The Staffordshire Hoard
Archaeologists think this amazing find will be as important as Sutton Hoo in redefining our Anglo-saxon past.
This is the web site.
The Staffordshire Hoard
Salon IFA 221 reports on the significance of the hoard:
As for the significance of the hoard, our Fellow and Council member Leslie Webster summed it up best when she said that the hoard is ‘the metalwork equivalent of finding a new Lindisfarne Gospels or Book of Kells; archaeologists and art-historians are going to have to rethink the chronology of metalwork, and think again about rising and failing kingdoms, the expression of regional identities in this period, the complicated transition from paganism to Christianity, the conduct of battle and the nature of fine metalwork production — to name only a few of the many huge issues it raises.’
The bare fact is that this hoard represents a massive increase in pure numerical terms in the quantity of material available to study from this period: substantial books have been written on the development of Anglo-Saxon metalwork on the basis of examples that can be counted in the tens, rather than hundreds. This hoard has, at the latest count, 1,346 items, of which 655 are of gold and 504 of silver. Stylistically the material dates from between the later sixth and the early eighth centuries AD, though this dating is based on the existing stylistic chronology for metalwork from this period, and it is already clear that these finds challenge that chronology, with motifs and styles that were once thought to be late perhaps occurring earlier than was previously thought.
This is the web site.
The Staffordshire Hoard
Salon IFA 221 reports on the significance of the hoard:
As for the significance of the hoard, our Fellow and Council member Leslie Webster summed it up best when she said that the hoard is ‘the metalwork equivalent of finding a new Lindisfarne Gospels or Book of Kells; archaeologists and art-historians are going to have to rethink the chronology of metalwork, and think again about rising and failing kingdoms, the expression of regional identities in this period, the complicated transition from paganism to Christianity, the conduct of battle and the nature of fine metalwork production — to name only a few of the many huge issues it raises.’
The bare fact is that this hoard represents a massive increase in pure numerical terms in the quantity of material available to study from this period: substantial books have been written on the development of Anglo-Saxon metalwork on the basis of examples that can be counted in the tens, rather than hundreds. This hoard has, at the latest count, 1,346 items, of which 655 are of gold and 504 of silver. Stylistically the material dates from between the later sixth and the early eighth centuries AD, though this dating is based on the existing stylistic chronology for metalwork from this period, and it is already clear that these finds challenge that chronology, with motifs and styles that were once thought to be late perhaps occurring earlier than was previously thought.
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