Category: Archeology and important finds

The Sutton Hoo Helmet

Figure 1: Photo of the Sutton Hoo helmet from the front, British Museum, public domain
Figure 1: Photo of the Sutton Hoo helmet from the front, British Museum, public domain

The Sutton Hoo Helmet is an icon of Anglo-Saxon England. It was buried in the 7th century in a ship under a mound of earth above the River Deben in East Anglia, and when it was discovered in 1939 for the first time it provided evidence that the poetry of Beowulf and the Anglo-Saxons was more than flights of fancy, but represented very real power, wealth and artistry in the early medieval period.

It weighs around 2.5kg, and was made of iron decorated with tinned bronze. The decorative panels depict dancing warriors, a horseman spearing a fallen warrior (akin to the gravestone at Hexham of Flavinus, a Roman soldier), and an interlace design. There are winged birds or dragons on the face and over the head. The eyebrows of the face are asymmetrical, with the left hand eyebrow deliberately darker than the right. This may be intended to represent the one-eyed god Woden.

Martin Carver, Professor Emeritus, Department of Archaeology, University of York explains further:

“The helmet is the armoured head of a warrior, attended by gods. Made of hammered iron, proof against spear, sword and axe, it is also covered with protective metaphors.

Across the face is a bird with splayed wings, its body forming the warrior’s nose, the tail his moustache and the wings his eyebrows. The bird soaring up meets the jaws of a dragon plunging down, its thick iron body inlaid with zigzag silver wire curving over the crest.

Figure 2: Replica of helmet, British Museum, CC BY-SA 3.0
Figure 2: Replica of helmet, British Museum, CC BY-SA 3.0

The man’s head is equipped with defence at every angle, like a battle ship: the wingtips finish in wild-boar jaws, guarding the lateral blind spots; the dragon has a snarling mouth at its tail, bringing up the rear. All the heads, even the bird’s, have sets of sharp fangs: the bared teeth of the animal bodyguard.

On the top of the crest is a little hole to carry a plume, and the sides of the helmet carried small panels commemorating victories – an enemy ridden down by a horseman, triumphant warriors dancing. Dragon and bird each have two gleaming eyes of red polished garnet, extra vision for the warrior’s own eyes, watching within their hollows, menacing as dark glasses.

Dragon, wild boar, bird of prey – these are the symbolic animals of Anglo-Saxon East Anglia where the helmet was found – part of an immense treasure buried with a political leader in a chamber, in a ship, in the early seventh century AD. Helmet and ship-burial were elements of a language of belief then shared widely among the peoples of the Northern Seas. In partnership with their animal gods, men win battles, hoard wealth, claim land. Ruthless, brave, enduring, these people built the kingdoms that northern Europe still has.

The Sutton Hoo helmet is more than a face-guard – it is a poem, a political manifesto in silver and iron.”

The similarity with Swedish helmets has been much discussed but current thinking is that the helmet was made in England. Generally it is considered that the burial was that of King Rædwald, one of the Bretwaldas listed by Bede, and the man who sheltered Edwin of Deira when he was in exile and helped him to regain Northumbria. However, it is by no means proven that it was in fact his grave.

The Coppergate Helmet

Figure 1: Coppergate Helmet, photo (c) PWicks
Figure 1: Coppergate Helmet, photo (c) PWicks

12th May 1982 saw the discovery of the “Coppergate Helmet.” At about 2:40pm at the Coppergate dig in York, the bucket of the site’s mechanical digger struck a solid object. Believing the object was a stone, work was stopped to see how large it was. Examination of the object exposed a golden looking band on which lettering was clearly visible: it was not a stone but a helmet! It required rapid and careful removal as exposure to the air from its anaerobic soil resting place put the fragile remains at risk of rapid corrosion and the helmet was lifted at about 8.30pm.

The following day work resumed to try and establish some context for the find, but the helmet pit, the helmet, and the associated deposited items were to provide the only evidence for the Anglian period. Despite this, the helmet is incredibly important. Anglo-Saxon helmets are rare enough but the condition in which the Coppergate Helmet was found is exceptional even so. The water-logged soil in which it had rested since it was deposited had preserved it remarkably well. The actual metal survives rather than just the corroded deposits. There was some damage to the helmet caused before it was buried and further damage had been caused by the mechanical excavator before it the helmet was spotted in the ground. The Coppergate helmet consists of four major elements; an iron cap with brass decoration and edge bindings, two iron cheek-pieces with brass edge bindings and suspended on either side of the cap from iron hinges, and a mail curtain, predominantly of iron, attached at each end to the cheek-pieces and suspended from the edge of the cap. In order to preserve the helmet from exposure to the air, which could cause rapid erosion, within 48 hours of discovery, the helmet was safely sealed in a high humidity box with a transparent acrylic lid and a nitrogen gas flow. It was only when the helmet was removed for photographing or closer examination that rusting started to occur noticeably.

