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we're on the second floor of the British
Museum in London and in the centre of
one of the English history galleries is
an enormous glass case filled with the
artifacts from Sutton Hoo and one of the
areas of focus holds just a few objects
that you can barely see until you get up
close these beautifully crafted gold
garnet and glass objects were found in a
burial that beats probably from the
early 7th century this is the period we
call anglo-saxon and this was a burial
site of a very important person England
at this time was divided into a series
of kingdoms and the incredible wealth
displayed in this burial seemed to
indicate that this was a royal burial
today we think it may have been king
raedwald the most famous pieces are a
purse lid and two gorgeous shoulder
clasps they're usually joined by a
spectacular belt buckle but that's been
borrowed for an exhibition at the
British Library which we get to go see
tomorrow let's look closely at the purse
lid first we should mention that this is
a reconstruction the gold the garnets
the glass is all original but the white
background would have originally been
bone or perhaps walrus ivory so what
we're seeing is the most intricate most
detailed nodding of forms where line
intertwines were animals and humans an
abstract line create these spectacular
patterns but there's so minut that i can
barely see them with my eyes what we're
looking at is something that our
historians often call an interlacing
animal style which is typical of
anglo-saxon England the designs along
the top are abstract interlacing but
along the bottom we see figures and
animals on the corners symmetrical
designs a human figure with animals that
are sometimes described as wolves on
either side of the
figure and in the center a bird of prey
often described as an eagle which seems
to be attacking a smaller bird
perhaps a duck the craftsmanship is
stunning not only do you see inlaid
garnet but you also see a glass
technique called millefiori an italian
word which means a thousand flowers you
take canes of glass and bundle them
together warm them so they fuse and you
can slice them into these thin beautiful
pattern Fields we also have the
technique of poisoning gold strands that
include glass or garnets and you see
this exquisite use of Garnett and
millefiori
in other objects that were found at
Sutton Hoo as well including an
unparalleled set of what we think were
shoulder classes we think these held
armor in place the large rectangular
field is filled with stepped rhomboids
these squared shapes that if you look
very closely have stepped edges well the
jeweler has done is to take gold leaf
gold foil and just stamp it with a
pattern and to place that behind the
garnet so that while the garnet is not
faceted it still reflects light in the
most extraordinary way and we see very
fine working of gold called granulation
here the jeweler has used a complex
technique to fuse tiny granules of gold
in very precise ways to the surface of
the clasp itself we see interlaced
serpents we can just make out their eyes
and their heads and their tails the eyes
are easy to recognize because those are
little bits of insect blueglass this
interlacing is very familiar to people
who have looked at slightly later
medieval manuscripts so all of this was
found at a place called Sutton Hoo in
the ancient kingdom of East Anglia what
the archaeologists found were the
imprint of a large ship a ship that had
actually been used and had been hauled
up from an estuary close by for this
important ceremonial burial no trace of
the body and almost no trace of the ship
remains we think because of the acidic
soil but the gold survived the word
anglo-saxon refers to this period
between Roman rule and then the Norman
invasion
in 1066 and the word anglo-saxon comes
from the angles and the Saxons people
who migrated to the island of Great
Britain in the 6th century from what we
would now consider northern Germany and
perhaps southern denmark and some of the
grave goods that were discovered at
Sutton Hoo may indicate the earliest
Christianity here in England for example
some of the bowls that were found have
crosses engraved into them and two
spoons are inscribed with the names Paul
and saw that is Paul from the New
Testament and the finds are
extraordinary in their own right they
also tell us a lot about this culture
they remind us that Britain was not an
isolated island and that there was
extensive trade we have garnets from Sri
Lanka
there's even an enormous silver platter
that was made a hundred years earlier in
the Byzantine Empire we've even found by
two men in the tomb which has recently
been shown to come from Syria so we're
talking about a world where the Middle
East the Mediterranean and as far north
as Britain were all interconnected this
is among the most sophisticated jewelry
that was produced in the early medieval
period anywhere in Europe
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