VIΛNOVΛ

The Staffordshire Hoard

The largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold ever found, and one of the most spectacular treasure finds from Britain’s past, the Staffordshire Hoard contains over 4,000 gold, silver and garnet items weighing nearly 6 kg

Most of the collection consists of fragments of fittings from weaponry and other items of high-status military equipment, including swords and seaxes (single-edged fighting knives), and at least one helmet. Several important finds suggest the owners of these expensive objects were Christians, or becoming Christian, such as the bent altar or processional cross and a gold strip with an biblical inscription in Latin that was perhaps a binding from a reliquary casket or for a book (a Bible?)

The intensive ten-year research programme was able to reconstruct almost all of the objects that had been broken up before being buried in the ground in the 7th century. Barbican Research Associates managed the research project, the results of which have been published by the Society of Antiquaries of London