Staffordshire Hoard

Once uncovered, English archaeologists quickly moved into the site and unearthed more items in what academic project leader Chris Fern described as, without a doubt, one of the greatest finds of British archaeology.

After a decade of study, the treasure, known as the Staffordshire Hoard or Staff Hoard, is believed to be the spoils of battle taken by the Mercian Kingdom sometime in the 600-650 CE period.

In addition to being a significant British archaeological find, the treasure was also described as the most important find in Anglo-Saxon history by the Independent and other news sources, and even contained the world's earliest known surviving hierarchical religious headpiece.

Which is amazing.

Hmm.

I don't know where this leaves us.

Researchers have since found that all the items from the Staffordshire Hoard were parts of valuable items.

A golden warrior's helm, parts of a sword, golden crosses, and pagan symbols.

They cost an awful lot of money.

So we, if we look at a lot of Anglo-Saxon hoards, Staffordshire Hoard, for example, has a whole load of sword hilts in it-

Mm-hmm

... that have been collected by somebody else because they're valuable and important.

Not a, not a thing.

Yeah.

If a, if a warlord wants to go to war, part of his demonstration of his status is how many people can I give a sword to? The Staffordshire Hoard has something like 120-something sword hilts in it.

Yeah.

I mean, it's just the most impregnable place.

And then when the Staffordshire Hoard was discovered, which must surely have some link with Pender, and I felt I'd been following in his footsteps, it allowed us to combine with some of the most exciting projects the hybrids did.

So it goes from a community excavation where we're kind of generously helping to something absolutely fantastic where we're where we're allowed to join in and it's such a pleasure and such a privilege.

What about a situation where you've done a three-day dig, for example, you found something absolutely amazing and then someone else from, I don't know, a historical society or a museum or the local council comes along and says, this is so amazing what you found here.

It also challenges our image of a Dark Age as an era devoid of sophisticated trade links.

A few centuries later, the Staffordshire Hoard throws us into a mystery of metal and motive.

Thousands of gold and silver military items were deliberately buried, perhaps in response to crisis or war, but whether they were spoils or offerings is still debated by scholars.

The sheer scale forces us to question how much wealth circulated within early medieval Britain.