9 Adams Opt Sec

Rethinking the Sutton Hoo Shoulder Clasps and Armour
Nol Adams
The kingly Anglo-Saxon ship burial in Mound 1 at Sutton Hoo is the richest and the most intact of all surviving barbarian assemblages from the Early Medieval period. The grave goods range in date from the late 5th century through the first decades of the 7th century and current scholarship tends to identify the wealthy burial with Raedwald, king of the East Angles who, according to the later historian Bede, ruled from c. 616 to c. 625 as overlord of the English kingdoms.1 The grave is noted particularly for its assemblage of gold and garnet cloisonn ornaments, of which two pieces, the shoulder clasps, are the primary focus of this paper. The majority of the gold ornaments at Sutton Hoo the buckle, sword and scabbard fittings, belt mounts and purse lid find parallels within the Germanic traditions which evolved in Europe, in some cases from 5th-century archetypes. The shoulder clasps, however, have no clear typological precedents, remaining at once the most refined and the most enigmatic of the gold regalia preserved in Mound 1 (Pl. 1).2 In his magnum opus on Sutton Hoo Bruce-Mitford illustrated the cuirass on a 1st century bc imperial portrait of Augustus (the Prima Porta statue) as a possible model for the clasps (Pl. 18 and Part III below).3 Despite his careful phrasing as to the relationship between the clasps and statue,4 this allusion to imperial armour continues to influence scholarly ideas about both the nature of the clasps and the concept of imitatio imperii which, it has been argued, is expressed by the grave goods in Mound 1 at Sutton Hoo.5 Immediate objections, however, may be raised to this parallel. The method by which the clasps were attached (by small loops on the reverse), for example, would not be compatible with Greek and Roman metal cuirasses and the possibility that the clasps simply copied a representation of an imperial Roman cuirass type6 is dubious on both chronological and technological grounds. Bruce-Mitfords analysis of the function of the clasps was brief and, as we shall see, dilatory. The reasons for this are good ones, and many fundamental questions regarding these unusual objects may never be answered. Chief among these is the material to which they were attached and, although some possibilities may be eliminated, the original material will probably never be known. Despite this, the fact that the primary purpose of the clasps does seem comparable to the shoulder fastenings shown on classical cuirasses must be accounted for. A modern reassessment of the clasps, therefore, particularly with regard to their relationship to armour, seems in order. The following discussion is divided into three sections. Following a rsum of the archaeological context of the clasps, Part I reviews the specific techniques used to create the clasps (cloisonn, millefiori and filigree), followed by a brief discussion of the iconography and possible prototypes for the form of the clasps. Part II focuses upon the attachment loops found on the reverse of the clasps, examining parallels and the implications of different object types fastened in this manner. Finally, as the clasps are taken to represent armour or armourrelated fittings, Part III re-evaluates the evidence for defensive body armour in the grave, including the actual mail as well as the hypothetical imperial cuirass. PART I Burial deposition and description The Sutton Hoo Mound 1 clasps were found in the grave at roughly the same level as the sword hilt, a half-metre or so west of the belt fittings (Pl. 2:1).7 Although the excavators had a clear sense that the helmet, sword and regalia (clasps, gold buckle, belt mounts and purse lid) were distributed in a fashion that suggested a body, no body was found.8 When first discovered, the excavator Charles Phillips identified the Sutton Hoo clasps as armlets;9 later Gamber and Bruce-Mitford argued that their curve was most suitable for wear on the shoulder,10 hence the sobriquet by which they are still known. The clasps were found pinned together and close to one another with one clasp on its edge and the other flat and face up (Pl. 2:2).11 On the 1939 field photographs, both pin heads are facing the same direction. Bruce-Mitford assumed, I believe correctly, that when the clasps were fastened in place on the shoulders the pins could only have been inserted from the outer edges. If buried in this position on the body the pinheads should have been facing in opposite directions. This discrepancy, and their close proximity (3.8cm apart), suggests their stance in the grave does not correspond to their original position on the shoulders (presumably at least 1020cm apart).
Plate 1 Shoulder clasps, Mound 1, Sutton Hoo (PE 1939,1010.4-5), W: 5.4cm
Intelligible Beauty | 83
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Plate 2:1 View of shoulder clasps in the ground
Plate 2:2 Detail of shoulder clasps as excavated
Plate 3 Details of shoulder clasps
84 | Intelligible Beauty
Rethinking the Sutton Hoo Shoulder Clasps and Armour Other elements of the regalia, however, were also in unnatural positions due to shifting or disturbance within the grave.12 In Volume I of the British Museum publication of Mound 1, Bruce-Mitford hypothesised that the shoulder-clasps, detached from the garment to which they had once been fixed, had been placed together in the middle of an empty space where the body should have been, admitting that the placing of the shoulder-clasps... remains unexplained.13 Although his text vacillates as to what the clasps may have actually fastened or have been fastened to,14 he personally felt they must have been fitted to a cuir bouilli cuirass.15 In light of the small attachment loops on the reverse, researchers have allowed for the possibility of textile in the equation, and most recently have doubted altogether the possibility of a hardened leather cuirass.16 The cloisonn, form and motifs Each clasp consists of two symmetrical curved halves pinned together by meticulously engineered hinges, still in functioning order. The sophisticated design of each section panels of stepped rhomboids, Germanic Style II interlace and crossed boars is matched by flawlessly executed garnet cloisonn, millefiori glass and zoomorphic filigree (Pl. 3). Analysis of each of these elements in a meaningful way is beyond the scope of this paper but, as they were not investigated in depth by Bruce-Mitford, the following comments provide some background and dating evidence. The carpet of regular stepped cellwork on the main panels of the clasps may appear a rather straightforward geometric pattern, yet this is one of the most notable features of the clasps. The plate shape known as the stepped rhomboid has been the focus of much discussion,17 but overall patterns assembled with these plates are relatively rare in the corpus of garnet cloisonn. This reflects to some degree the lapidary capabilities of different jewellers but also the availability of adequate numbers of well-matched stones,18 which tended to be restricted to goldsmiths working for high-status clients. In the context of the conference, the question of to what extent these specifically represent a Late Antique or Byzantine tradition is worth reviewing, although the issue must remain unresolved. Complete stepped rhomboid plates and patterns first appear on elite sword fittings deposited in the middle decades of the 5th century. The distribution of these is, with one exception, wholly western,19 but Arrhenius hypothesis that the seax scabbard mouthpiece with linked stepped rhomboids found in the burial of King Childeric at Tournai (d. 481) (Pl. 4:1) was made in Constantinople has been influential on recent scholarship.20 I have argued that such plates may have been developed as an expedient means of decorating multiple weaponry fittings, not impossibly in association with the fabricae of the Roman Empire,21 but, as the manufacture of arms and their decorative fitments could have taken place in different places, at present there is no way of determining where such cloisonn workshops may have been located, or indeed whether the goldsmiths were fixed or peripatetic. Weapons with this particular cloisonn cellwork found their way into Hunnic hands as well (Pl. 4:2)22 whether this suggests production by jewellers working for clients on the Danube during the Hunnic occupation of Pannonia or simply demonstrates the trajectory of trade and control from the Eastern Roman Empire likewise remains unknown. Stepped rhomboids do not at present feature on the cloisonn-ornamented swords with gold hilts found in Merovingian graves in the period from c. 480520/25, which, it has been argued, are local imitations of Byzantine prototypes.23 The immediate predecessors to the shoulder clasp decoration are found in the next phase of production, on cloisonn sword pommels.24 The earliest of these, a pommel with single stepped rhomboids on both faces, was found in the rich grave of a Frankish leader at Krefeld-Gellep on the lower Rhine (Grave 1782), deposited in the second quarter of the 6th century.25 Two other examples, from Stora Sandviken (Strko, Blekinge) (Pl. 4:3) and Vsby (Hammarby, Uppland) in Sweden, incorporate patterns of linked stepped rhomboids; these were made and deposited, on current evidence, in the period from 560/70 to 600/610.26 Arrhenius argued that the
Plate 4:1 Seax scabbard mouthpiece, tomb of Childeric, Tournai, Belgium; L: 7.3cm
Plate 4:2 Sword mouthpiece and scabbard, Voshod (Engels-Pokrovsk), Russia; L: approx. 9.5cm
Plate 4:3 Pommel, Stora Sandviken, Sweden; L: 7.3cm
Plate 4:4 Buckle, Ostrogothic period; L: (buckle-plate) 5.9cm
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Plate 5:1 Pair of rectangular belt mounts, Mound 1, Sutton Hoo (PE 1939,1010.8-9); L: 5.2cm
Plate 5:2 Belt mount, Grave 7, Rdingen, Germany; L: 5.2cm
Plate 5:3 Belt mounts, Grave 127, Schretzheim, Germany; L: (largest) 5cm
Plate 6 Buckle counterplate, Ker, Crimea; H: 4.2cm
Plate 5:4 Belt mounts, strap distributor and buckles, Mound 1, Sutton Hoo
Rethinking the Sutton Hoo Shoulder Clasps and Armour pommels preserved in Sweden were made in Frankish workshops,27 but pommels of this class have been found in Gotland, Finland, England, Bavaria and Italy28 so their place of manufacture is uncertain. It is possible that the cloisonn pommels preserved in Scandinavia reflect workshop traditions originating in Italy, where Ostrogothic burial customs prohibited the inhumation of weaponry but where high-status female jewellery made in the first half of the 6th century displays large examples of these plates (Pl. 4:4).29 Stepped rhomboids were also used on the famous gold liturgical paten, buried at Gourdon (Sane-et-Loire) sometime after 525,30 so jewellers producing or using these plates also worked for ecclesiastical clients. The current picture, therefore, suggests that stepped rhomboids were relatively rare and restricted to high-status ornaments throughout the 6th century. The maker of the Sutton Hoo shoulder clasps had access to enough garnet to prepare both large and small stepped plates (16 at approx. 6.5 x 6.5mm and 14 at approx. 5 x 5mm) of the same general size as those on the pommels preserved in Sweden. Stepped rhomboid garnet plates of the smaller size were also displayed individually on one pair of rectangular mounts from the sword belt found in Sutton Hoo Mound 1 (Pl. 5:1), on the dummy buckle (Pl. 5.4) and are found on at least two cloisonn pommels from the Anglo-Saxon hoard recently discovered in Staffordshire.31 The two Sutton Hoo belt mounts share another feature with the clasps cells filled with gold or covered by a sheet of gold (see below), used on these in combination with elbow-shaped plates to create a rope-twist interlace around the border. Belt mounts of this form, generally made in gilded copper-alloy with inset nielloed silver panels, are useful as dating indicators. Borders of simple rope twist interlace, for example, appear on rectangular belt mounts of Type Weihmrting found in a rich Frankish chamber grave at Rdingen (Nordrhein-Westfalen, Grave 7)32 (Pl. 5:2) and in Grave 127 in the large Alamannic row-grave cemetery at Schretzheim (Kr. Dillingen a.d. Donau) in Bavaria (Pl. 5:3).33 Both belt sets included mounts with boar heads at the corners; as Koch noted, both the rope interlace and boar decoration are rare.34 Grave 127 in the Schretzheim cemetery belonged to the phase of deposition dated from 565590/600; Rdingen Grave 7 has recently been assigned to phases 6 and 7 of the cemetery (c. 570610).35 The other Mound 1 belt mounts, sword belt strap distributor, buckle and dummy buckle are decorated with interlocking cloisonn cellwork of a somewhat different nature (Pl. 5:4). Patterns similar to these, using clusters of elbow and mushroom-shaped cells to create focal quatrefoils, however, also appear on objects deposited in the last third of the 6th century, notably on iron belt buckles decorated in Tauschierung (metal inlaying) found in high-status Alamannic and Frankish warrior graves.36 It has been suggested that the introduction and spread of the technique of inlaying silver and gold into iron in Europe was due to the transmission of Byzantine objects through Lombardic Italy,37 but it is unknown whether the decorative patterns were also imported or whether existing cloisonn objects were being copied. Stepped rhomboids do not at present appear on Type Weihmrting belt mounts and are rare in inlaid ironwork.38 Recent garnet cloisonn finds from Staffordshire, England, however, confirm that patterns incorporating small mushroom and small rhomboid cells were contemporaneous (see note 31). On the basis of their relationship to the Vendel sword pommels and to one pair of the belt mounts, it may be suggested that the Sutton Hoo clasps were produced in the period from 560/70600/610, perhaps, given the size of the garnets, on the earlier end of this time frame. The integration of glass into the carpet of rhomboids recalls Ostrogothic-period traditions, taken to new heights of luxury with millefiori glass. Bruce-Mitford argued that the chequered red, blue and white blue millefiori implied the presence of Celtic craftsmen,39 but scientific examination of the millefiori inlays in the British Museum Research Laboratory established that they were compositionally different to contemporary Celtic millefiori glass.40 The canes include a rare translucent red glass coloured by manganese, similar to that found on glass tesserae used on Roman wall mosaics, and there is little doubt that they were made using recycled Roman glass.41 The source and place of manufacture of the millefiori canes, however, remains unknown, although continental Europe must be considered a strong possibility.42 Framing the stepped garnet and millefiori glass rhomboids on the inner rectangular panels of the Mound 1 clasps are interlaced Germanic Style II zoomorphs, inlaid in garnet and blue glass against a gold ground. Like the boar figures, these are defined by garnet plates freely-cut to individual shapes. The interlaced snaky creatures with large eyes find parallels in garnet cloisonn found in Anglo-Saxon England and Frisia.43 The components of Anglo-Saxon Style II have never been subjected to rigorous dating analysis, but it is clear that the shoulder clasp zoomorphs can be associated with the first phase of Style II, Hilund Nielsens Phase D (565/80610/30).44 Speake noted some general stylistic similarity with the nielloed creatures on the silver harness mounts from Grave 9 at Niederstotzingen in Bavaria and the placement of the eye at the top of the head may also be compared to the zoomorphs on the Crundale Down (Kent) pommel and Allington Hill (Cambs.) escutcheons;45 these, however, lack the angled jaw which is a prominent feature of the Sutton Hoo material and which has Scandinavian parallels. The technique in which the interlaced zoomorphs are executed, relying upon large and small areas of gold sheet to realise the pattern, was described by Bruce-Mitford as lidded or beaded cells; the device appears on other Anglo-Saxon, Frisian, Frankish and Vendel Swedish garnet cloisonn.46 Cloisonn interlace executed in this manner, in the form of cable twist, also appears on a buckle counterplate from Ker in the Crimea, originally set with garnet plates (Pl. 6).47 This can be dated to the last decades of the 6th or first decades of the 7th century, a reminder that what Bruce-Mitford took to be a rare and specialised western technique was also practiced in the Byzantine-influenced East. Finally, the zoomorphic filigree found in the interstices between the boars legs, like the Style II zoomorphs, finds parallels within insular and Scandinavian traditions.48 The designs of the filigree differs on the two clasps; like the subtle differences in the length of the sections of the hinges, this was clearly deliberate and in keeping with ancient and medieval jewellery production which tended to regard perfectly matched pairs as inauspicious.
