Spectacular Anglo-Saxon hoard discovered in Staffordshire

[Carla]

A hoard of over 1500 spectacular gold and silver artefacts dating from around the 6th - 8th centuries has been discovered in Staffordshire in the Midlands region of England, which was part of the 'Anglo-Saxon' kingdom of Mercia. Info on the BBC site here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/staffordshire/8272058.stm

The amount of precious metal in the hoard is several times bigger than the Sutton Hoo ship burial and the quality of the craftsmanship is as high. This is probably one of the most significant finds for years.

More info on the official website: http://www.staffordshirehoard.org.uk/ and photos on their Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/finds/sets/72157622378376316/. The official website was down this afternoon, no doubt due to the amount of traffic it must have got since this morning's announcement! I should think it will recover when the initial fuss dies down. In the meantime there's some information on my blog: http://carlanayland.blogspot.com/2009/09/staffordshire-hoard.html

[Misfit]

Thanks for posting this. I was going to do it this morning but then I got lazy :o:)

[SonjaMarie]

Wow, wow, wow, amazing! Thanks for posting!

SM

[annis]

How fabulous- I could spend hours drooling over those pictures on the official site. You always wonder about the people who buried hoards like this - why did they bury their treasures and what happened to them? Clearly in this case they never came back to retrieve it. How many more hoards like this lie buried in the ground, hidden by people feeing trouble, but never (for one reason or another) making it back to dig it up again?

[Misfit]

Wouldn't we all like to know the story of who it all belonged to and why they buried it and never came back? I posted a link to Carla's blog about this at a Goodreads Group and they're all agog as well.

[Margaret]

Very cool! I can't wait for the National Geographic article.

[robinbird79]

Oh wow!! This is just absolutely amazing!!

I would have majored in archeology and British history in college if I'd known THEN what I know NOW...how much I love it! The thought of being the first person to touch those items in hundreds and hundreds of years, of wondering why was the stuff buried, what happened to the people who buried it, is so fascinating to me and I would gladly get dirty from head to toe to be a part of it! :)

[Carla]

Yes, fascinating questions :-) There's a bit of speculation about whose treasure it might have been and the sort of reasons it might have been buried on my blog (in the comments thread as well as the main post), but the possibilities are endless.

If the eighth century dating is correct it's rather after the time period in Paths of Exile, but I daresay my hero might have come into contact with some of the earlier items in the hoard during his time in Mercia :-)

[EC2]

I'm re-enacting at Rufford Abbey with Regia tomorrow. Our group leader went to Birmingham on Weds to see the exhibitis, so I'll be interested to talk to her about it while we're stirring the cooking pot etc.