Anglo-Saxon bling — a warrior king’s Golden Helmet

Abstract

In 2009, a metal detectorist discovered a hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver in a field in Staffordshire. Hence, it quickly became known as ‘The Staffordshire Hoard’. It was, and remains, the biggest collection of Anglo-Saxon gold (4 kg) and silver (1.7 kg) ever discovered and comprised of more than 4000 fragments that equated to over 600 discrete objects and larger pieces. The Staffordshire Hoard is co-owned by Birmingham and Stoke-on-Trent City Councils and is cared for on behalf of the nation by Birmingham Museums Trust and The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery. Over the intervening years, most of the larger and recognisably important pieces have now been identified and catalogued. We now also know an exceptional amount about their probable methods of manufacture, artistic styles, date, and function. This paper focuses on what is now known to be one of the most fragmented yet magnificent of its objects, a Helmet that has been declared as being ‘fit for a king’, but which was found scattered into well over 1000 disparate fragments. Fragments that  are now considered to make up around one-third of the Hoard’s total of finds and compose this single high-status Golden Helmet. Too damaged and incomplete to be re-joined or displayed in a form that delivers to the casual observer a true sense of the majesty of the original. Thus, the museums responsible for the collection commissioned an experimental reconstruction project to create two of the helmets for display in their shared Hoard collections.