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Plate 7 Vessel mount, Grave 119, Klked-Feketekapu B, Hungary; H: 8.7cm
Plate 8:1 Muthmansdorf type belt mounts, ?Dunapatele, Hungary; L: (of mount with eagle heads) 5.1cm
Plate 8:2 Muthmansdorf type belt mount, ?Rome, Castellani collection; L: approx. 11.5cm
The primary motif of the shoulder clasps is, of course, the magnificent figures of crossed boars on the arched panels. These incorporate large chequerboard millefiori inlays at their shoulders and include some of the largest garnet plates found on the Sutton Hoo jewellery. The boars undoubtedly had particular significance to their owner, which we can only attempt to define. In Britain the boar often had an expressly military significance which can be traced over centuries, from its use as the symbol of the Legio XX Valeria Victrix (which invaded Britannia in ad 43 with Claudius)49 to the actual boar tusk ornaments found at the Late Roman fort at Richborough50 to the later 7th-century boar-crested helmets preserved at Benty Grange and at Woolaston.51 In the late 6th and early 7th centuries the cloisonn sword pommels found in Sweden incorporated cryptic representations of boars and hounds (Hg Edsten, Bohusln) and boar heads (Vallstenarum, Gotland) and a mid-6thcentury continental silver and niello pommel included in the Staffordshire Anglo-Saxon hoard is decorated on one side with addorsed zoomorphs with boar heads at the corners.52 The complete crossed boars on the shoulder clasps remain unparalleled, although the paired treatment is in keeping with imagery of the period. Small copper-alloy mounts in the form of conjoined boars, for example, were used on seax belts found in Alamannic and Frankish graves from the last third of the 6th century through the first two decades of the 7th century.53 In addition a wide range of fittings decorated with paired boar
head motifs, often in association with double eagle heads and sometimes the heads of hounds as well (Pl. 7),54 were a key part of the repertoire of high-status jewellery and ornaments used by the Germanic elites in Europe, England and Scandinavia in the later 6th and first half of the 7th centuries. Individually these animals were associated with Germanic deities, but their combination derived from classical hunting imagery and their conjoined form evolved from ancient steppe conventions.55 In comparison with many of these, the complete boars on the Mound 1 clasps are, given the constraints of cold cloisonn and the space into which they are compressed, remarkably realistic. Yet their crossed position, with their hind legs and snouts touching the ground and front legs dangling in the air, contrasts with both Roman and medieval images of boars, which typically show the beasts running, leaping or seated. Possible interpretations of this position are that the boars are fighting, dead 56 or that boar skins are represented.57 Whether seen as battling animals or trophies of the hunt, these boars have been transformed into a specific visual signal. Such an emblem might have been purely personal, tribal or may have had a more formal role as an official insignia. These lines of reasoning acquire further relevance when we examine the unusual overall shape of the clasps a rectangular panel surmounted by an arch. This form can be paralleled on a class of Late Roman belt mounts known as the Muthmansdorf Type, after a find in Austria.58 Mounts of this type were engraved with panels of sophisticated figural imagery in
Rethinking the Sutton Hoo Shoulder Clasps and Armour combination with chip-carved ornament. Mounts said to have been found in Dunapentele, Hungary, depict boar hunts between crosshatched panels (Pl. 8:1) while an exceptionally large example, said to have been found outside Rome, incorporates borders of cable-twist interlace and addorsed griffin heads (Pl. 8:2).59 Others of this type are decorated with circus motifs, pagan and Christian figural themes.60 The figural style and type of portrait medallions on these mounts date the Muthmansdorf type to the last third of the 4th and first decades of the 5th century.61 Unlike other chip-carved belt sets found in the graves of Germanic officers serving in the Late Roman army, no Muthmansdorf mounts have been excavated in situ in a grave.62 Examples are distributed along the Rhine and Danube frontiers, with outliers in Italy, Anglo-Saxon England and North Africa and we know nothing of the places of production of these large and sophisticated figural mounts.63 Some seem to be personalised with portraits of a helmeted solider and a woman (?his wife)64 and it is possible that they had connotations of civil as well as military rank in the Late Roman bureaucracy. These buckles and their matching counterplates provide one possible model for the form as well as the motifs of the Sutton Hoo clasps, with the boar hunting motifs condensed and stylised, the geometric panels of cross-hatching reinvented as stepped rhomboids and the guilloche borders transformed into zoomorphic interlace. I have argued elsewhere that the revival of Late Roman forms formed a key part of the early Anglo-Saxon aesthetic response to their Germanic and Roman past.65 As for the relevance of animals of the hunt (if this is what the boar motifs indeed signify) to a high-status warrior in the later 6th century, we need only to turn to the Early Byzantine military manual, the Strategikon, where hunting from horseback is described as a complementary discipline to warfare, keeping men alert, exercising their animals and teaching them tactics.66 Although we might propose that the form and decoration of the Sutton Hoo clasps may be traced back to Late Roman official belt sets, the archaeological evidence does not allow us a clear understanding of such an evolution, or functional transformation. Some further insight into the development of these mounts is offered by an examination of the loops on the backs of the clasps, a neglected feature which finds parallels in high-status Byzantine-period objects in this period. PART II Looped versus pinned attachment systems The Sutton Hoo clasps were affixed by means of narrow loops of 1.2mm gauge wire on the reverse; each pair has 20 of these, arranged in parallel rows. Each loop measures approximately 3mm in length with an internal opening of approximately 2.0 2.5mm (Pl. 9).67 The workable opening of the loops is so narrow that modern mounting pins measuring 0.5mm in diameter, when sleeved with plastic, fit snugly within them. The slight halo visible around the loops on the reverse of the central rows of one of the Sutton Hoo clasps may be evidence that the loops had individual fastenings and Bruce-Mitford apparently considered the possibility that each loop could have been secured by a pin, but, as nothing of this sort survived in metal, concluded that they must have been sewn into place against leather or textile.68 The clasps weigh 183.80 and 201.57g, however, and would be difficult to secure with anything other than stout cord. In this instance much later 17th- to 19th-century ornaments with loops on the reverse, widespread from Central Asia and the Caucasus to Hungary and Scandinavia may offer some guidance. Although rows of looped ornaments could be secured by a single thin leather thong or textile cord,69 other looped mounts were traditionally secured by individual short strips or splints of leather.70 These were inserted when the leather was fresh and malleable so that as they dried and hardened the ends expanded and held the object securely in place. As we shall see, multiple attachment loops on the back of objects can be documented throughout the 1st millennium on high-status gold ornaments. Although single long loops were commonly used to fasten gold mounts sleeved with shell collars onto continental and Anglo-Saxon scabbards,71 multiple reverse loops for attachment are much rarer. The great majority of metal fittings made in England in the late 6th and 7th centuries followed the established Roman and Germanic norm of mounting with dome-headed rivets. By the early 6th century in the Byzantine East such riveted systems were replaced by integral cast lugs, pierced at the end; these became the primary method of attachment on belt buckles and other ornaments. Lugged mounts begin to appear on belt buckles in continental Europe and Anglo-Saxon England in the later 6th century.72 The rarer looped attachments appear briefly in the West on Late and post-Hunnic period ornaments in the 5th century and then re-occur in increasing numbers from the second half of the 6th century. Small attachment loops were originally a feature of steppe nomadic metalworking, but were in use in western goldsmithing at least as early as the Hellenistic period.73 In the case of precious metal fittings, round or strip wire was folded into a loop whose ends were then soldered to the backs of decorative mounts or functional buckles and clasps. Once in place objects held by multiple loops were very secure, but at the same time this system, unlike the riveted one, permitted
Plate 9 Shoulder clasps, reverse and side views; W. 5.4cm
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Plate 10:1 Belt mount, Kungota, Hungary; H: 4.2cm
Plate 10:3 Strap mount, Grave 90, Castel Trosino, Italy; H: 4.4cm
Plate 10:2 Buckle, Sirmium (Sremska Mitrovica), Republic of Serbia; L: 8.1cm
greater flexibility in elite dress, allowing ornaments to be added to an existing garment or belt, or removed, for cleaning, repair or transfer to another outfit. The following discussion reviews the three primary types of functional fittings with reverse attachment loops: buckles, hook and eye clasps and hinged clasps. Buckles Although a cloisonn buckle with loops on the reverse was found in a Late Sarmatian period grave of the second half of the 3rd or early 4th century,74 the majority of surviving buckles and belt mounts with loops appear in contexts dated to the second half of the 6th and 7th centuries. In addition to highstatus gold buckles of undoubted Byzantine type or origin,75 variants in silver76 and copper-alloy77 have also survived. Early coin-dated examples in the West include the belt set found in an Early Avaric riders grave at Kungota, Hungary with a solidus of Justinian I (54565)(Pl. 10:1 and Daim this volume, Pl. 5)78 and a gold buckle in a female grave at Perugia buried with 140 coins of Justin II with a terminus post quem of 578.79 In the middle decades of the 7th century elaborate gold buckles and belt mounts with attachment loops are found in Middle Avaric and Bulgar contexts of the highest status, for example the khagans belts from Kunbbony,80 Sirmium (Pl. 10:2)81 and Mala Pereepino,82 as well as the high-status male grave at Bcsa.83 Such buckles seem to represent a fusion of steppe nomadic traditions with Byzantine-period goldsmithing techniques, but not necessarily actual Byzantine workmanship.84 Between these benchmarks we find examples of gold and silver sheet buckles and strap mounts with loops (in some cases for horse harness) primarily in Lombardic graves in Italy (Pl. 10:3).85 Some of these reflect types which are archaeologically
distributed across Byzantium, Sasanian Persia and the northern steppe zone where mounts with multiple loops were also being made.86 They are not, however, imports, but native Lombardic variations, in some cases manufactured in the Preblech technique using dies which copy eastern prototypes.87 Their Alamannic counterparts found north of the Alps were for the most part made in baser metals or were constructed with riveted pins.88 Further north, in core Merovingian territories, loops can be documented only rarely, on high-status mounts such as those excavated in Grave 11 at Saint-Denis.89 In Anglo-Saxon England another pair of clasps with attachment loops survived in a large, male, barrow grave at Taplow in Buckinghamshire (Pl. 11); the grave goods in this deposit range in date from the second half of the 6th to the early 7th century.90 The character of the burial is not dissimilar to that of Mound 1 at Sutton Hoo, although its monetary wealth, in terms of the gold deposited, is considerably less. The Taplow clasps differ from the Sutton Hoo clasps in significant ways,91 but a brief examination of these and their antecedents establishes another means by which we can begin to unravel possible prototypes for the Sutton Hoo clasps. The Taplow clasps The Taplow clasps were found in a textile sandwich and orientated, according to the most reliable plan, one above the other alongside the body with the two halves angled together but probably not articulated.92 They were attached to patterned leather and associated with a textile of red tabby wool.93 The contents of the barrow were greatly disturbed but a few surviving bones and the position of the grave goods suggested the body was orientated with the head to the east94 with the clasps located on the left-hand side.