The pit in which it was found had been cut into the natural clay and lined with re-used oak planks; later building work had avoided hitting the helmet by a matter of only centimetres. There were a number of other items or fragments found within the pit but these were distributed randomly through the infill, so were probably mixed in with the soil used rather than placed in the pit directly. Dating of some wood fragments confirmed an Anglian date for the pit and infill.

The Coppergate helmet itself lay near the north-east corner of the pit, face downwards and with the crown of the helmet facing towards the southeast and tilted slightly towards the corner. Inside the helmet was a mail curtain which formed a protective barrier for the neck of the wearer when suspended from the helmet rim. The mail curtain consists of 1947 rings arranged in 28 horizontal rows, the longest of which is now 81 rings long.

Once examinations were completed as far as possible, and over 12 months later,  the helmet was sent to the British Museum for reconstruction.

The nasal strip is decorated with sinuous and interlocking beasts and the eyebrows are grooved, ending in snarling animal heads. The strip over the crest of the head also terminates in animal heads.

An inscription runs over the top of the helmet, in Latin:

IN NOMINE : DNI : NOSTRI : IHV : SCS : SPS : DI :

ET : OMNIBVS : DECEMVS : AMEN : OSHERE : XPI

On each side of the helmet, running from the crown towards each ear is a subsidiary inscription:

IN NOMINE : DNI : NOSTRI : IHV: SCS : SPS

OMNIBVS : DECEMVS : AMEN : OSHERE

Both inscriptions can probably be understood as meaning:

“In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy

Spirit (and) God; and to (or with) all we say Amen. Oshere’.

The name Oshere is a well-attested Old English name. The helmet cannot be associated with any particular individual, nor can the name itself help to date the text. The name is probably that of the owner of the helmet; it is possible, but less likely, that it is the name of the maker of the helmet.

Dr Elisabeth Okasha of University College, Cork observes that:

“Neither of the two other existing Anglo-Saxon helmets are inscribed, although several Anglo-Saxon inscribed weapons have survived. The motive in inscribing a helmet was presumably similar to that in inscribing a sword, a scabbard or a knife, to commend the owner to the protection of God. The two versions of the helmet text are fastened into place so as to form a cross. It seems that this is less likely to be accidental than to symbolise the same desire for divine protection.

It seems highly unlikely that the cross shape formed by the two inscriptions is purely accidental. No other crested helmet has such an arrangement with what is, in effect, a second crest of virtually identical structure at right angles to the first. If the repetition of the prayer may have been intended to double its force, then an arrangement of the  elements into a cross shape may have been intended to add another level of protection. The cross is used as a protective symbol, for example, on the nasal of the Benty Grange helmet.”

Along with the protective inscriptions, the cross symbols and the animal motifs, the helmet was designed to protect its wearer in battle. We’ll never know how well it succeeded.

In the words of the Beowulf poet:

“Figures of boars, bright

and fire-hardened, gleamed gold-adorned

above the cheek guards: in war the boar

helped guard those fierce men’s lives.”

It seems appropriate to end our discussion with a quotation from Ailsa Mainman’s book “Anglian York” (2019:127) which considers the helmet in the wider context of activity in York at the time of its production:

“This striking and evocative object therefore usefully serves to tie together many of the disparate pieces of the Anglian jigsaw described [in this book]. It was being worn, perhaps in conflict, at a time when burial was coming to an end at the Belle Vue House cemetery but was continuing at the Queen’s Hotel site on Micklegate. At the same time the main period of settlement at 46-54 Fishergate was coming to an end, but both occupation and commercial activity was becoming established along the banks of York’s two rivers and perhaps in the Coppergate / Ousegate area. The helmet attests not only to the networks of supply bringing fuel and raw materials into York, but to the spread of complex technological skills. It belongs to the period of Alcuin, when art and scholarship were flourishing in the city and in the wider kingdom of Northumbria. Somewhere in York the church of Alma Sophia was under construction, while Alcuin himself was forging contacts in Europe which would later take him to join Charlemagne’s court in Francia. It was made around the time of the recorded expulsion of Frisian merchants from York, during a period of political turbulence when kings of Northumbria were being regularly killed, murdered, deposed, expelled – and replaced.

The helmet brings us face to face with these higher social orders who are referred to in the written sources but who were previously invisible in the archaeological record, other than in the coinage of kings and prelates. The helmet might well have been made in York and, perhaps most strikingly, it illustrates the highly developed skills of 8th century metal workers who painstakingly made each tiny link of chain, hammered together the orin cap, fitted the brass bindings with their inscribed prayer and attached the decorated nasal guard and eyebrows. It also demonstrates that they, like their powerful patrons, belonged to a world that was literate, wealthy and fully cognisant of current artistic fashions.”

Archaeology and Important Finds

In this part of the website we cover key archeological finds from the Anglo-Saxon period.  You can see the list of subjects in the menu on the right, or use the search option to look for specific items or areas.

We will be writing new pieces regularly so do come back to see what is new.

