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[d_f_b]

Yup. The point about the Staffordshire hoard is both the extremely good quality <drools again over the gripping beasts in garnet> and the sheer quantity of of it. Sutton Hoo, which is the richest burial ever found in Anglo-Saxon England, had about a kilo of gold in the burial, the King of Bling had a decent amount of gold, but the Staffordshire hoard has five kilos! It must have been worth an absolute fortune at the time that it was cached.

The other interesting point about the Staffordshire haord is that it isn't a burial (so far as has been reported). So, whilst it's obviously an assemblage with some specific ritual overtones (it's mainly from swords and helmets), it's not got the "let's show how great and powerful this man is to the gods" overtones that burial assemblages often posess. Also, because it's mainly one type of artifact, you then also have to think about what that means for the overall levels of wealth distribution within the society. If this person (whether it's Penda, one of the other Kings of Mercia, a house carl or whoever) can end up with a hoard of 80 gold pommel tops, somewhere out there are 80 warriors who could afford such decorations, which suddenly makes 7th/8th century CE England a *lot* wealthier place than it was last week.

Still is--if I did the math right, 5 kilos of gold (just the gold, forget the artistic value) would run you $131,406 right at this moment, well more than a full year's wages for most of us on this forum, and more than a lifetime's earnings for a pretty huge chunk of the world.

And i've thought similar things about what this says about the wealth of early England--"nasty, brutish, and short" probably wouldn't really fit for those connected to this hoard, at least.

[jacaranda_]

Thanks, wegie!  

[larryc]

So how did it get there? The nature of the artifacts and the place of discovery makes me think that this is war loot. Some victorious prince needed to bury it in a hurry and was never able to get back there. But I am neither a historian of England nor an archeologist. Does this sound about right?

[llanfair]

*Sigh* This is where I wish I lived somewhere with a thicker layer of history.  And I'm on the East Coast of North America; the layer is veneer-thin out West.

One of the clips I found on the Staffordshire Hoard suggested that the sword fittings might have been buried with a view to hiding unique motifs that might identify stolen items.  Swords and other weapons of that quality were easily connected with their owners, and if worn openly would have been a sign saying "Look at what I stole!"

Speculation, perhaps, but very interesting.

[larryc]

*Sigh* This is where I wish I lived somewhere with a thicker layer of history.  And I'm on the East Coast of North America; the layer is veneer-thin out West.

Sigh yourself! People have been in the west for at least 11,000 years and have left a thick layer indeed of artifacts, history, and legends.

http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=7970

[llanfair]

*Sigh* This is where I wish I lived somewhere with a thicker layer of history.  And I'm on the East Coast of North America; the layer is veneer-thin out West.

Sigh yourself! People have been in the west for at least 11,000 years and have left a thick layer indeed of artifacts, history, and legends.

http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=7970

You are, as always, correct, LarryC.  Sorry - I'm a Europeanist, and I do need to be reminded of my unfortunate biases.

<bowing in humble gratitude for correction>

[larryc]

Oh, those of us who work with native peoples are used to it.

This summer I had a conversation with a small-town historian who was working to commemorate "when people first came here." Oh, the Indians? No no, of course not, people. You know, the pioneers. Weren't Indians the first pioneers? Oh sure, yes, but what we want to celebrate is the regular pioneers. We went round and round but never could come to common ground.

[llanfair]

The Eurocentric prejudice is hard to shake, all right. 

Larry, have you read Imagining Head-Smashed-In: Aboriginal Buffalo Hunting on the Northern Plains? It's a wonderful read.

[sad_goat]

I suspect the hoard was buried by a victorious Celt or Pict warlord after opening a can of whoop-ass on an advancing Saxon army. The pommels, as I think the article said, were war trophies, like scalps, unless I read it incorrectly. That it stayed buried suggests that the victory was short-lived, or that the victors had no real use for that sort of impractical item in the greater sweep of circumstances, at least at that moment.

I love the texture and wonder of these sorts of finds.

 

[magistra]

But that's the fun of hoards -- imagining what happened to the original owner and why he never came back to claim it.  Was he killed in battle?  Die of his wounds?  Swept away by the tides of war?  Was it never safe to come back?  Perhaps he was killed in a drunken brawl or murdered by someone who wanted his woman.  Or did he simply forget where he buried it?

[sad_goat]

The Eurocentric prejudice is hard to shake, all right. 

Larry, have you read Imagining Head-Smashed-In: Aboriginal Buffalo Hunting on the Northern Plains? It's a wonderful read.

I don't know if it is a prejudice. For me, finding exceptional examples of pottery and irrigation systems somehow don't compare with European, African, or Asian antiquites. Now, if we move south a bit to the Maya-Inca-Mexica regions, we have art and engineering that rival in mystery and beauty anything found in the rest of the world. IMHO. The American west just don't captivate me as much.

SadGoat
Still trying to crack Olmec.

[wegie]

I suspect the hoard was buried by a victorious Celt or Pict warlord after opening a can of whoop-ass on an advancing Saxon army.

Picts? In Staffordshire?

That almost belongs on one of the "what the hell do they learn in their geography classes" threads!

Celts I could almost buy, given that the Mercians and the various Welsh princes warred like crazy (Offa's Dyke is a pretty clear indication of what the Kings of Mercia thought about the Welsh), but the location is all wrong. Staffordshire is the centre of Mercia. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle might be a bit biased towards Wessex, Kent and East Anglia, but we'd know all about it if there had been Welsh raiders 40 to 50 miles inside Mercia.

[t_r_b]

The Eurocentric prejudice is hard to shake, all right. 

Larry, have you read Imagining Head-Smashed-In: Aboriginal Buffalo Hunting on the Northern Plains? It's a wonderful read.

I have not read it, and it looks great, so thanks for the tip.

And I feel compelled to add that "Head-Smashed-In" is quite possibly the single coolest place name of all time.

[conjugate]

I suspect the hoard was buried by a victorious Celt or Pict warlord after opening a can of whoop-ass on an advancing Saxon army.

Picts? In Staffordshire?

That almost belongs on one of the "what the hell do they learn in their geography classes" threads!

Celts I could almost buy, given that the Mercians and the various Welsh princes warred like crazy (Offa's Dyke is a pretty clear indication of what the Kings of Mercia thought about the Welsh), but the location is all wrong. Staffordshire is the centre of Mercia. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle might be a bit biased towards Wessex, Kent and East Anglia, but we'd know all about it if there had been Welsh raiders 40 to 50 miles inside Mercia.

Be fair; the articles did say that it was a find that would completely rewrite history!  Of course, it would be way more exciting to find a horde of Genghis Khan's in Staffordshire.  Boy, talk about rewriting history!

[llanfair]

The Eurocentric prejudice is hard to shake, all right. 

Larry, have you read Imagining Head-Smashed-In: Aboriginal Buffalo Hunting on the Northern Plains? It's a wonderful read.

I have not read it, and it looks great, so thanks for the tip.

And I feel compelled to add that "Head-Smashed-In" is quite possibly the single coolest place name of all time.

It is.  It's a World Heritage Site, too - fantastic and well worth the trip.