Plate 11 Front and reverse of pair of hook and eye clasps, Taplow (Bucks) (PE 1883,12-14.2); W: 2.9cm
The clasps are made of copper-alloy covered with gold sheet. Each clasp has three wire loops on the reverse, positioned at the shoulders and toe (Pl. 11). These were inserted from the back through the gold sheet and copper-alloy plate with the ends hammered down and disguised by the inlays in the circular cells at the corners.95 Although made of less robust wire (1mm thick) than the loops on the Sutton Hoo clasps, their opening is actually slighter larger (2.53mm). The clasps were made with one half terminating in a fixed loop and the other fashioned with a hook. Each element resembles a triangular buckle plate, yet they must have served a different function to that of a buckle. This is indirectly confirmed by the orientation of the loops on the reverse of the clasps whose openings are all orientated in the same plane, in contrast to buckles whose loops (or lugs) were set with the toe loop perpendicular to the others, presumably for greater stability. Functionally therefore the Taplow clasps can be seen as unique variants of hook and eye clasps, an object type in use throughout the 1st millennium which was also typically secured by means of reverse loops. Hook and eye clasps In contrast to the elite male buckles and mounts reviewed above, hook and eye clasps have survived primarily in female grave contexts. Early examples of these excavated in situ in 1st-century royal nomadic burials at Tillya Tepe, Afghanistan, show that they were worn either at the chest or neck to close both long sleeved robes and shorter capes or cloaks worn over the shoulders (Pl. 12:1).96 A lobed hook and eye clasp found in a disturbed 2nd-century burial in Tomb 7 at Mcheta (Republic
of Georgia) provides evidence that similar garment fastenings were worn on the north-western border of the Parthian Empire (Pl. 12:2).97 Although this was a female grave, Musche has suggested the clasp represents a type of male cloak fitting.98 A disc-shaped hook and eye clasp in the State Museum of Georgia was decorated in the new fashion of garnet cloisonn, probably in the later 4th century (Pl. 12:3),99 while an unprovenanced pair of quatrefoil-shaped clasps in silver has been considered Sasanian work of the 5th century,100 suggesting continuity of these particular garment fastenings in Persia. I know of no evidence of hook and eye clasps in the Late Antique Roman world, unless we entertain Werners suggestion that the small pair of semi-circular mounts with loops on the
Plate 12:1 Gold disc-shaped clasps, Tillya Tepe, Afghanistan; Diam: 3.3cm
Plate 12:2 Gold, garnet and turquoise clasps, Grave 7, Mcheta, State Museum of Georgia, Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia; W: 5cm
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Plate 12:3 Gold and garnet cloisonn disc-shaped clasp, State Museum of Georgia, Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia; Diam: 2.1cm
reverse from the 5th-century tomb of King Childeric at Tournai (Pl. 13, bottom) fastened a sleeveless fur jacket such as that which Sidonius Apollinaris described as worn by the Burgundian Prince Sigismer.101 These lack hooks and eyes but may well offer some evidence about garment fashions in the Late and post-Hunnic periods. Current scholarship views many of the garnet cloisonn fittings and weapons buried with the Frankish king as reflecting Eastern Roman types if not necessarily workmanship.102 Other ornaments in the grave, such as the bee or cicada mounts and the ox mount, were also made with single or multiple loops on the back.103 Clearly loop fasteners already formed part of the repertoire of high-status Late Antique goldsmiths in the 5th century, even though there is little evidence of these outside this barbarian deposition in the West. Hook and eye clasps secured by loops re-emerge in the archaeological record in the 7th and 8th centuries in Avaric and Lombardic material cultures in Europe. A considerable number of these have been preserved104 and it has been argued that the earliest group of Avaric disc-shaped mounts made in the first half of the 7th century imitate both Byzantine
techniques and decoration.105 An unpublished clasp in the British Museum (PE 1916,2-11.2) has empty cloisonn cellwork comparable to that on the strap end and belt mount from Kunbbony and the strap end from Bcsa,106 i.e. from the middle decades of the 7th century. The British Museum clasp has no known provenance, but was considered Lombardic when acquired. When excavated in situ, the majority of 7th-century Avaric clasps have been found at the jaw, neck and shoulder, indicating that, they, too, were used to close a garment at the neck or upper chest.107 To return to Anglo-Saxon England, the combined evidence suggests that identification of the Taplow clasps as belt fasteners worn one above the other108 must be reconsidered. The clasps could not be adjusted (a key requirement for a waist belt) so their putative belt would have to have been worn very tightly to maintain horizontal tension on the loops. It is probable therefore that the triangular buckle in the Taplow grave served as the primary waist buckle rather than as a baldric buckle, as its disturbed position in the grave has suggested. Furthermore, the red-dyed wool tabby fragments associated with the clasps are most convincingly interpreted as a garment rather than a belt. It may be significant here that the hook on one of the Taplow clasps is torqued and damaged. This could be explained if the clasps were subjected to different tension at different levels. This might occur on a central closing of a cloak if it was very tight, but is perhaps more likely on a coat closing with a flap. Long-sleeved overgarments with flaps crossing from right to left, a type which evolved from steppe nomadic riding
Plate 13 Colour version of Chifflet 1655 drawing of mounts from tomb of Childeric at Tournai, Belgium
Plate 14 Gold and garnet cloisonn hinged mount or buckle plate, Ureki, State Museum of Georgia, Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia; L: 4.8cm
Rethinking the Sutton Hoo Shoulder Clasps and Armour garments, were introduced into the Byzantine East in the 5th or 6th century.109 Two distinct types survive in the archaeological record: those with a cut-away rectangular flap at the front (Brustklappe), known from the fragments of red and green coats found at Antinopolis in Egypt110 and those with an angled flap (essentially the kaftan), best known from an 8th-century find in the Caucasus.111 Such coats were traditionally closed by means of frogs, loops with fabric knots, but the excavator of Antinopolis, Albert Gayet, recorded amongst the groups of fabrics, unfortunately without any specific assignment or context, agraffes de manteau of bronze and iron.112 The conception of a coat with hooks for quick easy closure on the edges of a flap, finished with a band of gold braid offers one satisfactory interpretation of the function of the Taplow clasps. Whether the cut of the red wool tabby cloth in the grave imitated these eastern garments must remain unknown but the attachment loops on the reverse of the clasps reflect familiarity with Early Byzantine period goldsmithing techniques so this is a possibility. We do not know whether the clasps themselves copy eastern forms lost to us or represent a local innovation based upon known buckle types; in any case their Anglo-Saxon origin is reflected in the local and competent Style II ornament with which they are decorated. We might suggest that a similar fusion of influences also define the character of the Sutton Hoo shoulder clasps. Hinged clasps with loops Seen within the continuum outlined above, the Sutton Hoo shoulder clasps demonstrate a similar working knowledge of Byzantine goldsmithing techniques, best documented and dated by finds in Avaric Central Europe and Lombardic Italy. Unlike the Taplow clasps, however, there is no object typology into which we can slot the shoulder clasps. The only clue as to the existence of an object type related to the Sutton Hoo clasps is a group of hinged clasps which survive on the eastern borders of Byzantium. Although we cannot trace a clear link in the archaeological record between these objects and the Mound 1 shoulder clasps, their existence cannot be ignored. The earliest hinged mounts were perhaps associated with buckles or baldric straps, although we cannot be sure of this as they are without context. A cloisonn mount found at Ureki in western Georgia was either married to a buckle loop or formed half of a symmetrical clasp (Pl. 14); it was part of a group of stray finds dating to the late 3rd or first half of the 4th century.113 It is also possible that the famous Wolfsheim pendant, found in a warrior grave of the early 5th century, constituted one half of a hinged mount, perhaps from a sword belt or baldric.114 The epigraphy of the early Pahlavi script on the reverse of this piece dates it to the 3rd century or first decades of the 4th century.115 Recently a complete hinged gold ornament has come to light in a late 5th to 6th-century eastern Hunnic male tomb at Boma, in Xinjiang province in north-western China (Pl. 15).116 Although the inlays are lost, this too was most probably set with garnets in a technique related to cloisonn using a cutaway framework over paste; the cell shapes suggest the inlays were long rectangular plates or cabochon bars, similar to those in use on Byzantine sword guards in the 5th century.117 The pin appears removable but available illustrations do not clarify whether the piece was attached by rivets or loops. A series of hinged clasps with loops on the back have been found in 5th-century depositions in the northern Caucasus (Pl. 16:13). Two variants of these are known, one with two rectangular plates (Pl. 16:1) and the other with semi-circular plates, hinged to form a disc (Pl. 16:3).118 These are made of robust sheet gold covered with empty cellwork; some examples are decorated with a strip of crude garnet cloisonn along the median, disguising the hinge. Only one published example has been excavated in context, in Grave 5 at Gilja (Karaaevoerkessia) on the upper reaches of the Kuban in the northcentral Caucasus (Pl. 16:2).119 The skeleton was in a flexed position on the right side with the hinged clasp below the left shoulder. The grave goods, which included two fibulae of Ambroz Type I and IA, suggest a date for this female grave in the late 4th or first half of the 5th century. Two further clasps were recovered from burial no. 10 in catacomb grave 2 at Lermontovskaja in the Kislovodsk Basin (Stavropolskij kraj), in the north-central Caucasus.120 The clasps were found in the upper levels of the soil filling the chamber of the grave without any specific association. One is decorated with a scale pattern of cellwork and a strip of triangular inlays while the cellwork of the other resembles the Gilja example (cf. Pl. 16:3). The disturbed burial contained the bones of three individuals, two male and one female, presumed to be an Alan leader, his wife and child. The grave goods were a complex mixture of Alanic, Hunnic and Germanic artefact types, with imported glass and beads from the northern shores of the Black Sea; they were deposited over a period of time from the second half of the 5th century into the first half of the 6th century.121 The precise function of these hinged clasps remains obscure. The two sections are movable on hinges which were fastened by means of bronze or iron pins; these are corroded on the examples seen by this author and may or may not have been removable. The loops are made of flat strip wire with relatively narrow openings, suggesting they are likely to have been attached to textile. It seems likely that they were garment fitments worn at the chest or shoulder, but on current evidence this is impossible to specify. No examples have been found with inlays on the main panels and it is possible they were never set with stones, although the cross-shaped and scale cellwork copies known 5th-century cloisonn patterns. This may reflect their manufacture in a relatively remote area where garnet supply may have been a problem and goldsmiths lacked the lapidary skill necessary to cut garnet plates. A more sophisticated hinged double plaque with garnet cloisonn in a mosaic-style pattern was found in a high-status 5th-century male burial in a
Plate 15 Hinged gold fitting, Boma, Xinjiang, north-west China; L. 7.4cm
Adams
Plate 16:1 Rectangular gold, garnet and glass cloisonn hinged clasp (Thaw Collection, on loan to the J. Pierpont Morgan Library, New York); L: 6.3cm Plate 16:2 Grave 5, Gilja, Republic of Karaaevo-erkessia, Russia
Plate 17 Hinged mount (?clasp), Kudenetov, Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, Russia; L: approx. 12.3cm
Plate 16:3 Disc-shaped gold clasp, London art market; Diam: 7cm
kurgan at Kudenetov (Kabardino-Balkaria) in the northcentral Caucasus (Pl. 17);122 it was not excavated so its position and function remain unknown. It is possible that these hinged fittings reflect wider Byzantine traditions in the same manner as the garnet and glass sword guard in Lermontovskaja burial 10, which is a variant of a type found on swords considered to represent Eastern Roman weaponry.123 Kazanski and Mastykova have argued convincingly that the luxury finds from Kislovodsk are evidence that this particular valley was the power base of an Alan elite allied with Byzantines. From this region they may have controlled one section of the Silk Route which ran east from Sebastopolis across the territory controlled by the Abkhazians to the Kuban and then to Kislovodsk.124 In this period the eastern Black Sea littoral stretching from modern Krasnodar through Abkhazia and including western Georgia was occupied by subjects and allies of the Byzantines the
Christian Lazi and the Caucasian tribes subject to them: the Savarians, Abasgi and Apsilii (Procopius, De Bello Gothico, VIII. iii-iv; Agathias, Histories, II.18.6, III.1.5). At present there are more questions than answers regarding the emergence and purpose of these 5th-century hinged fittings, which, in any case, provide only a generic background for the Sutton Hoo clasps. Assuming that the clasps represent female dress ornaments, were both claps at Lermontovskaja worn at the same time? If so, where? Were they truly functional or primarily decorative? And, most importantly, are these Byzantine types imitated in provincial workshops or regional forms decorated in a Byzantine fashion? We have established that mounts fastened by loops functioned as buckle plates and clasps of different types. This brief survey covers only a few prominent forms, whose variants may be refined in the future.125 It remains to be considered how the Mound 1 clasps might have functioned, beginning with their possible association with a cuirass. The literature on armour is extensive and the ancient terminology far from clear, but as no attempt has been made to systematically examine the armour at Sutton Hoo, some of the aspects surveyed below may prove useful for future researchers. Research into both cuirasses and ring mail, the identifiable armour preserved in the grave, reveals intriguing connections which may expand our understanding of defensive armour in the period and the possible function of the shoulder clasps.
