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Name : Sutton Hoo helmet
What it is : A decorated Anglo - Saxon metal helmet with a faceplate
The seventh century A.D. Sutton Hoo helmet on display at the British Museum
Where it is from : Woodbridge , Suffolk , England
When it was made : Circa A.D. 600 to 625
associate : papist scutum : An 1,800 - yr - onetime shield dropped by a Roman soldier who likely died in conflict
What it evidence us about the past :
This helmet was discover in pieces in an other - medieval ship burial at the archaeological situation ofSutton Hooin Suffolk , England , in the late 1930s . On display at theBritish Museumin London , the Sutton Hoo helmet is an iconic token of former British history . Although rusted and fragmentary , the helmet mull over the might of its owner , who may have been the Anglo - Saxon Rex Rædwald .
The reconstructed helmet — which consists of a cap , cheek piece , a mask and a cervix safeguard — is made primarily out of Fe and copper metal , with accents of silver , Au , canister , enamel and garnet . As rejuvenate , the helmet is 12.5 inch ( 31.8 centimeters ) tall , and it is estimated to have originally weighed around 5.5 pounds ( 2.5 kilograms ) .
The most striking feature of the helmet are in the face . The eyebrows , which are spike with silverish wire and studded with garnets , end with miniature Sus scrofa ' header . An engraved copper mustache lies beneath the iron nose aegis , which get down between the eyebrows with an creature head . When it was found , the Sutton Hoo helmet was called the " British Tutankhamen . "
The animal motifs on the helmet , as well as other artifacts found at Sutton Hoo , have led archeologist to link the burial with theepic poem " Beowulf , " an Old English tale that connects East Anglia with Scandinavia through the ocean trip of the eponymous zep . Beowulf ’s helmet in the poemis described as made of " dumbfound Au " and " adorned with boar shapes . "
— Babylonian tab keep bookman ’s 4,000 - twelvemonth - sure-enough geometry mistake
— Mask of Xiuhtecuhtli : A 600 - year - sometime mask of the Aztec flack god taken as treasure by conquistador
— Book of Kells : A 1,200 - year - old manuscript made by monks escaping the Viking
More significantly , the Sutton Hoo burial was the first to reveal the cosmopolitan nature of southern England in the early Middle Ages . The ship burial ’s trend is Norse , and within the ship , excavators found Au coins from France , bowl from theCeltsin western England , silver plates from theByzantine Empire , and garnet that likely fare all the way from India or Sri Lanka .
Much is still unknown about the Anglo - Saxons , who ruled England from the 5th to eleventh century , chiefly because in the ninth one C , the Vikingsdestroyed churches where records were maintain . The absence seizure of historical record is one ground this sentence period has been call the " Dark Ages . "
Butlarge knoll like those found at Sutton Hoowere almost sure enough the final resting spot for Anglo - Saxon nobleness such as King Rædwald . The Sutton Hoo discovery present that the " Dark Ages " of early medieval Europe were a vivacious time .
