I'm Dr Sue Brunning. I'm the curator of the European Early Medieval Insular
Collection at the British Museum and this is my Corner!
[Music]
Welcome to a very special edition of Curator's Corner.
Myself and my colleagues behind the camera have stayed after hours at the
Museum in order to hold an audience with one of
the most famous archaeological discoveries ever
made and it is of course the amazing Sutton
Hoo helmet.
The helmet takes its name from the site in Suffolk eastern England where it was
discovered in 1939 as part of an amazing ship burial - 27
meter long ship that was buried beneath the huge earth
mound. And this burial took place in the early 7th century so we're talking about
the Anglo-Saxon period in England. And the helmet was one of an array of
grave goods that was laid out inside that ship;
things like gold and garnet metal work, illustrious
feasting equipment, drinking horns, silver from the eastern Mediterranean
and of course an array of glittering war gear of which the helmet was the
key piece. There are only about four complete metal helmets that survive from
this period otherwise we only really have fragments
of others and this one is the most elaborate.
But I think another reason why it is the favourite object from the ship burial
is simply because it has this amazing human face.
And I think that for a period of time - you know 1500 years ago -
and for people that can seem quite remote from us this helmet, this
human face, gives us a kind of a relatable way into that period.
And so what I thought we would do with the helmet today is we would try to get
inside the helmet. Try to look out through the helmet's eyes at that world
around the people that were wearing and using
and encountering this helmet. And I think that would be a really fun
thing for us to do together tonight. Because I think that
even though this helmet has this rather inscrutable expression it really has an
awful lot to tell us. The first thing I thought I'd do is
actually explain to you a little bit about what you're actually
seeing here because it's not potentially as simple as you might
expect. So what we have here is a reconstruction of the helmet that was
made in the early 1970s by a conservator here at the British Museum called Nigel
Williams. And it was actually something that took
a year of his life and the reason that it was so difficult is because the
helmet was discovered in hundreds of fragments and that's because
the burial chamber at Sutton Hoo collapsed at some point and shattered
the helmet into all of these fragments and
kind of created the world's most difficult jigsaw puzzle.
And the way that he pieced this together was by matching
curvature of those fragments and the thickness of them and finding joins here
and there whenever he could to create the kind of piecemeal approach
to the helmet and actually pinning those pieces onto a
plasticine head. And the amazing thing to think about is
that he didn't actually really know what the end product should really look like
very much because you know it's a it's something that is as rare as
I mentioned earlier. And so by all of that piecemeal
work he actually managed to create the helmet eventually and piece it all back
together into this amazing thing that you can see in front of you now.
And what we have here is a blend of original
and of modern pieces. So these lumpy parts that you can see
all around here and the facial fittings everything that you can see
down here those are the original parts of the helmet
and the smooth parts that are interspersed here:
those are the modern reconstructed parts. And that's made from a very heavy duty
jute textile that's covered with plaster and the whole thing has been painted
this brown colour so that it matches the corroded colour of the iron pieces.
Now you might be wondering: 'Why would we use such a fragile material in order to
create this reconstruction?' and the reason is to make it reversible.
Ao if we decided in the future based on new research
that the reconstruction was no longer as accurate as we would like it to be
we can actually take the whole helmet apart without damaging those fragments
and start again. And in actual fact that has been done
one time before. So this is the second reconstruction of the helmet.
The first one was undertaken in the 1940s by a conservator called
Herbert Marion but unfortunately that reconstruction was thought to be
inaccurate and so the whole thing ended up going back to the drawing board...
Now we can take a slightly closer look at the helmet itself.
So this is the domed skull cap of the helmet
and we think this may have been made in a single piece
because the conservators were not able to find the tell-tale
joins that suggested that the helmet may have been made in segments like other
helmets of this type. At the back behind me we have the
sloping neck-guard that protected the back of
the neck. On each side we have the cheek pieces
which protected the cheeks and they're on hinges so they were able to move
around. Over the top of the helmet we have this amazing iron
crest which is actually in the form of a two-headed snake. There's one head
at the back here staring at me and then another head at the front here.
Now the form of this helmet is really interesting because
its closest parallels do not actually come from England they come from a part
of eastern Sweden known as Uppland which is kind of up to the north
east of Stockholm. There's a place there;
two places called Vendel and Valsgärde where other boat burials have been found a
bit similar to what we find at Sutton Hoo. And inside those burials we also
find other equipment that looks a bit like some of the finds at Sutton Hoo.
So there appears to be some kind of connection between this part of eastern England
where Sutton Hoo is and this part of eastern Sweden. But the
reason that the helmets' shapes are quite interesting is because their form their
shape actually looks as if it's based upon
late-Roman types of helmet and one of the theories about that
is that northern European mercenaries who were fighting in the late-Roman army
brought back this equipment or the idea of this equipment to their homes when
they returned after fighting and then locally made versions were made.
There's also a Roman flavour to some of the imagery that we find on the helmet.