Rethinking the Sutton Hoo Shoulder Clasps and Armour PART III The muscle cuirass As noted in the introduction, the potential association of the clasps with armour was introduced by Bruce-Mitfords publication of the Prima Porta statue of Augustus as a possible parallel (Pl. 18). This represents the emperor wearing the ceremonial or parade version of the Greek thorakes (body armour/protection),126 defined in modern literature as the muscle cuirass (Muskelpanzer).127 The majority of surviving examples can be dated to the 4th century bc128 and consist of front and back sheets of copper-alloy secured by long rectangular hinges riveted along the shoulder and short hinges along the sides, allowing the armour to be swung open and lowered over the head.129 Although at least one 4th-century cuirass from Magna Graecia preserves shoulder hinges with pins and chains,130 it is clear that the Sutton Hoo clasps with their small loops on the reverse could never have been attached to metal.131 Nonetheless it is important for the following discussion to understand the basics of Greek and Roman muscle cuirasses and their fitments. The Prima Porta sculpture (c. 19 bcad 14) depicts a Late Hellenistic Greek form of cuirass with short rounded straps at the front.132 These are atypical, as most Greek sculptural representations which reveal the armour free from a cloak show the cuirass plates secured by broad flat shoulder straps, cut-away at the outer edges and laced at the front to rings on the breastplate.133 These were attached to the back sheet of the cuirass and then flipped forward over the shoulders and tightened down into place by means of tabs to rings on the breastplate of the armour.134 This type of shoulder strap was in use throughout the Roman period and sculptural depictions of the reverse of cuirasses show the hinges located on the shoulder blades at the back rather than on the tops of the shoulders.135 These cuirasses were worn over a leather or textile undergarment fashioned with protective strips at the shoulder and below the waist (pteryges). From the Diocletianic period onwards the shoulder straps, like the fabric sash worn around the chest (cinctorium), are often carved as if decorated with large cabochon gemstones (Pl. 19). The colossus at Barletta (probably representing Valentinian I, 36475), cited by Gamber and Bruce-Mitford in relation to the Sutton Hoo shoulder clasps, is one of the latest accurate depictions of a metal muscle cuirass, realistic down to the riveted hinges visible on the side, little changed from those preserved on earlier Greek cuirasses.136 There was no specific term for muscle cuirass in Latin, and in earlier Roman literature the equivalent word to thorakes was lorica. The derivation of this term implied, like the later medieval term cuirass, leather as a key component.137 No complete examples of metal muscle cuirasses survive from the Roman period,138 and it has been argued that Roman muscle cuirasses were made of leather which has not survived.139 Current opinion, however, holds that the classic type was made in copper-alloy or iron, perhaps with a leather lining.140 Most probably the emperors breastplate and high-status parade armour were made in expensive metal, while field cuirasses were composite affairs, made of leather and/or textile reinforced with metal. Parade breastplates made of separatelyfashioned copper-alloy plates fastened by studs to a leather and/or textile support have been preserved; some of these appear to have been worn in association with scale armour.141 To the best of my knowledge none of the considerable surviving Roman period military leather has ever been identified as forming part of one of these or any other cuirass.142 Late Antique and Early Byzantine sources imply that high status defensive armour continued to be made of metal,143 or at least fitted with sections of metal.144 The Sutton Hoo shoulder clasps could never have been fastened to a classical metal muscle cuirass, nor could they have been associated with a leather and metal breastplate, unless we assume the latter was not buried in the grave. Before exploring some alternative proposals for chest protectors, it is important to review the implications of the coat of ring mail found in the grave.
Plate 18 Detail of cuirass worn by the Emperor Augustus (the Prima Porta statue), Vatican Museum
Plate 19 Post-Constantinian torso, Turin, Italy
Adams Ring mail The Mound 1 mail was preserved at the east end of the body space as a substantial folded mass at the lowest level of a group of wooden, copper-alloy and silver vessels. This complex was covered by a large silver dish with control stamps of Anastasius I (r. 491518)(Pl. 20).145 Although badly corroded, scientific examination determined that the mail was constructed of alternate rows of welded or forged rings and rings with copperalloy rivets; these were approximately 8mm in diameter. It cannot be determined whether the mail was sleeved or how long it was, although the surviving volume and length (c. 6062cm) suggests that it was at least tunic length or longer, depending upon whether it was folded in half or longitudinally. The Sutton Hoo mail has received virtually no attention in the literature, yet it represents one of the more exceptional elements in the grave. Mail shirts or tunics are relatively wellrepresented in the archaeological record in Roman Iron Age Scandinavia and Britain,146 but evidence for mail becomes very much scarcer in the Early Medieval period. Depositions of mail begin in the Frankish Rhineland in the first half of the 6th century and continue into the last decades of the 6th and first half of the 7th centuries, with the latest burials in Vendel Sweden. Many of the fragments of mail found in Austrasian Frankish, Alamannic, Lombardic and Vendel graves are associated as aventails with helmets, either of spangenhelm type147 or, in Vendel Sweden, the crested variants which evolved from these and Late Roman parade helmets.148 The role and function of the mail, however, is not always entirely certain in the graves at Vendel.149 In the boat grave at Valsgrde 8, the mail was associated with lammelar armour, perhaps from limb defences and it has recently been argued that the mail at Castel Trosino Grave 90 represents sections of armour rather than an aventail.150 Two mail coats have survived in relatively intact condition: one in an early 6th-century Frankish grave at Planig (BadKreuznach, Rhineland-Pfalz, deposited first quarter of the 6th century) and another in the princely Alamannic grave at Gammertingen (Baden-Wrttemberg, deposited c. 570).151 Both graves contained spangenhelme of Byzantine/Ostrogothic origin.152 The location of Planig grave 1 near the Trier-Mainz trade routes on the Middle Rhine has prompted speculation that the owner served in some official capacity, perhaps overseeing financial transactions on behalf of the Merovingian King Clovis I (482511).153 It is not clear how an older spangenhelm came into the hands of the mounted warrior buried at Gammertingen,154 but another was buried at Morken in the later 6th century, so these helmets were valuable, either because they were still functional or as status symbols. It is notable that the inclusion of the long hooded mailcoat and arrows amongst the military gear in the Gammertingen grave, together with a spear and sword, corresponds to the armament prescribed in the Byzantine military manual the Strategikon (I.2) for cavalrymen of the higher ranks.155 Given the very extensive archaeological finds from the 5th to 7th centuries in the West (now in the region of over 100,000 Germanic inhumation burials), it must be considered remarkable that so little mail was in use, or at any rate was consigned to the ground. It is possible that lamellar armour of eastern derivation was a more common form of body protection in the late 6th and early 7th century,156 but in general the impression is that iron armour was rare and expensive, available only to high-ranking warriors, and perhaps passed down rather than buried. The sparse archaeological evidence for metal armour in Europe dovetails with the literary evidence, suggesting that the famous observation by Agathias (Histories, II,5) that the Franks were ignorant of the use of breastplates or greaves, had validity in some contexts.157 There is no mention of mail in the Lex Salica and it is intriguing that Gregory of Tours (53894) clearest reference to mail (Liber Historiae Francorum, VII.38, circulis luricae) refers to armour worn by Gundovald, a pretender to the Merovingian throne who had served in Constantinople and operated with support from the Byzantine Emperor Maurice.158 Gregorys writings in fact encapsulate the transformation in usage of the Latin term lorica, which increasingly came to mean only metal armour or mail. The description of lorica in Isidore of Sevilles Etymologies sums up the situation: the cuirass (lorica) is so-called because it lacks thongs for it is made only of iron rings.159 Isidore (Bishop of Seville, d. 636), seen as one of the great intellectuals of his age, of course, wrote from an educated perspective in Visigothic Spain, whose Mediterranean periphery then formed part of the Byzantine Empire. The Germanic term bruina (the origin of the later medieval term byrnie, a mail hauberk) appears in the Lex Ribuaria, written c. the 630s but preserved only in later emended manuscripts; this law code of the pagan and war-like Rhineland Franks differs from that of the Salian Franks and offers some proof of their distinct identity. Here (at 36.11) a good mail shirt (bruina bona) was worth 12 solidi: twice the value of an embellished helmet (helmo conderecto) or good greaves (bagnbergas bona), three times that of a sword without a scabbard (spata absque scolio) and six times that of a shield with spear (scuto cum lantia). In Anglo-Saxon England in the late 7th century the law code of Ine of Wessex (Ine 54.1) also uses the term byrnan to describe an armour whose value is equivalent to the wergeld for a man.160 The status of a coat of mail, therefore, is not in question, but we might suggest that the presence or absence of mail in grave contexts may also be indicative of participation in specific modes of warfare. In this respect mail armour, like a spangenhelm, may be seen as evidence of direct or indirect contact with Byzantium, where mail was the primary defensive armour of the elite heavy cavalry of the Byzantines, as it was
Plate 20 Sketch of the Mound 1 mail in situ in the grave
Plate 21 Notitia Dignitatum, 16th-century ms. after first half of 5th century original
for their Sasanian Persian opponents.161 Imperial arms factories were undoubtedly capable of producing mail162 and images of what may be lined coats of mail are shown in illustrated manuscripts of the late 4th-century Notitia Dignitatum lists together with other arms and armour (including breastplates of various styles) under the insignia of the Magister Officiorum (Pl. 21). Eastern Roman arms factories continued to function at least until the end of the 6th century, but, just as no mail has been preserved in Sasanian Persia, there are no certain examples of Late Antique or Early Byzantine period mail, unless we consider the fragments in the 4th-century kurgan burial at Kipek on the Terek (Kabardino-Balkaria) in the north-central Caucasus or, even further east in the 5th-century military leaders grave found at Federovka (Samara) on the Volga, as evidence of Eastern Roman manufacture.163 Both mail and lamellar elements were found in a mid-6th-century Apsilian fortress built by the Byzantines at Cebelum (Tsibilium) in Abkhazia.164 An intact and perfectly preserved mail shirt of the early Khazar period (7th8th or 9th century) has also been found at Kazazovo in Adygea.165 Weaponry such as axes and swords found on other Abkhazian sites have been seen as reflecting the diffusion of Byzantine types via large imperial forts such as that at Sebastopol.166 It is, at present, impossible to determine the age of the mail in the Sutton Hoo burial; if well-treated, it could have been made anytime in the later 5th or 6th century and thus be as old as the Anastasius dish it was associated with in the burial. It is likewise impossible to determine on current evidence where mail was made in either the East or West in the Early Medieval period, although similarities between some of the surviving mail suggests a certain consistency in workshop traditions.167 It is equally difficult to propose exactly what this mail may have looked like. One popular visual image is that of the possible mail worn by foot-soldiers on the decorative plaques on the Vendel Grave 14 and Valsgrde Grave 7 helmets; these are
Plate 22 Drawings of helmet decoration: Vendel Grave XIV (top); Vlsgarde 7 (bottom), both Uppland, Sweden
depicted as short-sleeved garments reaching to the knee covered with ring and dot decoration (Pl. 22).168 In this case the Sutton Hoo mail may have been woven in a single unit as a pullover with a slit front opening or neck flap.169 As we have seen above (Pl. 21), the Notitia also depicts long coats with sleeves to the elbow and split up the lower third, presumably for riding; these are similar to the heavy coats of mail depicted being carried on poles and worn by the riders in the 11th-century Bayeux tapestry.170 This length (but not the sleeves) would be closer to the Gammertingen mail which, with its hood, was 98.5cm long. At Sutton Hoo the mail was at the bottom of a large mineralised and corroded pad with the silver vessels. It remains challenging to interpret the relationship between the textiles, leather and mail in the grave, but it is likely that some of these were originally directly associated with the mail. The textiles directly on the mail included narrow overlapping tapes in a tabby weave, most probably of linen, as well as coarse and fine diamond twills in wool.171 The fragments of mail from greaves at Vendel Grave XI also had fragments of cloth rusted on both sides, suggesting either lining with an outer covering or a sandwich of mail between textiles.172 At Benty Grange in Derbyshire, Bateman, the mid-19th-century investigator of the tumulus found, in addition to the famous boar-crested helmet in horn and iron, iron chain work consisting of lozengeshaped and square iron rods linked by rings; these preserved the impression of cloth over a considerable part of the surface. The iron chain work was found near the helmet but its appearance and large mass led him to conclude that it originally constituted a kind of quilted cuirass, by being sewn up within, or upon a doublet of strong cloth.173 These
Adams discoveries are not surprising as metal armour from the Roman to Medieval periods exhibits a complex interdependence between textiles, leather and metal. Some metal protectors were simply lined to prevent chafing,174 while others had thicker layers of textiles such as linen and felt as defensive padding.175 The description of metal armour in the Strategikon, the handbook of military tactics ascribed to the Emperor Maurice and probably written between 575 and 628 (i.e. contemporary with Sutton Hoo), throws some further light on these European finds of armour. The Strategikon uses the new term zaba (zb; Strategikon I, 2; VII,ii, 15; X,1; XI,2; XII B4, 16, 20 and 23) for the protective armour worn by commanders and cavalrymen. The zaba was a complete armour long enough to reach to the ankles (presumably when riding); it could be worn with a separate hood and could be pulled up with a strap and rings on the coat. The tunic below the mail ranged in quality from linen to goats hair or rough wool and over the zaba an extra large cloak or hooded mantle of felt was to be worn to protect it from the elements and enemy eyes (Strategikon I.2; VII.15). Zaba is generally translated as mail or cottes de mailles but the more inclusive German term Panzer may come closer to the reality.176 One 7th-century source gives the weight of a zaba as 50 litrai, that is, roughly, 16kg.177 This is twice the weight of the almost complete Iron Age shirt from Vimose,178 suggesting some zaba were not only long but also padded and perhaps incorporated some solid iron as well. The term zaba is probably of Turkish or Persian origin179 and it has been suggested that such armour may have been the forerunners of the Muslim kazakan (Ar. kazghand, Persian qazghand) mentioned in later Byzantine sources mail stitched to cloth and covered with a good-quality fabric.180 It would not be surprising to discover that mail in Germanic graves shared some of these features and was backed by and/or covered with textile. The Strategikon passage (VII.15) concerning concealment of the bright zaba mentions the need to cover not only the breast, suggesting this may have been further reinforced with reflective iron, but also the skaplidas () of the zaba.181 This non-Greek term, which may derive from the Latin scapulae (shoulder blades), refers to some sort of metal shoulder pieces.182 The possibility that these shoulder mounts were both functional and decorative is supported by another passage (Stratigikon I.2) which recommends wearing small pennons at the shoulders in order to impress the enemy.
