Like Something Out of The Walking Dead: Medieval Warrior Found with Knife Hand Prosthesis

Ancient Origins

In the American post-apocalyptic horror television series The Walking Dead , redneck hunter Merle Dixon fashions a knife attachment onto the stump where his hand used to be. While the storyline is nothing more than fictional horror, one Medieval warrior had come up with the same frightening idea.

In a paper just published in the Journal of Anthropological Sciences , Italian archaeologists have revealed the discovery of a Medieval warrior in the Longobard necropolis in Verona with a well-healed amputated forearm, a buckle and a knife, providing strong evidence that he wore the knife in place of his hand.

A Cemetery of Warriors
The Longobard necropolis of Povegliano Veronese in Veneto, Italy, consists of more than 160 tombs containing the remains of over 200 Longobards (or Lombards), a Germanic people, originally from Northeast Europe, who ruled most of the Italian Peninsula from 568 to 774. Following the devastation of the long Gothic War (535-554) between the Byzantine Empire and the Ostrogothic Kingdom, the Lombards had been able to invade Italy with little opposition. They established a Lombard Kingdom in central and north Italy, which was eventually conquered by Frankish King Charlemagne in 774 AD and integrated into his Empire.

While the cemetery contained the remains of men, women and children, most of the male burials contained skeletons with weapons at their sides. Many of them showed signs of cranial trauma, and shields found at the burial site exhibit damage patterns similar to the trauma found on the skulls, indicating they were warriors who most likely died in battle.

Longobard Necropolis, 7th century AD. Teaching and historical re-enactment, at the only necropolis preserved in situ and visible in Italy, located near the Civic Archaeological Museum
(CC by SA 3.0 ).

The Warrior with an Amputated Arm
The male skeleton with the amputation comes from a tomb labelled T US 380. Analyses on his remains suggest he was around 47 years old and died some time in the last thirty years of the 6 th century AD. Bone testing revealed that he was most likely purposely amputated.

“There are several reasons why a forearm from this cultural period might be amputated,” the study authors Micarelli et al., 2018 report . “One possibility is that the limb was amputated for medical reasons; perhaps the forelimb was broken due to an accidental fall or some other means, resulting in an unhealable fracture. The formation of bone necrosis might have led to a surgical intervention to remove the dead tissue from the healthy part of the limb… Still, given the warrior-specific culture of the Longobard people, a loss due to fighting is also possible.”

“A third consideration for why the limb was amputated would be loss due to judicial punishment,” the report states. “This form of punishment did occasionally occur among the Longobard people.”

The warrior had been placed in a single pit grave like the one shown here in a Longobard necrópolis ( CC by SA 4.0 / Marco Tessaro )

Evidence Suggests Warrior Had a Knife-Hand Prosthesis
Warrior T US 380 had been placed in a single pit without a coffin. In addition to his skeleton, archaeologists found a buckle, an iron knife, and non-human organic material (probably leather), close to the end of the amputated right forearm.

The round shaped callous at the end of his amputated forearm suggests there was a biomechanical force placed on the stump, adding to the evidence that the knife and buckle were part of a knife-hand prosthesis worn by the warrior.

“From the archaeological evidence provided, we suggest that a prosthesis might have taken the form of a cap with a modified blade weapon attached to it,” the researchers report.

Warrior T US 380: The orientation of the right arm, the position of the buckle, and the location of the knife, suggest he wore a knife-hand prosthesis. Credit: Micarelli et al. 2018

The Origins of Prosthetics
Last year, archaeologists in Gloucestershire, England, made a similar discovery. A Medieval grave with bones was found to contain an iron strap and a buckle , which researchers later determined were parts of a device that supported a prosthetic leg.

But prosthetics date back much further than Medieval times. The oldest known prosthesis is a big toe made of wood and leather, which was attached to the almost 3000 year old mummy of an Egyptian noblewoman. Numerous other prosthetic devices have been found on Egyptian mummies, including feet, legs, noses, and even penises – all necessary parts for a pleasant afterlife.

Centuries later, during the zenith of the Roman Empire, iron was introduced as a material for prosthetics. Despite these early advances in prosthetics, there was not much development in this area in the millennia that followed. It was not until the evolution of technology in the 20 th century, that there was a great leap in prosthetic technologies. In addition to lighter, patient-moulded devices, the advent of microprocessors, computer chips and robotics in today's devices are designed to return amputees to the lifestyle they were accustomed to, rather than to simply provide basic functionality or a more pleasing appearance.