The Benty Grange Helmet

Figure 1: Watercolour by Llewellynn Jewitt depicting the Benty Grange helmet and associated finds, 1849, public domain
Figure 1: Watercolour by Llewellynn Jewitt depicting the Benty Grange helmet and associated finds, 1849, public domain

3rd May 1848 saw Thomas Bateman’s discovery of the iconic Benty Grange Helmet. The helmet is a rare and precious surviving example of a boar crested helmet. Other similar finds, and references to them in poetry such as Beowulf, as well as imagery, indicate that they were an important symbol to the Anglo-Saxons representing strength and endurance.

Although the burial that Bateman was excavating had long been looted he found an iron framed helmet with horn plates. Uniquely in such finds there was also a boar studded with gold, fierce garnet and copper-alloy eyes and gilded silver hips, on the crest. Meanwhile on the nasal strip there is a silver Christian cross.

Bateman described it as follows:

“The helmet has been formed of ribs of iron radiating from the crown of the head, and covered with narrow plates of horn, running in a diagonal direction from the ribs, so as to form a herring-bone pattern; the ends were secured by strips of horn, radiating in like manner as the iron ribs, to which they were riveted at intervals of about an inch and a-half: all the rivets had ornamented heads of silver on the outside, and on the front rib is a small cross of the same metal. Upon the top, or crown of the helmet, is an elongated oval brass plate, upon which stands the figure of an animal, carved in iron, now very much rusted, but still a very good representation of a pig: it has bronze eyes. There are also many smaller decorations, abounding in rivets, which have pertained to the helmet, but which it is impossible to assign to their proper places, as is also the case with some small iron buckles.”

The Benty Grange helmet was constructed with eight horn plates on the iron frame and padded inside with leather or cloth which has decayed.  Although it offered some protection its ornate design implies it may also have been intended for ceremonial use. It probably weighed about 1.4kg when complete, or possibly more. Given the scarcity of such objects it was clearly high status.

Bateman also noted the presence of silver fragments attached to the helmet but did not understand their relevance and he didn’t collect them. On the basis of Sutton Hoo, Vendel culture, and now the Staffordshire Hoard, it is likely that the fragments were the remains of decorative silver foils like the tinned copper ones on the Sutton Hoo helmet.

In addition, previously missed rivets, and a line of expanded corrosion on the browband suggest the horn-work of the helmet actually continued down around the face, beyond the iron skeleton, similar to the deeper cap designs seen on Sutton Hoo, Coppergate and Wollaston helmets. It may therefore have had horn cheekpieces and some kind of neckguard which have since been lost.

Figure 2: Reconstruction of helmet (c) Museums Sheffield [CC BY-SA 4.0]
Figure 2: Reconstruction of helmet (c) Museums Sheffield [CC BY-SA 4.0]

The helmet is dated at early or more likely mid- 7th century, similar to or soon after the time of the Sutton Hoo burial, which was not discovered until almost a century later. At this period the Anglo-Saxons were beginning to convert to Christianity but often adopted a mixture of Christian and pagan symbols as protection. The boar in Norse mythology is the animal associated with Freyr, his mascot being called Gyllinbursti, meaning “golden bristles” which matches the decoration on the helmet’s boar. It did not translate across to Christian symbolism after this early period, but there are a number of other instances of boar imagery in artefacts, all associated with high status graves. Usually only the head is depicted, and examples appear on Kentish brooches as well as the Sutton Hoo shoulder clasps and a sword (also 7th century) from the River Lark in Cambridgeshire. However, bones from a boar have been found in graves such as that of a woman buried at Roundway Down. The Anglo-Saxon name for York was Eoferwic or Boar Town.

The date and location of the helmet place it within the tribal area of the Pecsæte. It is likely that the previous looters removed other artefacts, perhaps including a sword or shield, which may have accompanied the owner of the helmet into the afterlife.

Anglo-Saxon Coins

The Britons began making coins from about 100BC, in imitation of Roman practice. They were made mainly in the West Country or the Thames Valley. This practice was stopped by the Romans when Britain became part of the Empire, and only imported Roman coinage was allowed. Roman coins were not minted again in Britain until 155AD, but once begun, this process continued until the late 300’s, when the Roman Empire began to disintegrate.

In the early Anglo-Saxon period, where coins were used at all, they were gold pieces from the continent – the ‘solidus’ weighing a hefty 4 grams, or another coin one third of its value, called the ‘tremissis’. Because of their high value, they were fairly useless for everyday transactions and were in any case prized more as jewellery or as gifts than as currency.

Two sides of a gold Anglo-Saxon coin
Two sides of an early English gold coin

It was more than two centuries later, around the 620’s, before the Anglo-Saxons began minting gold coins of their own, called ‘thrymsas’, which echoed the Latin ‘tremissis’. These were probably the ancestors of ‘shillings’. The designs were often imitations of Roman ones, with lettering sometimes malformed or not even making sense!

Both sides of an early English silver coin
Both sides of an early English silver coin

Towards the end of the 600’s, the gold currency disappeared, to be replaced by a coinage of pure silver. The new coins were called ‘sceattas’, but it wasn’t until the 760’s that a new ‘penny’ coinage began, first in Mercia, then in Kent, with twelve to a shilling.