Thorakos and lorikion: chest protectors Literary references to zaba place the term in relation to another type of armour. A law in the Novellae Justiniani (85,4), for example, prohibits the private fabrication of either zabai or lorikia and a Visigothic law issued in the reign of Flavius Wamba (r. 67280) (Lex Visigothorum IX,2,9,13) requires either zaba or lorika (zabis vel lorikis) to be included amongst the essential arms and armour provided by landowners to their men when they joined (or were conscripted) into the kings army. Likewise the Strategikon (XI.1), in describing Persian armour, distinguishes these two types: lrikion (lrkon) and zaba (zb). In later Greek sources lrikion, like the Latin term lorica, came to refer exclusively to mail,183 but in the instances cited above it is probably used in the Roman sense to refer to a cuirass.184 As early as the 3rd century, Sasanian rock-cut reliefs at Firuzabad depict chest protectors worn over mail (Pl. 23)185 and Bivar, writing about defensive armour on the eastern frontier in the Late Roman and Parthian/Sasanian periods, made the interesting point that mail is the only defensive protection that can be worn in combination with other armour.186 Early Byzantine authors writing in Greek continue to use the term thorakos (orko) to mean a breastplate or chest protection.187 In the later 6th century when Gregory of Tours (LHF V.48) described the over-armed Merovingian noble, Count Leudast, cum toracibus atque loricis, although it is clear that he is exaggerating, it seems likely that he meant an actual combination of protective body armour, in this case a cuirass over mail.188 These passages suggest that, as depicted in the Notitia Dignitatum (Pl. 21), two types of protective armour were in use in the Early Byzantine period which could, in some cases, be combined: one to cover the torso, upper arms and thighs and the other to protect the chest. An examination of the latter returns us to the possible function of the Sutton Hoo shoulder clasps. Assuming, on the basis of the above evidence, that torso protectors of some form were in use in this period, of what materials were they made and what form did they take? The following discussion considers some possible organic types and
Plate 23 Detail and drawing of rock relief depicting Ardashr in battle, Frzbd, Fars, Iran
Rethinking the Sutton Hoo Shoulder Clasps and Armour combinations in relation to the Sutton Hoo shoulder clasps. One key consideration which emerges is the question of whether whatever they were attached to provided any real protective function or was largely decorative. It is useful to begin with leather, which has figured large in the popular imagination as the material onto which the shoulder clasps were mounted. It is not totally impossible that the Sutton Hoo shoulder clasps were fitted to a leather chest protector. Desiccated archaeological leather (primarily knife sheaths) preserved in Anglo-Saxon contexts averages 1.5mm in thickness;189 when new this could just about be accommodated by the clasp loops. A stiffened leather cuirass sophisticated enough to match the shoulder clasps would have had to have been very deeply cut-away at the shoulders to correspond to the 5.4cm wide clasps. An idea of what this would have looked like is suggested by an experimental leather breastplate of late 18th-century date in the Royal Armoury.190 Although the sides of such a cuirass could conceivably have been laced together, one would expect it to have been fitted with buckled straps for closure along the sides. The narrow width of the clasps probably would have rendered them ineffective as fastenings for a thin and supple leather shirt or jerkin,191 although a heavier padded leather vest could be envisioned.192 Another possibility would be a cuirass of hardened leather lamellae or large plates similar to the depictions of Chinese armour, which hung from leather or textile straps fastened by means of buckles.193 A leather cuirass would have had some considerable protective advantage if worn over the mail, but if worn alone, whether tanned, oiled, waxed or boiled, would have had few defensive properties.194 Modern scientific experiments testing the efficacy of different types of armour against a variety of weapons have confirmed Robinsons insistence about the inefficiency of leather, revealing plain oil-treated leather (buff leather) and cuir bouilli to be less effective than other organics such as horn and linen.195 The cuir bouilli tested was 5mm in thickness, i.e. much more robust than anything the Sutton Hoo clasps could have been directly fastened against. Therefore, if a leather chest covering is surmised to have existed in Mound 1, worn alone it is likely to have been primarily for display rather than field effectiveness. Literary sources describe another type of classical armour (almost wholly ephemeral from an archaeological point of view) fabricated of textile alone, specifically linen. Thorakes lineoi is mentioned in early Greek sources,196 and later Roman197 and even Middle Byzantine sources such as the Sylloge Tacticorum (an anonymous late 10th-century military manual) continue to describe linen breastplates,198 but these references often seem to be anachronistic or archaising so it is difficult to know whether such things actually existed in the Early Byzantine period. Breast protectors composed of wide bands around the lower chest and waist and with wide bands over the shoulder are depicted on mosaics and wall paintings from the 6th to 8th centuries.199 Similar chest protectors appear with regularity in Middle Byzantine manuscripts, often in Biblical contexts.200 While some of these undoubtedly were conceived of as textile,201 we cannot determine if they represent current functional armour or archaising fantasy. In any case these would hardly have required clasps at the shoulders. Somewhat closer to reality might be the images in the
Plate 24 Chludov psalter, folio 58r, State Historical Museum, Moscow
9th-century Chludov Psalter, illuminated in Constantinople, which depict soldiers wearing plain breast protectors over longsleeved garments (Pl. 24).202 Although at first glance these too appear archaising, the soldiers wear medieval helmets with mail aventails and the rows of protective scales below resemble the later kremasmata or padded and quilted skirt of Middle Byzantine armour.203 Most importantly, the plain torso protectors are not modeled like a muscle cuirass, but are more loosely cut and shown as fastened at the shoulders. Another indirect glimpse of the evolution of chest protectors may be offered by the depiction of the aegis on Athena weights of the Late Antique and Early Byzantine periods.204 This is shown as a sleeveless garment in two sections, joined at the shoulders; the reverse and left side of the front are often depicted as scaled or lammelar armour while the right side of the front is draped textile, mounted with a gorgoneion. On an example in the collection of the British Museum (PE 1980,6-2.12) the brooches which originally fastened the aegis have devolved over time into simple flat clasps (Pl. 25). Variants of the imperial aegis with a gorgoneion which appear on Roman coinage from the 1st to 4th centuries are sometimes shown as fastened by large brooches at the shoulders and on others by simple straps; on 2nd- and 3rd-century coinage the aegis is shown as worn over scale or mail armour.205 No conclusions can be drawn regarding the structure of the aegis fittings from the coin representations, but it is interesting to note that the 3rd-century imperial-style brooch from Grave 1 at Ostrovany, Slovakia, was not fastened by means of a pin, but was held into place by means of multiple flat loops on the reverse (Pl. 26).206 This high-status jewelled ornament was permanently fixed to some sort of garment, but perhaps not necessarily to a cloak conventionally pinned at one shoulder.