False toe on mummy found near Luxor. Egyptian Museum

Top image: YouTube Screenshot from The Walking Dead Role Play Weapons by ThinkGeek

 By April Holloway

First Genetic Proof of a Viking Age Warrior Woman is Identified from an Iconic Swedish Grave

Ancient Origins

Then the high-born lady saw them play the wounding game, she resolved on a hard course and flung off her cloak; she took a naked sword and fought for her kinsmen's lives, she was handy at fighting, wherever she aimed her blows.” - ‘The Greenlandic Poem of Atli’ (st. 49) (Larrington, 1996)

Arguably the most iconic example of a warrior burial in Viking Age Sweden is a mid-10th century grave in Birka. This grave has been the example of what a Viking warrior burial should look like for over a century. Everyone assumed that a man was the one laid to rest in the grave – but new research shows assumptions should not be taken as fact. It is the remains of a warrior woman in that grave.

Illustration by Evald Hansen based on the original plan of the Viking Age warrior grave (Bj 581) by excavator Hjalmar Stolpe; published in 1889. (Stolpe, 1889)

According to The Local, the first person to do something about the fact that the skeleton’s morphological features don’t coincide with a male body was Anna Kjellström, an osteologist at Stockholm University. Kjellström was examining the skeleton for an unrelated research project when she noticed that the cheekbones were finer and thinner than men would normally have. However, the tell-tale sign that the skeleton is female is the obvious nature of the hip bones.

 After a thorough osteological analysis, DNA testing was applied. And, as Phys.org reports “DNA retrieved from the skeleton demonstrates that the individual carried two X chromosomes and no Y chromosome.” Based on the results of the study, Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson of Stockholm University, who led the research, asserted, “It’s actually a woman, somewhere over the age of 30 and fairly tall too, measuring around 170 centimetres [5.5ft.]”

Furthermore, the researchers write in their journal article that. “The Viking warrior female showed genetic affinity to present-day inhabitants of the British Islands (England and Scotland), the North Atlantic Islands (Iceland and the Orkneys), Scandinavia (Denmark and Norway) and to lesser extent Eastern Baltic Europe (Lithuania and Latvia).”

Romanticized depiction of a Viking woman, 1905, by Andreas Bloch. (Public Domain)

The researchers decided to confirm the nature of the woman’s travels by using a strontium isotope analysis on three molar teeth from the lower jaw. The results of this testing show that the woman was a nonlocal who had moved to Birka.

Professor Mattias Jakobsson at Uppsala University's Department of Organismal Biology highlighted the importance of this find when he said, “This is the first formal and genetic confirmation of a female Viking warrior.”

Artistic representation of a Viking Age warrior woman on a ship. (Women in History)

The belief that the woman found in Birka, Sweden was a warrior is largely based on the grave goods that were found alongside her body. Her weapons included a sword and armor-piercing arrows, an axe, a spear, a battle knife. There were also shields, two horses, and a war-planning gaming board with a full set of gaming pieces in the grave, which suggest the woman was a high-ranking Viking warrior. As Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson explained:

“The gaming set indicates that she was an officer, someone who worked with tactics and strategy and could lead troops in battle. What we have studied was not a Valkyrie from the sagas but a real life military leader, that happens to have been a woman.”

Reconstruction of what the grave may have looked like. (Uppsala University)

Although the gender stereotype for Viking Age warriors has almost exclusively described them as men, the idea of female warriors is not unknown in Norse society. For instance, Norse mythology discusses a group of figures known as Valkyries. Ancient Origins writer ‘Dwhty’ explained that the Valkyries were: “believed to be the handmaidens of Odin, the supreme god of the Norse pantheon. They were sent by this god to the battlefield to select warriors worthy of entering Valhalla after their deaths. The Valkyrie were portrayed as warriors, being equipped with helmets, mail-coats, and spears.”

‘Valkyrien’ by Peter Nicolai Arbo. (Public Domain)

Another example of female warriors in Norse society can be seen in the Battle of Bråvalla, a legendary battle from the 8th century AD. 300 female warriors known as shieldmaidens are said to have fought on the side of King Harald Wartooth in that battle.

This supports the conclusion by Neil Price, Professor at Uppsala University's Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, who said there is some written evidence supporting the idea of female warriors in the Viking Age, but it doesn’t detract from the importance of the discovery because “this is the first time that we've really found convincing archaeological evidence for their existence.”