Now obviously as you can see it's very fragmentary
but originally we have to imagine that the entire surface of the original
helmet was covered in rectangular and square and sort of oblong
plaques that were all completely covered with repoussé or pressed
imagery. It covered the entire helmet. Was absolutely dense with
this imagery. Some of the images showed human beings and other images
showed animals. We have a wonderful replica in the gallery at the
Museum that you can come and see a little bit about what it would have
actually looked like in its heyday... but I
still think it's pretty magnificent.
One of the scenes on the helmet, this one that has a Roman flavour,
shows a mounted warrior trampling over his enemy
crushed beneath his horse's hooves and the enemy is just
dealing a bit of a parting shot by sticking his sword into the horse's
breast. And at the back of the horse - sort of perched on its rump - there's a
mysterious third, small figure - human figure - that's
grasping onto the horseman's spear and appears to be controlling it in some way.
Now this imagery of the horseman trampling his foe
seems to have Roman roots we find it in Roman art
but this northern European version that we find at Sutton Hoo and in those areas
of Sweden which I mentioned seems to have added a couple of details.
So that detail of the enemy doing the parting shot - sticking the
sword into the horse - and that curious third figure perched at the back of the
horse and guiding the spear - the meaning of it is not exactly clear,
but it appears that those those changes may have been made to make that
particular scene more relevant to the northern European, non-Roman
people that were consuming it. And it's
very interesting because it makes a kind of unambiguous imagery of victory
into something a little bit more ambiguous. Both of those warriors, the
rider and the person that's being trampled,
appear to be experiencing both victory and defeat at the same time.
Another image on the helmet is a little bit more curious. It shows
two human beings standing side by side carrying a sword and a pair of spears
and the most fabulous headgear. It's kind of like this
this horned piece or headdress or something like that
and each horn ends in two fierce birds of preys' heads. Now we don't really know
what these people are representing, but we do
know that they turn up in the art not just at Sutton Hoo but in other parts of
northern and north-western Europe as well. Some people interpret it as some kind of
ritual performance - the men are not kind of facing each
other as if they're warring with each other - they're standing side by side and
their legs are kicking out so they appear to be moving.
Some people have seen this perhaps as some kind of ritual dance that's
connected with traditional, that is pre-Christian beliefs and
cultural practice, we really don't know for certain I'm
afraid. It's one of those enduring mysteries.
But I think that what we can see with this imagery based on what we've looked
at just now is that we can see the imagery is
showing us these connections between the past and the present between different
regions and cultures, different times. The helmet is not just home to a lot of
strange human beings it's also a veritable menagerie of
creatures. There are so many animals that are kind
of depicted all over this helmet. There's lots of interlacing creatures on some of
the other panels covering the body of the helmet
but the thing I really want to talk to you about today is
these facial fittings and this great crest that's running over the top of the
helmet. So this crest is a functional piece it's
made of iron. It's very solid. It would have been able to deflect any blows
but it's actually also a great serpent. So you'll be able to see
at the front here the serpent's head and it has two of these heads there's also
one at the back that's staring at me right now - it's a little
bit disconcerting. So we have this strange two-headed creature not really
like anything that you find in nature with these staring eyes made from two
garnets. And then there are also three other
creatures on the front of the helmet they take a little bit of puzzling in
order to see them. If I invite you to look at the human
face the more you look at it the more you
might begin to see that actually it's not just a human face
it's a flying creature. So we can see the head
of the creature here coming up to meet the crest of that snake.
Coming down then those eyebrows actually become
the creature's wings. The nose becomes its body.
And the little curved moustache becomes its tail.
And what we're left with is this flying creature that's soaring up front of the
helmet and each one of its wings is lined with
these red garnets so it's almost as if those wings are flaming away there.
But at the ends of each one of those eyebrows we also have boars heads
with these sharp tusks - very strange. But boars appear to have some kind of
special connection with helmets during this period. So two of the other helmets
that we have that survive from this period are also emblazoned with
boar motifs and the famous early medieval poem Beowulf also
describes helmets that are emblazoned with boars
and those helmets are impenetrable because of those boar motifs.