Adams
Plate 25 Front and reverse of Athena bust weight (PE 1980,6-2.12); H:12.4cm
Returning to the problem of the Sutton Hoo Mound 1 cuirass, a hypothetical organic cuirass incorporating layers of linen would have considerable protective advantages as linen is the strongest of all vegetal fibres (two to three times the strength of cotton). It could have been used as multiple soft layers, stitched and quilted together, or hardened by treatment with linseed oil and moulded as bands. The experiments cited above testing the ability of different types of armour to withstand attack found that layered quilted linen was as effective as mail in warding off blows from edged weapons and from arrows,207 so there can be little question of its efficacy as protective armour. Linen was one of the main textile types found in Mound 1208 and as linen has been found in Anglo-Saxon contexts across England209 it would only be the concept of such a cuirass and not necessarily the fabric itself which would have had to have
Plate 26 Front and reverse of imperial-style brooch, Ostrovany Grave 1, Slovakia, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Antikensammlung, Inv. no. VII B 306; H: (of brooch alone) 6.5cm
been imported. If the cuirass was not required to be protective on its own, wool, the other major material of Anglo-Saxon textiles, or even fur, may be deemed to have been more appropriate for a northern climate.210 Either of these could also have incorporated other organics, such as leather lamellae or horn scales. If this hypothetical garment carried any weight, through the addition of scales or padded layers to enhance its defensive function, it may have benefited from being fitted onto the body in two sections which could be opened at shoulder level. One or both sides could have been tightened with straps. A strong point in favour of some variation of a textile cuirass at Sutton Hoo is the fact that the torqueing and lateral movement of the clasps as preserved in the grave can be easily accounted for by either linen or heavier wool.211 All evidence of organic armour would have disappeared completely in the acid conditions of the grave. The choice between a protective or non-protective design cannot be resolved, but it is interesting to note that two similar alternatives are recorded in Middle Byzantine texts: the epilrikon (plorkon), a sleeveless textile garment worn over the mail/scale shirt and the klibanion (klbnon), a sleeveless protector fashioned of lamellar splints on a leather and/or textile base.212 Either of such coverings would have the potential of being worn separately or over the mailcoat, as the occasion demanded. The form could have been loose or shaped to the body with straps at the shoulders like a 14th-century gambeson, now in Munich, which was fastened with hinged metal fittings on the shoulder straps.213 It is clear that the shoulder clasps were designed not only to open and close, but to move in a flexible manner, so the possibility that they were mounted on broad shoulder straps is attractive. In fact, as the shoulder clasps were removable, the defensive capabilities of such a cuirass or vest could have been adjusted as required.214 This section has again presented a series of hypotheses, but also a few conclusions. It is quite clear that the shoulder clasps were not attached to a metal muscle cuirass, and, on balance,
Rethinking the Sutton Hoo Shoulder Clasps and Armour not to a cuir-bouilli cuirass in this shape either. The primary armour in the grave was the mail which reflects the high status of its owner. Whatever the shoulder clasps were attached to was likely to have been a secondary and, following the literary evidence, perhaps a complementary armour to the mail. This author prefers to conceive of it as functional, like all of the regalia in the grave, which would tend to favour linen, perhaps with additional components. The evidence must remain wholly inconclusive, yet it is to be hoped that this examination has brought us closer to understanding the reality of contemporary armour. We need only consider the terms used in Beowulf to realise that body armour came in many forms in Early Medieval Europe as well as the Byzantine East. Here, in addition to the famous byrnies, we find words for protective battle wear such as: licsyrce (body shirt) and beadobrgl broden (woven battle garment).215 These may find some new resonance following this survey. Conclusions Despite the absence of clear parallels, the Sutton Hoo shoulder clasps could not have been produced in a vacuum and must mirror developments which cannot be easily traced in the archaeological record. This paper has attempted to establish some parameters by which the mysterious clasps can be assessed. First, the paper has proposed a date range for the clasps. This is in itself a very vexed problem. The proposed dates for Sutton Hoo Mound 1 are based on coin dates, which have varied with each scholarly generation, and attributions to historical persons that can never be confirmed; these in turn have perhaps unduly impacted on continental chronologies. It is well known that Anglo-Saxon England lacks at present any statistical basis for a regional chronology comparable to the very sophisticated systems which have been developed for continental and Scandinavian grave goods, primarily on the basis of correspondence analysis. With unparalleled objects such as the shoulder clasps this would be meaningless anyway so the discussion above has attempted to associate the decoration on the clasps with sword fittings and belt mounts, object types which have featured in chronological and seriation analyses on the Continent. This was done on a stylistic basis, which is inevitably subjective and open to objection, but which does open the door to rational discussion. An analysis of the cloisonn ornament suggests that the clasps can be aligned with continental weapon and belt mount typologies whose period of production and deposition is currently held to be from 560/70 to 600/610. We lack enough information to suggest where in this 40- or 50-year range the clasps may actually have been made, but one factor to take into consideration is the fact that, for whatever reasons, there seems to have been a significant interruption to the garnet supply to the West in the later 6th century;216 this may have been one underlying reason for the increasing diminution of garnet inlays visible in the new style composed with mushroom and elbow cells. The numbers of stones of (relatively large) size and the carpet of matched stepped rhomboids on the shoulder clasps argue for production in an environment relatively unaffected by these changes. Of course, if we believe we are dealing with a royal workshop we might insist that that these difficulties could be overcome at any stage, but on a practical basis it is likely that the clasps were produced when scarcity was not a factor. The confident display of a rhomboid carpet, like the non-zoomorphic rope interlace on the sword belt mounts, suggests these were made at a period when both conservative traditions derived from mosaic patterns and the intricate geometric mushroom cellwork were thriving. Although it could be proposed that the tour-de-force of freely cut shapes used to create the boars and interlace reflects some further stylistic development from geometric cellwork, in reality this meticulously rendered naturalism, like early Style II, is also characteristic of the last decades of the 6th century. The shoulder clasps share this and other features with the purse lid from Mound 1 which, on various grounds, probably also belongs to this period.217 It must be emphasised, however, that the above arguments reveal nothing about the deposition date of the burial. It is clear that cloisonn objects made in the last decades of the 6th and early 7th century were highly valued throughout the first half of the 7th century as they are often found in later deposits or associations.218 The preceding analysis of reverse attachment loops also fixes the clasps in a broader cultural continuum when eastern (steppe nomadic and Persian) influences were strongly felt in Byzantine goldworking. Such loops appear to be evidence of the spread of Byzantine methods amongst high-status jewellers in the West; whether they may also be an indication that the goldsmith who made the clasps had some specific training in a Byzantine tradition cannot be determined. The astonishing quality of the garnet cutting and fact that the goldsmith also had knowledge of the trick of using gold lidded cells to create a design might be offered as evidence in favour of the latter possibility. Finally, it is now important to revise earlier concepts of what kind of cuirass these clasps fastened and mentally erase the convenient visual image of an imperial muscle cuirass in metal or hardened leather. While we cannot reject entirely the possibility of a softer leather or fur garment, it is interesting to note a speech given by a Roman tribune to troops fighting the Avars in the 580s in which a leather jerkin is dismissed as something worn only by a rustic or unskilled labourer (Theophylact Simocatta, History, II.14.2). Taking into consideration the materials and workmanship of the clasps, whatever they fastened must surely have matched them in quality and status. They most probably secured a chest covering incorporating first-rate textile which had either a protective or decorative function or both. These are the relatively secure conclusions we can draw. Conclusions at the next level are more hypothetical but permit some further speculation regarding the historical circumstances in which the clasps might have been conceived and produced. The possibility that both the form of the clasps and their primary design components (boars, geometric panels, interlace borders) might reflect an awareness of Late Roman belt sets places the clasps in a classicising and, perhaps, a perceived official context. If at first consideration the possibility of this derivation may appear far-fetched, we should not forget the remarkable imitation belt mounts on the Irish shrine from Moylough which copied a related variant of a Late Roman
Adams buckle type (or its unpreserved offspring), still available in the 8th century.219 A military belt found in Austria at Iuenna/ Globasnitz, mounted with cloisonn plaques and with a silverinlaid iron buckle, attests that high-status Late Roman belts were being re-interpreted in the Ostrogothic period (c. 493 536).220 In some respects a related situation exists with regard to the crested helmets found at Sutton Hoo and in Vendel Scandinavia: these descend from a particular type of Late Roman officers helmet, yet the stages in this evolution from the 4th to the 6th century are only slowly being pieced together in the archaeological record.221 With the helmet series, of course, there is not the additional problem of accounting for an alteration in function as well. Although no object typology can yet be established for the clasps, it is possible that hinged clasps with empty cloisonn cellwork found in the northern Caucasus in burials of peoples politically aligned with the Byzantine Empire might point towards developments within the Empire itself. Evans kindly published my suggestion of this connection in 1991,222 but no missing links have come to light since that time to clarify the position of these vis--vis Sutton Hoo. Future excavations may indicate more precisely the function and significance of these luxury dress items, often the only solid gold objects in these graves. The increasing alignment of European and Crimean/ Transcaucasian artefact types is an ongoing process which may eventually lead to an understanding of the role played by Byzantium in the diffusion of these apparently international styles. Whatever their inspiration, the shoulder clasps and their cuirass seem to represent an evolutionary step towards later Medieval surcoats and gambesons, designed to be worn over mail. The presence of mail in the grave raises other important considerations about the grave assemblage. How was the mail acquired? If the buried man or one of his ancestors fought as a mail-clad warrior, where did he fight? Skirmishes and aggressive advances are recorded in many areas but the primary theatre of war for northern Germanic tribes in the 6th century was Italy, first in the Byzantine/Ostrogothic conflict between 534 and 554 and later in the often successful campaigns of the Rhineland Franks and their Burgundian allies in northern Italy between 539 and 562. Afterwards, in the 570s and 580s, the eastern Frankish successor kingdom of Austrasia, sponsored by the Byzantines, competed with the Lombards for control of this key political and economic territory. The highly militarised and largely pagan societies of the Rhineland Franks and the Lombardic confederacy thus provided men of two or more generations with the opportunity to interact with other Germanic tribes as well as Byzantine troops stationed in Italy and points further east. As was common throughout the period, ethnicity had no bearing upon military and political allegiance. It is well known, for example, that Narses recruited Lombard soldiers to fight on the Roman side in 551 in Italy (Procopius, De Bello Gothico IV.16.5.17) and that the Emperor Maurice himself raised troops from Italy after agreeing a three year truce with the Lombards in 586.223 In this decentralised environment the situation with regard to arms and armour and their decorative fitments must have been fluid, with innovations evolving within elite warrior groups responding to differing battle situations, in the same way that Maurice adapted Byzantine armour to the contingencies of