Lagertha - a respected warrior and reigning queen of Denmark in the TV series ‘Vikings’. (CC BY SA)

Top Image: ‘Brynhildr.’ Used here as a representational image of a woman warrior in the Viking Age. Source: FLOWERZZXU/Deviant Art

By Alicia McDermott

Ivar the Boneless: A Viking Warrior That Drew Strength From His Weakness

Ancient Origins

One would expect "boneless" to describe a man without a lick of bravery. Or perhaps a man without a shred of compassion in a heart of ice. Yet in the case of the infamous Ivar the Boneless, son of the renowned Ragnar Lodbrok, "boneless" means precisely what it sounds like: a man lacking sturdy bones, but not power.

 Who Was Ivar?
Possibly the son of Ragnar, best remembered for his horrifying death in a pit filled with venomous snakes, Ivar's existence is as much disputed as his father's. Both men possess names which were highly common in the northern countries in the ninth and tenth centuries, and there are records more formal than the Icelandic sagas which describe the deeds of similarly named men. In the case of Ivar, there is more certainty to his life, though the extent to which his accomplishments were his own rather than men of a similar name remains contested.

 Ivar is recorded as likely having a condition called osteogenesis imperfecta, indicating that his body can bend beyond what the average human is capable. Rather than enhancing his performance however, such a condition would damage his body over time, gradually weakening him physically. While such a diagnosis was not quite believable in the ninth century, Ivar's "strange state" was unusual enough that its origins were tacked on to his mythological bio: if he was the son of Ragnar, Ivar's bone deficiency is attributed to Ragnar succumbing to his overwhelming lust for Ivar's mother, Aslaug, before the agreed upon time. In other words, it was a curse.

Ivar the Boneless as portrayed in the History Channel Series ‘Vikings’ (History Channel) 

The Great Heathen Army 

Historically, Ivar—despite his boneless moniker—is highly valued for his role as the leader of the Great Heathen Army in 865 AD, discussed in detail in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle of the same year. This army—called "heathen" because the ninth century still preceded Christianity in certain northern realms—is credited with a high-scale invasion of the Anglo-Saxons in modern day England. This amalgamation of Danish, Swedish and Norwegian warriors (though these countries were not defined in the ninth century the same way they are today) destroyed their Anglo-Saxon enemies in a short-lived, three-day battle.

History Channel ‘Vikings’ Ivar the Boneless, second left, with his brothers. (History Channel)

According to sources, the Great Heathen Army was headed by Ragnar Lodbrok's three sons, Halfdan Ragnarsson, Ivar the Boneless*, and Ubba. As previously stated, due to the lack of certainty in whether their father Ragnar was the same as the snake-sufferer, it is up for debate precisely why the heathen warriors chose to invade England—that is, if there was a reason beyond the "usual" pirating practices begun when the Vikings invaded Lindisfarne in 793 AD.** If Ivar and his brothers were, in fact, the children of the legendary Ragnar, the significance of this battle increases as the king of Northumbria (one of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms) was directly responsible for Ragnar's death.

 Ivar’s Later Identity
 As Ivar the Boneless' parentage is under the umbrella of "legendary", there are other theories as to who this possible historical figure may be. One predominate suggestion is that he is Ímar, a Norse-born ninth century leader of the Viking settlement, Dublin.*** Ímar is recorded in the Irish Annals, an overarching term for the various historical documents written in regions that correlate to modern day Ireland. As Ímar's life and battle against the king of Ulster coincide chronologically with that of Ivar the Boneless, it has often been contemplated whether these two men were one and the same, and it is merely the fault of time and medieval biases that they're ancestry is recorded differently. Further, Ívar is no longer mentioned in any historical records following the year 870, not even as a deceased individual. Ímar, on the other hand, resurfaces at this time after an absence from the Irish Annals, and his death year is definitively determined as 873. Thus, if Ivar and Ímar were, in fact, the same individual with alternating names, giving Ímar/Ivar Ragnar Lodbrok as a father would have made his role in various battles and settlements far more pertinent mythologically as well as historically.

Imperfect as Ivar might have been by Viking standards, his "bonelessness" seemingly did little to affect his performance as a warrior and leader. He survives in historical record through the test of time, and his deeds are recorded with the same strong language one would expect from a man of his rank. Whether or not Ivar and Ímar are one, the acts attributed to Ivar directly paint him as a durable, determined Viking warrior, whose eventual defeat of his mythological father's killer is his final defining moment.

*A different historical source, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, dictates a leader named Ingvar, believed also to be the same as Ivar.

**This attack marked the "beginning" of the Viking Age.

***Dublin was initially settled by the Vikings, just like York in northern England.

Top Image: Ivar the Boneless as portrayed in the History Channel Series ‘Vikings’ (History Channel)

By Ryan Stone

2,000-year-old Warrior Armor Made of Reindeer Antlers Found on the Arctic Circle

Ancient Origins

By: The Siberian Times Reporter

 The ceremonial suit was embellished with decorations and left as a sacrifice for the gods by ancient bear cult polar people, say archeologists. The discovery is the oldest evidence of armor found in the north of western Siberia, and was located at the rich Ust-Polui site, dating to between the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD.

Earlier discoveries at the site indicate a bear cult among these ancient people.

 Archeologist Andrey Gusev, from the Scientific Research Centre of the Arctic in Salekhard, said the plates of armor found at the site are all made from reindeer antlers.

'The largest were 23-25 centimetres in length (pictured upper left). Others are 12-14 centimetres in length, thinner and richly ornamented (pictured upper right and bottom).' Pictures: Andrey Gusev

'There are about 30 plates in the collection of Ust-Polui,' he said. 'They differ regarding the degree of preservation, as well as the size, location of mounting holes, and the presence or absence of ornamentation.'

 The largest were 23-25 centimetres in length. In ancient times, they would have been fixed to a leather base and offered a reliable means of protection.

Others are 12-14 centimetres in length, thinner and richly ornamented.

'I'm writing still under the impression, as I've just seen these things. This is literally a world scale discovery'. Picture: Bear ring, bronze, finding of 2013, by Andrey Gusev

'The ornamentation on the plates can be individual, that is after the thorough analysis we could say how many warriors left armor here, judging by the style of decorations.'

 Other conical shaped armor is seen as plates on helmets worn by the ancient warriors. 'In the taiga zone of Western Siberia, finds of real iron helmets were extremely rare,' he said. 'But in the middle of the first millennium AD, bronze images appeared of people wearing headdresses clearly resembling helmets. '

A likely explanation may be a long tradition of making antler helmets.'

According to Gusev Yamal, the armor resembled the design used by Kulai peole. Picture: Alexander Soloviev

Gusev said the armor resembled the warrior picture here, which relates to designs used by the Kualai people, hunters and fishermen native to the taiga.

 He believes the armor was deliberately left at Ust-Polui, an ancient sacred place, as a gift or sacrifice to the gods.

As previously revealed by The Siberian Times, a 2,000 year old ring found at the same site is seen as proof of a bear cult among these ancient polar people who left no written records.

Made of high quality bronze, this ancient Arctic jewellery features an image of a bear's head and paws. 'The ring is tiny in diameter so even a young girl, let alone a woman, cannot wear it,' he said. 'We concluded that it was used in a ritual connected with a bear cult and was put on the bear claw.'

A 2,000 year old ring found at the same site is seen as proof of a bear cult among these ancient polar people who left no written records. Pictures: Andrey Gusev

The theory is that the ring was fitted to the claw of a slain bear, an animal worshipped by ancient Khanty tribes as an ancestor and a sacred animal. 'After killing the bear they had a bear festival to honor the animal's memory. The head and front paws a bear was adorned with a handkerchief, rings, and a few days lying in the house.’

 'This combination of images on the ring and the fact that it was found in the sanctuary of Ust-Polui led us to believe that a bear cult was also practiced there.'

Top Image: 'The ornamentation on the plates can be individual, that is after the thorough analysis we could say how many warriors left armor here.' Picture: Andrey Gusev Insert: According to Gusev Yamal armor resembled the design used by Kulai peole. Picture: Alexander Soloviev

The article ‘2,000-year-old Warrior Armour Made of Reindeer Antlers Found on the Arctic Circle’ originally appeared on The Siberian Times and has been republished with permission.

Researchers Wonder if Rich Viking Boat Burial Found in Scotland was Made for a Warrior Woman

Ancient Origins

A team of researchers who have been examining the horde of grave goods left in an amazing Viking boat burial have decided that the deceased individual was definitely an important person in their society. While shedding light on the origins, diet, and social standing, the interesting mixture of artifacts has also raised new questions about who the person was. For example, archaeologists are uncertain if the grave held a man or woman.