Now if you're able to come around the side of the helmet here
and look at the sides of the dragon like creature and
the snake that's coming down the centre of the crest here
you'll actually be able to see that they're not just passively meeting noses
and having kind of like a quite nice conversation they've not just been laid
there sides of their faces are full of teeth
so they're baring their teeth as if they're almost ready to tear each other
apart and what we have here are a set of
creatures that are predators they're very difficult to deal with you
wouldn't really want to cross them they have these very strong
aggressive qualities these qualities actually that any leader of this period
would have aspired to and by wearing a helmet like this that is covered with
this aggressive imagery he's really saying (DEATH METALLLL!!!) I AM
LIKE THE DRAGON
I AM LIKE THE SNAKE CROSS ME AT YOUR PERIL So I'd like us to return
briefly to the eyebrows of the helmet because they contain another surprise
each one of the eyebrows is lined with red garnets
and they're a semi-precious gemstone that was very popular in high status
metal work of this period now normally each one of these garnets
would be backed with a gold foil and the reason for that would be
that the light would shine into the garnet
it would catch on that gold foil and then it would reflect back out and glow
red I think the best example that I've heard is is of a bike
reflector now you may remember in my previous video about the Sutton Hoo
sword hilt we spoke a little bit about those kinds of effects and the use of
those garnets and those gold foils and it's a similar effect that we're finding
with the helmet here but there's something strange going on
with the eyebrows of this helmet the garnets on the proper
right side this eyebrow here those garnets all have those foils behind them
but the ones on the left side here they don't have those foils
so in practice generally what that would mean is that
the right side would have been a bit more glittery a bit more glowy in
certain scenarios such as possibly the flickering fire light of the
mead hall and this side where the foils are not
present would have been left in darkness so
in other words the helmet may have appeared as if it was
one-eyed would this be something that was just
the result of a repair or could it have been something that was a little bit
more deliberate well a really interesting paper was
written in the last few years by a couple of experts called Paul Mortimer
and Neil Price and they argued that this was actually
deliberate and their point was what we might be
looking at here is a reference to the early god Wōden
who's better known by his Scandinavian name of Odin.
Now in Norse mythology Odin quite famously
gave up one of his eyes in order to gain wisdom and that one-eyedness then became
one of his defining attributes and it's something
actually that's lasted down to the present day so that's why in the marvel
movies in those Thor movies Odin actually has
an eye patch so what we might be seeing here
is an attempt to connect the wearer of the helmet
with wooden so possibly to invoke Wōden's protection
to absorb Wōden's particular strength maybe even at the extreme
to even describe or show the the wearer of the helmet is actually
like or becoming Wōden himself these sorts of ideas start to lead us
away from the physical aspects of the helmet
towards more sensory considerations about what it was actually like
to wear this helmet now we estimate that it probably weighed about two and a half
kilograms so it was pretty heavy you know it was you know
literally heavy where's the crown you know
it's something that you had to bear on top of your head you would never forget
that you were wearing it but also we can see that the helmet is
completely enclosed so we have all of these guards
surrounding the head and that actually would have
affected and altered all of your senses so your sense of vision
your hearing your sense of smell even your voice may have been altered by the
very wearing of the helmet I think everything may have been
slightly muffled slightly dreamlike almost and that makes me
wonder whether it kind of put the wearer into a
slightly different mental state whether you felt like you were transformed
whether you felt like you were kind of transported into another world or were
becoming another being you were not yourself when you were wearing this
helmet and I think those kinds of ideas are
just really fascinating and if we flip that over we can also
think about what it was like to actually encounter this helmet now I don't know
about you but I'm fairly intimidated sitting here and
looking at this thing you know it's got such a huge presence
and particularly if we think about the fact that these metal helmets at the
time may have been quite rare so it wouldn't
have been every day that you would see somebody wearing something like this
we can also imagine this person wearing the coat of mail armour that was also
found in the burial carrying that huge shield which itself
was covered with lots of metal wielding the huge sword that I spoke about in the
previous episode of curator's corner so this person is completely covered in
metal wielding metal they would almost have looked like they were no longer a
human being that was made of flesh and blood
it's like they're made of metal like there's some kind of impenetrable
super being and I think that those kinds of ideas also added an extra power to
this helmet this has a bearing on what's probably
the most common question that I'm asked about the helmet and that is
could this thing ever have been worn in battle
well you probably won't be surprised to know that we don't actually know
the answer but we can weigh up the probabilities so let's do that together
one of the theories is that the helmet is far too ornate
in order to have ever been used in battle surely this was some kind of
parade helmet but really I think that that's
our value judgment we might not necessarily be prepared to risk
something like this and damaging it in battle
that doesn't necessarily mean that they didn't they had different priorities
different ideas different concerns different ways of thinking about things
and so that might have led them to use this helmet in a different way than we
ourselves might be prepared to use it you know this is a time when this kind
of display this kind of imagery is actually really important
really powerful and not all of those battles are
actually fought on the battlefield so sadly that's almost all the time that
we have to spend with this wonderful helmet
believe it or not this is only the second time that I've ever seen the
helmet outside of its display case in more than
10 years working at the British Museum so really this is kind of like a once in
a decade experience that we've been sharing so thank you for spending this
time with me and with this wonderful helmet
and I hope that after everything we've looked at in this episode
we can start to put the person actually back inside the helmet
and maybe we can start to see a pair of eyes staring at us through those black
voids in the face mask there and we can start to really see a
personality start to emerge on that very inscrutable
face if you've enjoyed my corner then please check out the two other curators
corners I've done one about Anglo-Saxon swords and one
about the Sutton Hoo sword specifically
plus lots of other corners have been created by my colleagues here at the
British Museum and please subscribe to our YouTube
channel where you can find all of those things
oh and thank you very much for giving a name to my wonderful foam sword
so behold FLEXCALIBUR!!