THE STAFFORDSHIRE HOARD

ANGLO-SAXON GOLD TO REDEFINE THE DARK AGES

Folded gold cross

                                                         

The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent

                                       Staffordshire Hoard_Video

Leslie Webster, former Keeper of Prehistory and Europe at the British Museum describes this discovery:

"...this is going to alter our perceptions of Anglo-Saxon England in the seventh and early eighth century as radically, if not more so, as the 1939 Sutton Hoo discoveries did; it will make historians and literary scholars review what their sources tell us, and archaeologists and art-historians rethink the chronology of metalwork and manuscripts; and it will make us all think again about rising (and failing) kingdoms and the expression of regional identities in this period, the complicated transition from paganism to Christianity, the conduct of battle and the nature of fine metalwork production - to name only a few of the many huge issues it raises. Absolutely the metalwork equivalent of finding a new Lindisfarne Gospels or Book of Kells."

Inscribed gold strip, front (left) and back (right)