British Museum: Anglosaxon England and Sutton Hoo exhibition

Today's post is a historical one, and it mainly involves a pic overload of Anglosaxon stuff without a lot of text, for a change :) 

 

Other British Museum posts: Vikings, Egypt and Greece, Celts

One year ago, Pilar Erika and I went to London for a week-long holiday trip, and we stopped by the British Museum with two (well, three) cultures in mind: The Celts, and the Anglosaxons and Vikings. With the Celts being one of my favourite cultures (if not my favourite), philologist Pilar Erika favours - thanks to Beowulf - the Anglosaxon-and-Viking section of history. So here's a pic overload of the Sutton Hoo burial exhibition:

• Sutton Hoo helmet (original and replica)

More info on the helmet here.

"The face-mask is the helmet’s most remarkable feature. It works as a visual puzzle, with two possible ‘solutions’. The first is of a human face, comprising eye-sockets, eyebrows, moustache, mouth and a nose with two small holes so that the wearer could breathe. The copper alloy eyebrows are inlaid with silver wire and tiny garnets. Each ends in a gilded boar’s head – a symbol of strength and courage appropriate for a warrior. The second ‘solution’ is of a bird or dragon flying upwards. Its tail is formed by the moustache, its body by the nose, and its wings by the eyebrows. Its head extends from between the wings, and lays nose-to-nose with another animal head at the end of a low iron crest that runs over the helmet’s cap." (Source)

And of course, before talking a bit more about the Anglosaxon artifacts at the Museum, I must talk about how we saw the actual first page from the manuscript of Beowulf at the British Library :D

More Museum Anglosaxon stuff after the cut!

• Weapons

-Sword:

More info here.

Anglosaxon weapons: Sword, spear head, axe blade 

 

"The sword is richly furnished with gold hilt (handle) fittings. The pommel is inlaid with garnet cloisonné, the guards are made from gold plates, and the grip has two gold mounts decorated with delicate filigree." (Source)

-Shield (part reconstruction):

More info here.

 "The front of the shield was decorated with gilded emblems, including a bird-of-prey with a cruel beak and talons, and a six-winged dragon with snapping jaws. They evoke qualities like strength and courage which were appropriate to the shield’s bearer, and may also have been seen as protective. At the centre is a heavy iron boss, decorated with pairs of intertwined horses. Around the rim are gold foil panels covered with interlacing decoration and animal heads with beady garnet eyes. The shield was held by an iron grip behind the boss, which is embellished with bird and dragon-like heads." (Source)

 Another shield boss in the shape of a bird

• Brooches and belt buckles

• Drinking horns, lyre

More Anglosaxon pics from our 2006 trip: