Category: Anglo-Saxon
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The Anglo-Saxon Timelines Game
I’ve just found a fun little web game revolving around Anglo-Saxon history – a great excuse to take a break! You can access it here: https://timelines-ruby.vercel.app/. Simply enter ‘Anglo-Saxons’ into the search bar and continue – there’s a whole wealth of options to explore, from Hinduism to the Battle of Waterloo, but I’m even worse…
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The Dig: A Review
★★★★☆ Beautifully shot and movingly emotional, The Dig is an impressive example of how the process of history and archaeology can be adopted for drama, even if the film has a tendency to run away with that drama. Making a drama about archaeology is an almost knife-edge impossibility, for the simple reason that real day-to-day…
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River Kings by Cat Jarman: A Review
Cat Jarman’s new book River Kings is a huge triumph, not only for the study of the Vikings in England more broadly, but for the accessibility of the archaeological method, and the outstanding uses it can be put to. #ComissionsEarned (This post includes Amazon Affiliate links) – As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying…
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The Prittlewell Prince
Introduction Archaeology is about much more than treasure-hunting but, inevitably, popular attention tends to be drawn towards rich and magnificent finds. Within an early medieval context, the ‘Princely’ burials of the Mid Saxon period are particularly notable in this context. The Sutton Hoo Mound 1 ship-burial is deservedly famous and the most impressive example, but…
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Old English Poetry
The poetry of ‘Anglo-Saxon England’ holds an interesting middle-ground in public perception. On the one-hand Beowulf is perhaps the single most famous piece of ‘Anglo-Saxon’ cultural output, of any form. Tolkien famously translated it, as did Heaney, and there was that terrible movie in the 2000s that we try and forget… However, the sheer quantity…
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Old English Poetry in Fascimile
Finding Old English sources can be difficult, especially for some of the less frequently published poems. Old English Poetry in Fascimile begins to address this issue, and is an important step in the democratisation of history and increased access to sources. Now, if you’re looking for a straightforward set of translations into English, then the…
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The Franks Casket
One of the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ period‘s most impressive, and most complex, artefacts is the so-called ‘Franks Casket’. A lidded whalebone box, covered in intricate carvings and text, the casket appears to originate from an early eight-century Northumbrian context. But what was it used for, and what can it tell us? Finding the Casket The existence in…
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Bayeux Tapestry Online
The Bayeux Tapestry (technically an embroidery not a tapestry) is one of our best accounts of the conquest of ‘Anglo-Saxon‘ England by the Normans in 1066. Running from the end of the reign of Edward the Confessor to the aftermath of the battle at Hastings, the work covers a massive 70 meters and is kept…
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Snape – England’s Other Ship Burial
Ship burials in England are a very infrequent occurrence. Unlike their frequency in Scandinavian, especially at Old Upsala, there are only really two major sites in England. Both, interestingly, are located in East Anglia. The two ship burials at Sutton Hoo is by far the most famous examples, one of which may well represent the…
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Westfield Farm – a High-status ‘Anglo-Saxon’ Female Burial
We hear an awful lot about the large-scale male ‘Princely’ burial of the early seventh century. Sutton Hoo, Snape, and Prittlewell dominate the narrative on richly furnished burials. Now, don’t get me wrong, these are some incredibly archaeologically significant sites, and have important things to say about power and status. But by focusing in on…