All The Glitters Are Gold: The Staffordshire Hoard Helmet

(Staffordshire Hoard Helmet Replica) (One of the helmet fragments)

One of the most famous medieval treasures that has been discovered is the Staffordshire Hoard, a collection of over 4000 pieces of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver.  Among these 4000 pieces, a third of the fragments turned out to be part of a beautifully gilded helmet.  However, the pieces were too damaged, were incomplete, or were missing, so an attempt to reassemble the helmet with the original pieces would prove futile.  Still, these fragments were studied for three years in an attempt to learn what the original might have looked like.  Then, over the course of eighteen months, at least two reconstructions of what the original helmet might have looked like have been put on display at the Birmingham Museum and the Potteries Museum for the world to witness.

Made of intricate gold around 600-650 AD, it has been reasonably inferred that the helmet belonged to someone of great importance.  Due to the amount of gold that would have gone into this helmet alone, as well as the intricate embellishments and depictions of soldiers all around the helmet, one might be tempted to suggest that the helmet might have belonged to someone of royal blood, or at least of astonishing wealth.  Normal helmets of Anglo-Saxon soldiers were made of leather and iron, though they held similar designs such as the nose-guard and the domed shape.  Also, armor was most likely passed down through families, so this helmet may have also been a precious family heirloom, not only important in its flashy amount of gold but also as a reminder of family ancestry.

As astonishing and wondrous as the replicas of this helmet are, there are still some questions that remain over its source.  Who are the soldiers depicted on the helmet?  Could they hold some form of personal importance such as depicting men that the helmet's owner fought beside or commanded on the battlefield?  If a plume of horsehair such as the replica boasts was indeed part of the helmet, it could be an intriguing show of Roman influence on Anglo-Saxon culture.

Sources

The Staffordshire Hoard.  Birmingham Museum, 2019, https://www.staffordshirehoard.org.uk/

Johnson, Ben.  "Ancient British Weapons and Armor."  Historic UK: The History and Heritage Accommodation Guide, September 12, 2019, https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/Arms-Armour-up-to-1066/