fighting the Avars and Persians. Similar arguements might be applied with respect to the evolution of systems of formalised ranking, rewards and display insignia. There would seem to be little question that the arms and armour in Mound 1 to some degree reflect this milieu. Parallels between the type of shield found in Mound 1 with not only Vendel Swedish, but also Bajuwaren and Lombardic shields, were set out by Bruce-Mitford.224 The grave goods recently excavated in another high-status grave, at Prittlewell in Essex, offer further evidence of a high-status man in Anglo-Saxon England who may have been directly associated in some fashion with the Lombardic confederacy.225 The innovation of jewelled shoulder clasps of the sort preserved at Sutton Hoo can best be imagined to have taken place in a military context which preserved some continuity with a classical past. Military regalia, if that is what the clasps indeed represent, is not often thought of in the same light as courtly Byzantine jewellery, yet the production of high-status armour and insignia was fully within the imperial remit in the Late Antique period.226 Representational evidence and a few surviving objects offer a reasonably clear idea of what constituted ceremonial regalia worn by the emperor, empress and their imperial retinue.227 But of the actual armour for defense and display worn by high-ranking members of the palatine regiments or other elite field units such as the bucellarii, foederati and optimates in the 6th century,228 virtually nothing is known, although the production of the majority of arms, if not necessarily armour, remained a tightlycontrolled state monopoly throughout the 6th century.229 The Strategikon (I.2.7; I.2.3; I.2.20-21) is clear about the superior arms and equipment used by the bucellarii, who, in addition to their higher pay, better armament and ceremonial duties, still received, in the time-honoured Roman manner, dona and military awards in gold.230 It is of considerable interest that one early set of silver phalarae,231 which were dona militaria gifted from the emperor to centurions in the imperial Roman period,232 were manufactured with reverse attachment loops which fastened them to a harness designed to be worn over a scaled cuirass. If the shoulder clasps demonstrate familiarity with both Late Roman military belt mounts from the western Empire and hinged garment fittings preserved on the eastern fringes of Byzantium, the possibility that such ornaments were initially conceived in Lombardic/Byzantine Italy must be strong. If we are correct in locating the conception of a chest protector closed with jewelled clasps in this region, it is unlikely that such armour originally conveyed any sense of imitatio imperii in this context, where the formal trappings of the imperium the diadem, purple robes and single brooch were well known. Seen in toto the highly decorated arms and armour, like the more prosaic mail, axe-hammer and spears buried in Sutton Hoo Mound 1, characterise the functional reality of an elite warriors life in the Germanic-Byzantine military world. The image projected by the Mound 1 assemblage was that of a top military commander, perhaps identifiable by his shoulder clasps as a high-ranking member of a particular tribal or military order whose emblem was the crossed boars. How these trappings were seen in a far corner of Europe, of course, might have been another matter. One final consideration might be whether it is significant
Rethinking the Shoulder Clasps and Armour in Sutton Hoo Mound 1 that, unlike the shirts at Planig and Gammertingen which were placed directly above the coffin in the first case and to the immediate right side in the second, the Mound 1 mail was folded and placed at the end. Perhaps the particular association of the mail with the axe-hammer and Byzantine silver encapsulates one aspect of this Anglo-Saxon lords life, just as the garment with shoulder clasps and single long spear set specifically alongside him may reveal another, with allusions to hunting, mounted warfare and processional triumph. Such physical arrangements might also have indicated temporal spheres, defined by possessions acquired in the past or inherited from his ancestors. If the arms and armour represent a warriors operational gear, which surely they must, then we might also need to consider whether direct Byzantine contact, as opposed to gifting through Merovingain intermediaries, might explain how Byzantine silver found its way into the hands of this Anglo-Saxon elite family. Such contemplations must remain speculative. To our distant modern eyes, however, it seems that one clear message conveyed by the Mound 1 burial to those who conceived and witnessed it is summarised by the words ascribed by Ennodius (Panegyricus VIII.5) to Theodoric the Great as he donned his armour for battle: Let them at least say, How splendid he looks in death, if they have not the chance to admire me fighting.233 Acknowledgements
2 3 Bruce-Mitford (n. 1), passim and 51821; R.L.S. Bruce-Mitford, The Sutton Hoo Ship-Burial, Vol. 2, Arms, Armour and Regalia, The Trustees of the British Museum, London, 1978, 52335. Bruce-Mitford (n. 2), 5334, following O. Gamber, The Sutton Hoo military equipment an attempted reconstruction, Journal of the Arms and Armour Society 5 (1966), 26587, at 269, pls L, LIV, LVI, LVII. Bruce-Mitford (n. 2), 534: an equivalent relationship between a feature of a Bretwaldas ceremonial dress and Roman Imperial body armour is not unlikely. L. Webster, The royal image: the Sutton Hoo Mound I ship burial, in L. Webster and M. Brown (eds), The Transformation of the Roman World, ad 400900, London, 1997, 2223, cat. no. 53c. W. Filmer-Sankey, The Roman Emperor in the Sutton Hoo Ship Burial, Journal of the British Archaeological Association 149 (1996), 19, at 4: The best way to account for the obvious differences in all but basic form between the Sutton Hoo clasps and the Roman examples is to argue that they were copied from a representation of a Roman Emperor in armour, such as might have appeared on the cameo from mound three [sic] and at 8, suggesting that Raedwald presented himself as a fancy-dress emperor. Bruce-Mitford (n. 2), 438, fig. 316. Bruce-Mitford (n. 1), 196, 48993, 741. Subsequent phosphate sampling strongly suggested that there was a body in the burial which was not preserved in the acidic sandy soils, ibid., 493510, 52943. Bruce-Mitford (n. 1), 740; idem, (n. 2), 437 (armlets), 5324. Gamber (n. 3), 269; Bruce-Mitford (n. 1), 518, fig. 385. Bruce-Mitford (n. 1), 196, figs 1267; 518, fig. 385; idem, (n. 2), 274, fig. 207. The first field sketch by Stuart Piggott and photographs taken shortly thereafter both show this. On the sequence of photographs, however, it is clear from the position of the chains on the clasps that they have been picked up, perhaps to be cleaned of dirt, and then set back down into place (compare figs 1267 and 385). The relative position of the pin heads has not changed. Ibid. (n. 1), 52021, 543. Key elements of the sword belt, for example, were found upside down, suggesting the belt had been twisted. This led to Phillips and Crawford suggesting that the belt had been hung from the roof of the burial chamber. Bruce-Mitford ultimately agreed with this interpretation but also considered whether the body might have been seated or propped up and then fallen forwards with the result that some of the belt mounts and purse lid fell upside down. The roof scenario is highly unlikely but it is possible that the grave contained other furniture on which the armour may have been placed. M. Carver (Sutton Hoo: Burial Ground of Kings?, London, 1998, 1256, figs 75, 789, 81) envisioned a coffin, but the evidence does not wholly support this (K. East, The Sutton -Hoo Ship Burial: A Case Against the Coffin, Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History 3 (1984), 7782. Collapse of wooden furnishings, together with animal activity and shifting weights of the sandy filling within the grave could account for much of the apparent disturbance. Ibid. (n. 1), 519, 521. Ibid. (n. 2), 534, immediately prior to his comparison with the clasps shown on the Prima Porta cuirass, he states that the clasps: must have been used to join the front and back of a two-piece garment or surcoat, assembled on the body. Ibid. (n. 2), 534. Bruce-Mitford may also have been influenced by Gambers grave reconstruction showing a muscle cuirass opened out in the grave. Gamber (n. 3), 269 stated confidently that: the cuirass was undoubtedly of moulded leather. Carvers (n. 12, fig. 78) reconstruction of the furnished chamber omits the problematic shoulder clasps altogether. R. Jessup, Anglo-Saxon Jewellery, Shire Archaeology, Princes Risborough, 1974, 90; E.A. Cameron, Sheaths and Scabbards in England ad 4001100, BAR British Series 301, Oxford, 2000, 26; P. Walton-Rogers, Cloth and Clothing in Early Anglo-Saxon England, ad 450700, CBA Research Report 145, 2007, 210. U. Roth, Studien zur Ornamentik frhchristlicher Handschriften des insularen Bereiches, BerichtRGK 60 (1979), 7230, at 15764; B. Arrhenius, Merovingian Garnet Jewellery, Stockholm, 1985, 5875, figs 713. In many cases only the central stepped rhomboid is a complete form, inlaid not in garnet but in glass or organic material of contrasting colour to create a focal cross. Arrhenius (n. 17) suggested that some of these stones were traded pre-cut; whatever their source, there can be no doubt that the size
4 5 6
7 8
9 10 11
In addition to the persons acknowledged in the footnotes I am particularly grateful to Angela Care Evans for her patience and insights, and for her observations in notes 11, 68 and 94; to Leslie Webster for keeping me on the right path; to Cs. Blint and Martin Welch for insights and improvements to drafts of this paper and to Paul Mortimer for allowing me to experiment with his replica shoulder clasps. After completion and editing of this text I came across the following relevant article, which publishes two of the Caucasian hinged clasps discussed in this paper: A.V. Mastykova, Sredizemnomorskij enskij kostjum s fibulami-broami na Severnom Kavkaze v VVI vv., Rossisskaia arkheologiia (2005/1), 2236, at 22, 24, figs 1.56, 3. The author calls the clasps imitation fibulae-brooches suggesting they may have been diplomatic gifts from the Byzantine emperors.
12
Notes
1
R.L.S. Bruce-Mitford, The Sutton Hoo Ship-Burial, Vol. 1, Excavations, Background, The Ship, Dating and Inventory, The Trustees of the British Museum, London, 1975, 57888, 673716. The purse in the grave contained a group of 37 Merovingian gold tremisses, 3 blank flans of approximately the same weight and 2 ingots equal to 4 tremisses in weight, the total equivalent to just over 16 solidi. The date and the nature of the coin assemblage are still debated. Core literature includes J.P.C. Kent in ibid., 588647 (proposing the latest coin c. 625); A.M. Stahl and W.A. Oddy, The Date of the Sutton Hoo Coins, in R. Farrell and C. Neuman de Vegvar (eds), Sutton Hoo: Fifty Years After, American Early Medieval Studies 2, Kalamazoo, 1992, 12947 (concluding all the coins could have been struck before 613); and most recently G. Williams, The circulation and function of coinage in conversionperiod England, in B. Cook and G. Williams (eds), Coinage and History in the North Sea World c. 5001250, Essays in honour of Marion Archibald, Leiden, 2006, 14592, at 17781 and 192, who demonstrates that the absolute terminus post quem of three of the coins is 595, which allows a deposition range between 595 and 640. He supports the idea of a random group assembled within an extensive but uncontrolled circulating currency and warns in general against the use of coins for dating purposes in this period. Recently Marzinzik (S. Marzinzik, The Sutton Hoo Helmet, London, 2007, 55) proposed the dead man may have been Raegenhere, Raedwalds son killed in battle in 616.
13 14
15
16
17
18
Adams
of available plates decreased steadily over the course of the 6th century. N. Adams, The Development of Early Garnet Inlaid Ornaments, in Cs. Blint (ed.), Kontakte zwischen Iran, Byzanz und der Steppe in 6.7. Jahrhundert, Varia Archaeologica Hungarica IX, Budapest NaplesRome, 2000, 1370, at 358, pl. VIII.35. Arrhenius (n. 17), 845, 1012, 203, figs 106, 116. She made her argument on the basis of the gypsum pastes used to mount the stones, but pastes may reveal more about workshop traditions than actual places of production. M. Kazanski and P. Prin, Le mobilier funraire de la tombe de Childric 1er: tat de la question et perspectives, Revue archologique de Picardie 3/4 (1988), 1338, present a sensible discussion of some of the issues. Adams (n. 19), 378. Ibid., 367, Hunnic depositions at Pannonhalma in Hungary (c. 42554) and Voshod (Pokrovsk) on the Volga (late 5th or first half of the 6th century). Recently the Voshod pommel has been seen as evidence of a reflux movement of the Huns to the east (A.V. Komar, Aktualnye problemy chronologii materialnoj kultury Gunnskogo Vremeni Vostonoj Evropy, Stepi Evropy v pohu Srednevekovja, Trudy po archeologii, vol. 1, Sbornik statej, Doneck, 2001, 1953, at 44, fig. 411). Gypsum pastes were also used on the cloisonn ornaments in the high-status Ostrogothic/Gepid graves at Apahida and on an Ostrogothic-period belt buckle from Italy in the British Museum (Arrhenius (n. 17), 203), which could suggest a path for the development of this workshop tradition. Menghins Group B: W. Menghin, Das Schwert im frhen Mittelalter, Stuttgart, 1983, 326, 589, 15460. On chronological issues, see: P. Prin, Les tombes de chefs du dbut de lpoque mrovingienne. Datation et interpretation historique, in F. Vallet and M. Kazanski (eds), La noblesse romaine et les chefs barbares du IIIe au VIIe sicle, AFAM, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, 1995, 189205. On the Byzantine origin of these weapons: H.W. Bhme, Der Frankenknig Childeric zwischen Attila und Atius. Zu den Goldgriffspathen der Merowingerzeit, Festschrift fr OttoHermann Frey zum 65. Geburtstag, Marburger Studien zur Vor- und Frhgeschichte 16 (1994), 71110, at 802. In one case, the highstatus