The Benty Grange helmet is an Anglo-Saxon boar-crested helmet from the seventh century AD. It was excavated by Thomas Bateman in 1848 from a tumulus at the Benty Grange farm in Monyash in western Derbyshire. The grave had probably been looted by the time of Bateman's excavation, but still contained other high-status objects suggestive of a richly furnished burial, such as the fragmentary remains of a hanging bowl. The helmet is displayed at Sheffield's Weston Park Museum, which purchased it from Bateman's estate in 1893.
Depletion gilding is a method for producing a layer of nearly pure gold on an object made of gold alloy by removing the other metals from its surface. It is sometimes referred to as a "surface enrichment" process.
The Sutton Hoo helmet is a decorated Anglo-Saxon helmet found during a 1939 excavation of the Sutton Hoo ship-burial. It was buried around the years c. 620–625 CE and is widely associated with an Anglo-Saxon leader, King Rædwald of East Anglia; its elaborate decoration may have given it a secondary function akin to a crown. The helmet was both a functional piece of armour that would have offered considerable protection if ever used in warfare, and a decorative, prestigious piece of extravagant metalwork. An iconic object from an archaeological find hailed as the "British Tutankhamen", it has become a symbol of the Early Middle Ages, "of Archaeology in general", and of England.
The Staffordshire Hoard is the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver metalwork yet found. It consists of almost 4,600 items and metal fragments, 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 jewellery. It is described by the historian Cat Jarman as "possibly the finest collection of early medieval artefacts ever discovered".
The Treasure Valuation Committee (TVC) is an advisory non-departmental public body of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) based in London, which offers expert advice to the government on items of declared treasure in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland that museums there may wish to acquire from the Crown.
The Mercian Trail is the name given to a group of museums and historical sites in the West Midlands of England that will be used to display objects from the Staffordshire Hoard. The trail is organised by a partnership of Lichfield District, Tamworth Borough Council, Staffordshire County Council, Stoke-on-Trent City Council and Birmingham City Council, and features the following locations:
The Pioneer Helmet is an Anglo-Saxon boar-crested helmet from the late seventh century found in Wollaston, Northamptonshire, United Kingdom. It was discovered during a March 1997 excavation before the land was to be mined for gravel and was part of the grave of a young man. Other objects in the grave, such as a hanging bowl and a pattern welded sword, suggest that it was the burial mound of a high-status warrior.
George Speake, is an English art historian and archaeologist. He is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Institute of Archaeology at Oxford, and "a leading authority on Anglo-Saxon animal art." Currently Speake is the Anglo-Saxon Art and Iconography Specialist for the Staffordshire Hoard conservation team, and is working on the reconstruction of the Staffordshire helmet.
Trewhiddle style is a distinctive style in Anglo-Saxon art that takes its name from the Trewhiddle Hoard, discovered in Trewhiddle, Cornwall in 1770. Trewhiddle ornamentation includes the use of silver, niello inlay, and zoomorphic, plant and geometric designs, often interlaced and intricately carved into small panels. It was primarily used to decorate metalwork. During the late Anglo-Saxon era, silver was the precious metal most commonly used to create Trewhiddle style jewellery and to decorate weapons. Famous examples include the Pentney Hoard, the Abingdon sword, the Fuller brooch, and the Strickland brooch.
The Shorwell helmet is an Anglo-Saxon helmet from the early to mid-sixth century AD found near Shorwell on the Isle of Wight in southern England. It was one of the grave goods of a high-status Anglo-Saxon warrior, and was found with other objects such as a pattern-welded sword and hanging bowl. One of only six known Anglo-Saxon helmets, alongside those found at Benty Grange (1848), Sutton Hoo (1939), Coppergate (1982), Wollaston (1997), and Staffordshire (2009), it is the sole example to derive from the continental Frankish style rather than the contemporaneous Northern "crested helmets" used in England and Scandinavia.
The Canterbury Treasure is an important late Roman silver hoard found in the city of Canterbury, Kent, south-east England, ancient Durovernum Cantiacorum, in 1962, and now in the Roman Museum, Canterbury, Kent. Copies of the main items are also kept in the British Museum.
Ian David Meadows is a British archaeologist. He has worked in archaeology for some 40 years, including as a Senior Project Officer at Northamptonshire Archaeology from 1992 to 2014. During that time he excavated a number of large quarries in England and Wales, and excavated the boar-crested Anglo-Saxon Pioneer Helmet in addition to discovering the first definitive evidence for viticulture in Roman Britain. He has also worked for the Museum of London Archaeology, and has taught archaeology and landscape history for Cambridge University, Anglia Ruskin University, the University of Bath, and the Workers' Educational Association.
The Guilden Morden boar is a sixth- or seventh-century Anglo-Saxon copper alloy figure of a boar that may have once served as the crest of a helmet. It was found around 1864 or 1865 in a grave in Guilden Morden, a village in the eastern English county of Cambridgeshire. There the boar attended a skeleton with other objects, including a small earthenware bead with an incised pattern, although the boar is all that now remains. Herbert George Fordham, whose father originally discovered the boar, donated it to the British Museum in 1904; as of 2018 it was on view in room 41.
The Horncastle boar's head is an early seventh-century Anglo-Saxon ornament depicting a boar that probably was once part of the crest of a helmet. It was discovered in 2002 by a metal detectorist searching in the town of Horncastle, Lincolnshire. It was reported as found treasure and acquired for £15,000 by the Lincoln City and County Museum, where it is on permanent display.
Leslie Elizabeth Webster, is an English retired museum curator and art historian of Anglo-Saxon and Viking art. She worked from 1964 until 2007 at the British Museum, rising to Keeper, where she curated several major exhibitions, and published many works, on the Anglo-Saxons and Early Middle Ages.
Marion MacCallum Archibald was a British numismatist, author and for 33-years a curator at the British Museum. She was the first woman to be appointed Assistant Keeper in the Department of Coins and Medals and is regarded as a pioneer in what had previously been a male-dominated field. Her 70th birthday was celebrated with the publication of a book of essays authored by 30 of her colleagues, collaborators and former students for whom Marion's name was "synonymous ... with the study of Anglo-Saxon coins at the British Museum".
Tania Marguerite Dickinson is a British archaeologist specialising in early-medieval Britain. Dickinson undertook undergraduate study at St. Anne's College, Oxford and postgraduate study at the Institute of Archaeology (Oxford). Her doctoral thesis, titled The Anglo-Saxon burial sites of the upper Thames region, and their bearing on the history of Wessex, circa AD 400-700, was supervised by Sonia Chadwick Hawkes and Christopher Hawkes.
Kevin Anthony Leahy is a British archaeologist and small finds specialist. He is the National Finds Adviser for early-medieval metalwork for the Portable Antiquities Scheme. He was elected as a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London on 8 May 1987. Leahy was involved in the research and publication of the Staffordshire Hoard.