Found near a Neolithic cairn in the Ardnamurchan peninsula in western Scotland in 2011, the Viking boat burial dates to the late 9th or early 10th century. Live Science reports that it was the first to be found undisturbed on the British mainland and has provided some vital information on burial practices from the time. The researchers must have been delighted to unearth such a rich grave.

Some of the finds recovered from the grave (clockwise from the top left): broad-bladed axe, shield boss, ringed pin and the hammer and tongs. (Photographs: Pieta Greaves/AOC Archaeology)

Several of the goods were objects of daily life, items for cooking, working, farming and food production were all included in the grave. It also held a shield boss (domed part of a shield protecting a warrior's hand); a whetstone from Norway, and a ringed pin used to close a burial cloak or shroud, possibly from Ireland. As the researchers wrote in their article published in the journal Antiquity:

"The burial evokes the mundane and the exotic, past and present, as well as local, national and international identities […] when considering a burial like this, it is essential to remember that each of these objects, and each of these actions, was never isolated, but rather they emerge out of, and help to form, an assemblage that knits together multiple places, people and moments in time.”

The sword (top); the sword in situ (below); the mineralized textile remains (right); detail of the decoration after conservation (left). (Lower photographs: Pieta Greaves/AOC Archaeology)

The burial also contained a sword, an axe, a drinking horn vessel, a broken spearhead (probably fragmented in a funeral ritual), a hammer, and some tongs – the researchers say that all these have suggest a warrior burial, likely male.

However, Oliver Harris, co-director of the Ardnamurchan Transitions Project (ATP) at the University of Leicester's School of Archaeology and Ancient History, told Seeker “There is nothing female per se in the grave, though of course there are lots of objects — sickle, the ladle, the knife, the ringed pin — that are not male either.”

The ladle, sickle, spearhead, and knife. (Harris et al)

And with just two teeth remaining for the person’s body, the researchers cannot confirm the individual’s sex. As Harris said “The burial is probably that of a man — but as we only have the two teeth surviving, it is impossible to be definitive. So it is possible, but not likely, that this was the burial of a woman.”

It would not be unheard of for a Viking woman to have an elaborate burial however, as Dwhty has written previously for Ancient Origins about the Oseberg Viking ship burial:

“The Oseberg ship burial contained two human skeletons, both female. One of the skeletons belonged to a woman who was about 70 or 80 years old when she died. Investigations suggest that the woman probably died of cancer. It is unclear who this woman actually was, and some have speculated that she may have been Queen Åsa, the grandmother of the first Norwegian king. The second skeleton belonged to a woman in her 50s, though it is not known how she died.

Oseberg ship, Kulturhistorisk museum (Viking Ship Museum), Oslo, Norway. (Public Domain)

It has been suggested that the middle-aged woman may have been a slave who was sacrificed to accompany the older woman. This burial also contained the remains of 13 horses, four dogs, and two oxen, probably sacrificed as well to accompany the deceased into the afterlife. Although the damp conditions within the mound allowed for the ship and its contents to be well-preserved, the mound had been broken into by robbers and any precious metal items were taken.

Returning to the present study, the researchers completed an isotopic analysis of the teeth found in the Ardnamurchan Viking boat burial and discovered that the deceased probably grew up in Scandinavia and had to change his/her diet for about a year during childhood. Harris explained, “The switch in diet probably shows there was some shortage in food for a period of time leading people to eat more fish.”

The Viking’s teeth. (Harris et al.)

As for the boat itself, well, all that remained was 213 of its metal rivets; the wood decayed, though an impression left in the soil suggests that it had measured 16 feet (4.88 meters) in length. This would be consistent with the size of a small rowing boat.

 Perhaps the most elaborate (and disturbing) example of Viking ship burial practices was the 10th century chronicle of the violent, orgiastic funeral of a Viking chieftain. Holy man and jurist Ahmad Ibn Fadlan described the death rites of mourning Vikings in Bulgaria who had lost their chieftain. As Mark Miller wrote:

“In the Viking tradition, if it was a chief who died, he was placed in the ground while his burial clothes were prepared for 10 days, during which his followers drank and had sex with doomed slave girls “purely out of love.” On the day of cremation, the Viking’s body was exhumed, then his companions burned him, along with volunteer slave girls or boys who were slain, slaughtered dogs, horses, cows and chickens, food offerings, his weapons and his ship.”

