwnad Cynddylan—The Death Song of Cynddylan":
"Grandeur in battle! Extensive spoils; Morial bore off from in front of Lichfield. Fifteen hundred cattle from the front of battle; four twenties of stallions and equal harness. The chief bishop wretched in his four-cornered house; the book-keeping monks did not protect."
A retinue of 80 horses and spoils from a "wretched" bishopThe poem offers a tempting explanation for the hoard, an explanation, alas, built from slender, circumstantial evidence that has happened to survive from an era from which most evidence was lost. We can conjure other teasing theories. Our unknown travelers may have chosen the burial spot because it was obscure—or because it was conspicuous. The burial might have had a marker for rediscovery, or it might have been intended as an offering hidden forever to all but their gods. The hoard may have been ransom, or booty, or a votive thanks. It may have been a collection of Anglo-Saxon heirlooms buried at a later time.
Today the vanished Mercian landscape is evoked by surviving Anglo-Saxon place-names, such as those ending with "leah" or "ley," meaning "open woodland," like Wyrley, or Lichfield itself, whose name roughly means the "common pasture in or beside the gray wood." The hoard burial site is now a grassy field where Fred Johnson grazes horses. Odds are we will never know the story behind the Staffordshire Hoard, but in a world without magic spells or dragons, would we understand it if we did? [National Geographic Magazine].
REVIEW: For the jobless man living on welfare who made the find in an English farmer’s field two months ago, it was the stuff of dreams: a hoard of early Anglo-Saxon treasure, probably dating from the seventh century and including more than 1,500 pieces of intricately worked gold and silver whose craftsmanship and historical significance left archaeologists awestruck. When the discovery in Staffordshire was announced Thursday, experts described it as one of the most important in British archaeological history. They said it surpassed the greatest previous discovery of its kind, a royal burial chamber unearthed in 1939 at Sutton Hoo, in Suffolk. That find shaped scholars’ understanding of the warring Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of 1,300 years ago that ended up as the unified kingdom of England.
The new trove includes items that one expert in Anglo-Saxon artifacts said brought tears to her eyes: gold items weighing 11 pounds, and 5.5 pounds of silver. Tentatively identified by some experts as bounty from one of the wars that racked Middle England in the seventh and eighth centuries, they included dagger hilts, pieces of scabbards and swords, helmet cheekpieces, Christian crosses and figures of animals like eagles and fish. Archaeologists tentatively estimated the value of the trove at 1 million pounds — about $1.6 million — but say it could be many times that. And they took a vicarious pleasure in noting that the discovery was not the outcome of a carefully planned archaeological enterprise, but the product of a lone amateur stumbling about with a metal detector.
“People laugh at metal detectorists,” Terry Herbert, 55, who made the find, said Thursday at a news conference at the Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, where the objects will go on display on Friday for two weeks. “I’ve had people go past and go, ‘Beep, beep, he’s after pennies.’ Well no, we’re out there to find this kind of stuff, and it is out there.” Mr. Herbert spent 18 years scouring fields and back lots without finding anything more valuable than a piece of an ancient Roman horse harness. Now, under British laws governing the discovery of ancient treasures, he stands to get half the value of the booty. When his discovery was announced on Thursday, he kept his wish list modest, saying he would like to use some of his windfall to buy a bungalow.
Since the July day when his detector picked up traces of the hoard beneath a field in Staffordshire, a Midlands county that was at the center of the ancient Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia, Mr. Herbert said, he has been seeing piles of gold in his sleep. Awake, he has quietly celebrated his triumph over all the people who mocked him in the years when a typical day’s finds amounted to little but scrap. As for his fellow hunters in the Bloxwich Research and Metal Detecting Club, he said, “I dread to think what they’ll say when they hear about this.” He said that on the day of his discovery he reworked a mantra that he regularly used for good luck. “I have this phrase that I say sometimes — ‘Spirits of yesterday, take me where the coins appear’ — but on that day I changed ‘coins’ to ‘gold.’ I don’t know why I said it that day, but I think somebody was listening.”
From the Birmingham museum, the Staffordshire treasure, much of it still encrusted with dirt, will go to the British Museum in London, where the artifacts will undergo months, possibly years, of study by archaeologists and historians. A court ruling this week declared the finds to be treasure, meaning that they belong to the British crown, which is expected to offer them for sale. The crown’s practice, established in part by the many shipwrecks recovered off Britain’s shores, is that a reward equal to the value of the items — likely to be set in a bidding war among British museums — will be divided between Mr. Herbert as the finder and the farmer who owns the field where the discovery was made. His name and the location of the farm — beyond the fact that it is around Lichfield, north of Birmingham — have not been disclosed, to allow archaeologists to continue searching the area for more treasure.
The artifacts — like a hilt fitting, top, and a piece from a scabbard — are mostly items used in battle. At the news conference, experts said that Mr. Herbert’s initial discovery, which he reported to a Staffordshire County official responsible for archaeological discoveries, was followed by a dig that was strictly supervised by professional archaeologists. They were assisted, the experts said, by a team from Britain’s Home Office that normally works on crime scene forensics. The experts said that a painstaking search of the area had turned up no trace of a grave, a building or anything else that suggested a careful plan to bury the objects for later recovery. They said that information, and the fact that none of the discoveries appeared to be jewelry or other feminine items, added to the likelihood that the treasure was war bounty. It may have been seized by one of the seventh-century Mercian kings — men like Penda, Wulfhere and Aethelred — who pursued an aggressive, plundering policy toward neighboring kingdoms.
One of the features that led specialists to suggest the items might have been seized in battle and prized for their value in precious metal and jewels rather than as trophies was that many appeared to have been decorative pieces ripped from other objects. The three Christian crosses in the find had been bent into folds, as had a strip of gold with a biblical inscription in Latin of a kind likely to have been favored by an ancient warrior: “Rise up, O Lord, and may thy enemies be dispersed and those who hate thee be driven from thy face.”
Archaeologists, anthropologists and historians who participated in the Staffordshire dig, or who have studied the finds at the Birmingham museum, competed in the superlatives they used in describing the treasure. “My first view of the hoard brought tears to my eyes; the Dark Ages in Staffordshire have never looked so bright nor so beautiful,” Deb Klemperer, an expert on Staffordshire artifacts of the Anglo-Saxon period, told the British newspaper The Guardian. Kevin Leahy, an expert on Anglo-Saxon metallic objects who has been helping catalog the items, described their craftsmanship as “consummate” at Thursday’s news conference. He added: “All the archaeologists who have worked with the finds have been awestruck. It’s actually been quite scary working on this material to be in the presence of greatness.” [New York Times].
REVIEW: The Staffordshire Hoard is the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver metalwork yet found. It consists of over 3,500 items, amounting to a total of 5.1 kg (11 lb) of gold, 1.4 kg (3 lb) of silver and some 3,500 pieces of garnet cloisonné jewelry. The hoard was most likely deposited in the 7th century, and contains artifacts probably manufactured during the 6th and 7th centuries. It was discovered in 2009 in a field near the village of Hammerwich, near Lichfield, in Staffordshire, England. The location was in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia at the time of the hoard's deposition.