Staffordshire Hoard
The Staffordshire Hoard is the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver metalwork. It consists of almost 4,600 items and metal fragments, amounting to a total of of gold, 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 hoard was most likely deposited between 650 and 675 CE, and contains artefacts 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.
The hoard is of "radical" importance in Anglo-Saxon archaeology. The artefacts are nearly all martial in character and contain no objects specific to use by women. The average quality of the workmanship is extremely high and especially remarkable in view of the large number of individual objects, such as swords and a helmet, from which many of the fragments in the hoard came.
The hoard was purchased jointly by the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery for £3.285 million under the Treasure Act 1996.
Contents
The hoard includes almost 4,600 items and metal fragments, totalling of gold and of silver, with 3,500 cloisonné garnetsand is the largest treasure of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver objects discovered to date, eclipsing, at least in quantity, the hoard found in the Sutton Hoo ship burial in 1939.
Apart from three religious objects the items in the hoard are military, and there are no domestic objects, such as vessels or eating utensils, or feminine jewellery, which are the more common Anglo-Saxon gold finds. Reportedly, the contents "show every sign of being carefully selected". There is broad agreement that the typical object in the hoard was made in the 7th century, with the date of the deposition of the hoard of course post-dating the manufacture of the latest object it includes.
Along with other discoveries, examination of the hoard showed Saxon goldsmiths were able to alter the surface of the gold by depletion gilding to give the appearance of a higher gold content, a technique not previously credited to them. As with other Anglo-Saxon jewellery, the garnets in 28 pieces may have come from as far away as Sri Lanka or Afghanistan, probably in the Roman period.
A summary of the preliminary contents of the hoard, as of late 2009, is shown in the table below. This excludes items such as the gold horse's head that were in one of the 33 soil blocks that had not been examined at the time of publication of these figures.
| Description | Gold | Silver | Base metal | Composite metals | Stone or glass | Uncertain | Total |
| 1 | 1 | ||||||
| 1 | 1 | ||||||
| 6 | 1 | 7 | |||||
| 1 | 1 | ||||||
| 2 | 2 | ||||||
| 1 | 1 | ||||||
| 5 | 5 | ||||||
| 1 | 1 | ||||||
| 11 | 69 | 6 | 1 | 87 | |||
| 1 | 1 | ||||||
| 35 | 11 | 3 | 4 | 53 | |||
| 16 | 16 | ||||||
| 79 | 177 | 29 | 19 | 4 | 7 | 315 | |
| 26 | 26 | ||||||
| 1 | 1 | ||||||
| 15 | 4 | 19 | |||||
| 3 | 3 | ||||||
| 2 | 5 | 7 | |||||
| 58 | 13 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 74 | ||
| 12 | 1 | 13 | |||||
| 27 | 29 | 5 | 4 | 65 | |||
| 2 | 1 | 3 | |||||
| 36 | 233 | 12 | 3 | 2 | 286 | ||
| 2 | 2 | ||||||
| 5 | 5 | ||||||
| 1 | 1 | ||||||
| 1 | 1 | ||||||
| 94 | 102 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 203 | ||
| 9 | 3 | 1 | 13 | ||||
| Sword hilt plate or fitting | 178 | 29 | 8 | 1 | 1 | 217 | |
| 69 | 10 | 5 | 2 | 86 | |||
| 8 | 1 | 1 | 10 | ||||
| loop | 1 | 1 | |||||
| 34 | 13 | 1 | 1 | 49 | |||
| 2 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 8 | 18 | |
| Total | 712 | 707 | 78 | 39 | 36 | 22 | 1,594 |
Weaponry
The contents include many finely worked silver and gold sword decorations removed from weaponry, including 66 gold sword hilt collars and many gold hilt plates, some with inlays of cloisonné garnet in zoomorphic designs. The 86 sword pommels found constitute the largest ever discovery of pommels in a single context, with many different types supporting the idea that the pommels were manufactured over a wide range of time.Crosses
The Staffordshire Hoard official press statement notes that the only items in the hoard that are obviously non-martial are two crosses. Sharp has shown there are possibly many pieces with a Christian connection and the hoard is a mixture of many Christian and non-martial items. The largest of the three crosses is missing some decorative settings but otherwise remains intact. It may have been an altar or processional cross. It could also have been attached to the front of a book, such as a Gospel Book. Yet the cross is folded. As to the reason or reasons for this, three explanations have been put forward. One is that the folding was done prior to burial "to make it fit into a small space". A second explanation suggests that this is a sign that the burial deposit was made by pagans, who had no particular esteem for the Christian character of the objects. A third view runs in an opposite direction, namely, that this was done with reverence by Christians in order to remove the sacred character of this cross, and other Christian pieces, prior to burying them.Gold strip
One of the most intriguing items in the hoard is a small strip of gold, measuring when unfolded, inscribed with a biblical quotation, from Numbers 10:35, in insular majuscule, on both sides, asThe Nova Vulgata reading of this passage is:
The reading of the additional words on the second version of the text, diuie nos, is unclear; they may be practice letters 2 meaning that the inside face was not supposed to be visible, and contains an abandoned attempt at the inscription.
The passage is quoted fairly often, notably in the Life of the Mercian Saint Guthlac, most likely composed in the 730s. The passage occurs in the context of Guthlac's meeting with Æthelbald, the later king of Mercia, in which the saint foretells that the king's enemy would "flee from your face". The parallel verse from Psalm 67, verse 2, occurs when Guthlac is driving away demons who appeared to him in a vision. Sharp has suggested the inscription shows angst in the face of a great threat and this could only have been the Viking invasion. The incised strip appears to be the stem of a cross and this indicates a Viking threat to a church. Paleographically, the inscription most likely dates to the 8th century, with the late 7th or early 9th not to be ruled out. Elisabeth Okasha notes that the closest parallel to the script used is the inscription in the lead plate from Flixborough, dated to the 8th or 9th century.
The gold strip may have been originally fastened to a shield or a sword belt,
or alternatively, it may have been part of the arm of a cross; a round cabochon jewel would have been fitted to the terminal end, and the other end would have fitted into the central fitting of the cross.
Context and purpose
The hoard was deposited in a remote area, just south of the Roman Watling Street, some west of Letocetum, at the time part of the extra-parochial area of Ogley Hay, in the highland separating the Pencersæte and Tomsæte within the kingdom of Mercia.The quality of the artefacts buried in the hoard is very high. The apparent selection of "martial" artefacts, especially the decoration of swords, does not suggest that the hoard consists simply of loot. Most of the gold and silver items appear to have been intentionally removed from the objects they were previously attached to. Brooks associates the predominantly warlike character of the artefacts in the hoard with the custom of giving war-gear as death duty to the king upon the death of one of his noblemen.
The removal of the sword pommel caps finds a parallel in Beowulf which mentions warriors stripping the pommels of their enemies' swords.
Wall postulates a connection to Peada, briefly king of Mercia in 655–656 CE.
Sharp connects the deposition of the Hoard with the Viking attack on Lichfield in 875 and postulates its loss at the same time as the removal of the St. Chad's Gospel from Lichfield into the Welsh area of Mercia.