‘The Funeral of a Viking’ (1893) by Frank Dicksee. (Public Domain)

After these extreme burial practices, the Vikings built an earthen mound over the burned vessel. Miller writes that archaeologists are still searching for the location of this grave.

He also reminds us that,

“this death rite or orgy that Ibn Fadlan described was for a chief, and it happened among the warriors and leaders of the Viking society who were in the Volga viking. Presumably the farmers, hunters, bakers, craftsmen and other plain folk—the great majority of Viking society—did not practice this lurid death celebration. Also, this was one Viking group at one point in the 260-year history of the Viking raids and settlements, and we have no way of knowing how many Viking groups practiced these wild funeral celebrations over their vast territories.”

Top Image: Funeral of a Rus' nobleman’ (1883) by Henryk Siemiradzki. (Public Domain) Detail: Post-excavation photograph of the cut at the Ardnamurchan Viking boat burial. (Harris et al.)

 By Alicia McDermott

Staffordshire hoard: experts piece together rare warrior's helmet

 

A reconstructed helmet band, depicting a frieze of warriors, which was found as part of the Staffordshire hoard. Photograph: Birmingham museums trust/PA

 

Anglo-Saxon headgear reconstructed from more than 1,500 pieces as £400,000 grant is announced to fund further work on the treasure

The Guardian

More than 1,500 scraps of silver gilt foil from the Staffordshire hoard of Anglo-Saxon treasure, including strips stamped with designs of warriors and beasts and other fragments the size of a fingernail, are being pieced together by archaeologists and conservators into a warrior’s helmet of international importance – as it is one of only five ever found.
With years of conservation and research remaining, Historic England will announce a £400,000 grant on Tuesday to fund the continuing study of the largest hoard of Anglo Saxon precious metal work ever found. It was discovered by a metal detector in 2010 in Staffordshire farmland before another 90 pieces were recovered from the same field three years later.

Staffordshire hoard site yields further 90 fragments

Gold and garnet cross and eagle-shaped mount among latest items unearthed by archaeologists in Hammerwich field          

           

Birmingham and Stoke-on-Trent councils, joint owners of the hoard, are trying to raise an additional £120,000 towards the project, which will include an online catalogue of the complete hoard by 2017.
“Until we started fitting the pieces together we weren’t even quite sure that we had a helmet, but we are now certain that we have most of it,” said Pieta Greaves, coordinator of the conservation team at the Birmingham museum. “We are missing some pieces including the iron frame, but we should end up with an academically respectable guestimate of what it could have looked like. I think some form of reconstruction will prove feasible.”
The helmet would have dazzled when new, set with bands of precious metal and golden intricately decorated pieces covering the ears.
“We’re missing bits that we see on the Sutton Hoo helmet, like the eyebrow and face protectors, but we have the ear pieces, most of the cap and the crest. What we have is the valuable bits, the stripped out silver and gold – it may be that somebody else got a bag full of base metal to melt down,” Greaves said.
The hoard is unique in that it consists entirely of male ornament and decorative weapon fittings – “warrior bling” as one archaeologist put it – and a few Christian pieces that may have been wrenched off bibles or reliquaries. Among more than 4,000 pieces nothing has been identified that was made for a woman.

 

A detail of the front of the reconstructed sword pommel. Photograph: Birmingham Museums Trust/PA

The meticulous cleaning and study of even the tiniest pieces has also identified a unique sword pommel, which was among more than 70 examples in the hoard, that combines Irish and British styles, and materials including gold, silver, garnet, glass and deliberately blackened silver niello work.

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Chris Fern, the project archaeologist, said the skill of the workmanship was thrilling and the pommel a truly exciting object. “It combines multiple different styles of ornament, much in the same way as the earliest seventh-century illuminated manuscripts do, like the Book of Durrow. It suggests the coming together of Anglo-Saxon and British or Irish high cultures.”
Greaves said the pommel was the only piece to combine so many materials: “It’s as if the craftsman was showing off, saying look at me, look at what I can really do.”
The gallery for the hoard opened in October by Birmingham city museum has had more than 110,000 visitors. Duncan Wilson, chief executive of Historic England, said: “Since its discovery in 2009, the Staffordshire hoard and the stories behind it have captured the public imagination.”