grave at Bluina, Czech Republic, the belt buckle accompanying the sword has two stepped rhomboids in white glass (Bhme, ibid., abb. 20.21). On the problem of associating removable sword fittings with ethnicity in burials: F. Theuws and M. Alkemade, A Kind of Mirror for Men: Sword Depositions in Late Antique Northern Gaul, in F. Theuws and J. Nelson (eds), Rituals of Power from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages, Leiden, 2000, 40176. Menghin (n. 23), 59, 67, 312, Type Krefeld-Gellep-Stora Sandviken. R. Pirling, Ein frnkisches Frstengrab aus Krefeld-Gellep, Germania 42 (1964), 188216, at 1946, 20910, tafn 47.3 and 51.1 (terminus post quem of 518 from a solidus of Anastasius I); Menghin (n. 23), 23940. A. Nrgrd-Jrgensen, Waffen und Grber, Typologisches und chronologische Studien zu skandinavischen Waffengrbern 520/30 bis 900 n. Chr., Copenhagen, 1999, SP3b, 7071, 165, abb. 111, 133 (dated here to Stufe III [560/70600] in Aments fundamental chronology of Early Medieval material culture (H. Ament, Chronologische Untersuchungen an frnkischen Grberfeldern der jngeren Merowingerzeit im Rheinland, BerichtRGK 57 (1976), 285336). Arrhenius (n. 17), 1425, figs 16676 and frontispiece colour plate. Menghin (n. 23), 31117, listen A12c and A12e, karten 23. Only two examples have been found in Frankia and the ever increasing number of Anglo-Saxon gold sword and scabbard mounts being found in England again suggests that pastes in this period may reveal more about workshop traditions than fixed places of production. Cf. a rectangular belt buckle (Thaw Collection, on loan to the J. Pierpont Morgan Library, New York); V. Bierbrauer, Die ostgotischen Grab- und Schatzfunde in Italien, Spoleto, 1975, taf. 3.5; V. Bierbrauer, Die Ostgoten in Italy, in H. Roth (ed.), Kunst der Vlkerwanderungszeit, Propylen Kunstgeschichte, Frankfurt, 1979, 161, no. 71b: an Ostrogothic belt buckle with green glass stepped rhomboids in the British Museum (PE 1865.318,1). J. Lafaurie, Le trsor de Gourdon (Sane-et-Loire), Bulletin de la Socit Nationale des Antiquaires de France (1958), 6176, buried with around 100 imperial and pseudo-imperial gold coins, of which the latest were of Justin I (r. 51827), dated 524. 31 Belt mounts: Bruce-Mitford (n. 2), 4605, figs 327, 3301; L. Nees, Weaving garnets: thoughts about two excessively rare belt mounts from Sutton Hoo, in R. Ross (ed.) Making and Meaning in Insular Art, Dublin, 2007, 117. The latter article makes no reference to comparable belt fittings on the Continent or current material culture chronologies. Pommels: staffordshirehoard.org. uk, K 292, K 674. The Staffordshire hoard, found in 2009 by a metal detectorist, consists of over 1,600 Anglo-Saxon objects, including 68 gold pommels. At the time of writing the majority of objects remain uncleaned awaiting treasure valuation, making their exact patterns difficult to determine. K 292 appears to have a pattern of rhomboids centered within circles while K 674 has an overall pattern of mushroom cells on one side and a panel with stepped rhomboids on the other. 32 W. Janssen, Das frnkische Reihengrberfeld von Rdingen, Kr. Dren, Germanische Denkmler der Vlkerwandergungszeit, Ser. B, Bd. 16, Stuttgart, 1993, 1835, tafn 4 and 5 and 185. 33 U. Koch, Das Reihengrberfeld bei Schretzheim, Germanische Denkmler der Vlkerwandergungszeit, Ser. A, Bd. 13, Berlin, 1977, Teil 1, 312, 10002, abb 20.6, 89; Teil 2, tafn 29 and 200. 34 Ibid., Teil 1, 2124, 101. Compare also the recent find of a boar-head pommel from Staffordshire (n. 52). 35 Ibid., Teil 1, 235. Schretzheim Stfe 3 corresponds to Aments Stfe III (560/70 600; n. 26 above). U. Mssemeier, E. Nieveler, R. Plum and H. Pppelmann, Chronologie der merowingerzeitlichen Grabfunde vom linken Niederrhein bis zur nrdlichen Eifel, Cologne and Bonn, 2003, 43, phase 5 (565/580/90), abb. 7, Spa3; M. Herget, Das frnkische Grberfeld von Rdingen, Kr. Dren, Chronologie und Belegungsabfolge, Marburger Studien zur Vor- und Frhgeschichte 22, Rahden, 2006, 1245. See also Menghin (n. 23), 1459, fig. 85, 256, no. 108, 359, List CII. 36 P. Paulsen, Alamannische Adelsgrber von Niederstotzingen (Kreis Heidenheim), Stuttgart, 1967, Grave 9, 36, abb. 1113; R. Christlein, Die Alamannen, Stuttgart, 1979, nos 234, 264, tafn 78, 82. Koch (n. 33), Teil 1, 25, placed Niederstotzingen Grave 9 in the period corresponding to Schretzheim Stfe 3. 37 H. Roth, The Silver-Inlaid Iron Belt Fittings in the Morgan Collection, in K. Reynolds-Brown, D. Kidd and C.T. Little (eds), From Attila to Charlemagne, Art of the Early Medieval Period in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2000, 292307, at 303, 306. 38 For an excavated example, see: H. Geisler, Das frhbairische Grberfeld Straubing-Bajuwarenstrae I, Rahden/Westf., 1998, Grave 667, 2402, tafn 235 and 357, nos 245. 39 Bruce-Mitford (n. 2), 58290, 5949, the tell-tale insular millefiori inlays. 40 M. Bimson, Aspects of the technology of glass and of copper alloys, in R.L.S. Bruce-Mitford (ed. A.C. Evans), The Sutton Hoo Ship Burial, Vol. 3.II, London, 1983, 92444. 41 Ibid., 9346, 944. 42 Recent excavation of a glass-working site at Maastricht produced rods of glass similar to those used for millefiori, but no evidence of millefiori production. The composition of the white glasses, however, was similar to that in the Sutton Hoo millefiori and other Anglo-Saxon glass beads, rather than Celtic glass (Y. Sablerolle, J. Henderson and W. Dijkman, Early medieval glass bead making in Maastricht (Jodenstraat 30), the Netherlands. An archaeological and scientific investigation, in U. von Freeden and A. Wieczorek (eds), Perlen. Archologie, Techniken, Analysen, Kolloquien zur Vorund Frhgeschichte 1, Bonn, 1997, 293313, at 308). 43 G. Speake, A seventh-century coin-pendant from Bacton, Norfolk, and its ornament, Medieval Archaeology 14 (1970), 116; R.L.S. Bruce-Mitford, Aspects of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology, London, 1974, 2705, pls 88, 90ac and 91; L. Webster and J. Backhouse (eds), The Making of England, Anglo-Saxon Art and Culture ad 600900, London, 1991, 57, no. 41 (a gold pyramidal scabbard mount with interlaced zoomorphs in garnet); Treasure Annual Report 2005/6, British Museum and DCMS, 2009, 95, 340, cat. no. 285 (buckle tongue-shield, Thurnham, Kent); Staffordshire hoard (n. 31): K 449 (sword hilt mount). It is not yet clear whether the recent metal detector finds cited in the latter three references emanate from a goldsmith or workshop related to the one which produced the Sutton Hoo ornaments. 44 K. Hilund Nielsen, Animal Style a Symbol of Might and Myth. Salins Style II in a European Context, Acta Archaeologica 69 (1998), 152, at 8, 10, 12, fig. 4gh. 45 G. Speake, Anglo-Saxon Animal Art and its Germanic Background,
19
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21 22
23
24 25
26
27 28
29
30

Oxford, 1980, 46, fig. 16fg; cf. Paulsen (n. 36), abb 44.23. Cf. also ibid., figs 16 m and k (the bodies and heads on a brooch from Nocera Umbra grave 37 and the jaws on a brooch from Toscana). On Crundale and Allington: ibid., n. 15 on 40, 456, 62, figs 3h, 8b, 8j and pls 14b and 15b. Further examples of zoomorphs with eyes at the tops of their heads appear on the Staffordshire hoard material (n. 31): nos K 130, K 567, K 662. Bruce-Mitford (n. 40); idem, (n. 2), 5989; Staffordshire hoard (n. 31) examples include nos K 130, K 284, K 449, K 451, K 452, K 660. Arrhenius (n. 17), 125, 1812, fig. 217; I.P. Zaseckaja, To the Dating of the Dagger from Borovoye-Lake find in Kazakhstan, in F. Vallet and M. Kazanski (eds), Larme romaine et les barbares du IIIe au VIIe sicle, A.F.A.M., Saint-Germain-en-Laye, 1993, 43743, fig. 6 (6th century); I.O. Gavrituchin, Chronologija sredneavarskogo perioda, in Stepi Evropi v pohu Srednevekovja, Trudy po archeologii, vol. 2, Hazarskoe vremja, Doneck, 2001, 113, fig. 40 (late 6th first decades of the 7th century). N. Whitfield, Filigree Animal Ornament from Ireland and Scotland of the Late-Seventh to Ninth Centuries, in E. Karkov, M. Ryan and R.T. Farrell (eds), The Insular Tradition, Albany, New York, 21144, 2123, fig. 1.1, pl. 11.2. The combination of sections of filigree interlace with cloisonn appears on the 6th-century Skodborg brooch (E. Bakka, Die Nordgermannen in Western Skandinaviens, in Roth (n. 29), 24354, at 253, taf. 189, with late Style I filigree); high-status Anglo-Saxon pieces in the Kentish tradition (Webster and Backhouse (n. 43), 26, 4950, nos 9, and 31a and 32a), as well as early Lombardic disc-brooches (G. Monaco, Oreficerie longobarde a Parma, Parma, 1955, 1921, tavv. 14, colour pl. opposite 8). T.W. Potter, Roman Britain, Trustees of the British Museum, London, 1997, 9, 57, figs 2 and 40. S.C. Hawkes, Soldiers and Settlers in Britain, Fourth to Fifth Century, With a Catalogue of Animal-Ornamented Buckles and Related Belt-Fittings by S.C. Hawkes and G.C. Dunning, Medieval Archaeology 5 (1961), 170, at 2931, fig. 10. Webster and Backhouse (n. 43), 5960, no. 46; Marzinzik (n. 1), 402, no. 20. Arrhenius (n. 17), figs 16970, 173; Menghin (n. 23), 31617, nos 75, 101. Staffordshire hoard (n. 31), example: K 711; the opposite side has zoomorphs forming a face mask. Similar animal heads are also incorporated into the Lombardic cloisonn brooch from Parma, Italy (Monaco (n. 48). Menghin (n. 23), 46, figs 1819; U. Koch, Das alamannischfrnkische Grberfeld bei Pleidelsheim, Stuttgart, 2001, grave 64, 2847, abb. 11517, taf. 25.78, 5789, types 12.37.1011 and 12.38.3; Mssemeier et al. (n. 35), Typ Gr8A, 22, 105, abb. 7, Phases 5 (c. 565580/90) and 6 (580/90 610/20). Speake (n. 43), 7891, figs 5g and i, 6l, 12g; Arrhenius (n. 17), 146, figs 15763, 16973; A. Kiss, Das awarenzeitliche Grberfeld in Klked-Feketekapu B, Monumenta Avarorum Archaeologica 6, Budapest, 2001, 3312, abb. 149, farb. taf. V.4 and 3034, abb. 131; E. Wamers, Salins Stil II auf christlichen Gegenstnden, Zeitschrift fr Archologie des Mittelalters 36 (2008), 3372, at 4650, abb. 11. On Germanic animal symbols: B. Ambrosiani, Regalia and symbols in the boat graves, in Lamm and Nordstrm (n. 149), 239, at 26. The boar was the animal symbol of the goddess Freyr. See also Hilund Nielsen (n. 44), 10 who draws attention to the fact that the helmet at Vendel I has eagles on one side of the helmet and boars on the other. On steppe conventions: see the addorsed boars on an eastern Scythian belt mount of the 4th3rd centuries bc (P.R.S. Moorey, E.C. Bunker, E. Porada and G. Markoe, Ancient Bronzes, Ceramics and Seals, Los Angeles, 1981, 156, no. 834) and their descendants on eastern Germanic silver mounts from the Black Sea in the Rmisch-Germanisches Museum, Cologne, inv. no. D2712. I am grateful to Emma Bunker for pointing out that animals with dangling legs and feet not touching the ground are an ancient convention in steppe art, used to signify that the animal is dead. The limp yet naturalistic pose, for example, recalls that of the famous 15th- and 16th-century insignia worn by members of the Order of the Golden Fleece. The early pictorial evidence in: R. de Vilanova de Rosell and F. Domenech y Roura, Capitulo del Toison de Oro celebrado en Barcelona el ao 1519, Barcelona, 1930. Illustrations of key surviving objects in: S. Harold, The Thedinghsweert Golden Fleece of the van Egmonds, at http./ www.antiquesatoz.com/sgfleece/thedingfleece.htm. 58 H. Bullinger, Sptantike Grtelbeschlge, Diss. Arch. Gandenses 12, Brges, 1969, abb. 30, tafn xxxv.2 and xliv; H.W. Bhme, Germanische Grabfunde des 4. bis 5. Jahrhunderts zwischen unterer Elbe und Loire, Mnchner Beitrge zur Vor- und Frhgeschichte 19 (1974), 59, 84, Karte 11. A large fragmentary buckle plate of this type was found at Snodland, Kent (British Museum, PE 1928.0511,1): S. Chadwick-Hawkes, Krieger und Siedler in Britannien whrend des 4. und 5. Jahrunderts, BerRGZM 434 (19623) (1964), 155231, taf. 60,1. 59 Bullinger (n. 58), abb. 30 (Sammlung Diergardt, Kln); G. Behrens, Sptrmische Kerbschnittschnallen, Schumacher-Festschrift, Mainz, 1930, 202, no. 57, abb. 8 (Dunapentele); I. Undset, Archologische Aufsatze ber sdeuropische Fundstcke, Zeitschrift fr Ethnologie 23 (1891), 1438, 312, fig. 37 (?Rome, Castellani collection). 60 Behrens (n. 59), 287, taf. 31 and Bhme (n. 58), 282, taf. 81,7-11 (Krefeld-Gellep- ?circus wrestlers); Bullinger (n. 58), taf. xxxv.2 (Muthmansdorf angel flying above a horse); Undset (n. 59), fig. 37 (Rome Venus with rose or fruit); Museographie ber das Jahr 1896. Rheinprovinz, Trier, Westdeutsche Zeitschrift fr Geschichte und Kunst xvi (1897), 3623 (?Trier shepherd and two sheep). 61 Bhme (n. 58), 83, Stufe II (380420), revised now to the first third of the 5th century (M. Welch, Relating Anglo-Saxon Chronology to Continental Chronologies in the Fifth Century ad, in U. von Freeden, U. Koch and A. Wieczorek (eds), Vlker an Nord und Ostee und die Franken, Bonn, 1999, 318, at 334). 62 See, however, M. Hoper and H. Steuer, Eine vlkerwanderungszeitliche Hhenstation am Oberrhein der Geikopf bei Berghaupten, Ortnaukreis, Hhensiedlung, Kultplatz oder Militrlager?, Germania 77/1 (1999), 185246, at 212, 2289, abb. 17, two examples with scenes of circus animals in combat excavated at a militarised outpost occupied from the second half of the 4th to the first half of the 5th century. 63 Bhme in H.W. Bhme et al. (eds), A laube de la France: la Gaule de Constantin Childric, Paris, 1981, 203, no. 338, fig. 141. Some of the finest surviving examples in silver, gilt silver and niello, have been found, not on the limes, but in Rome: M. S. Arena, P. Delogu, L. Paroli, M. Ricci, L. Sagu and L. Vendittelli (hereafter Arena et al.), Roma dellAntichit al Medioevo Archeologia e Storia nel Museo Nazionale Romano Crypta Balbi, Milan, 2001, 1767, nos I.3.g.68. 64 Cf. late 4th/early 5th century marriage portrait rings (M.C. Ross, Catalogue of the Byzantine and Early Mediaeval Antiquities in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection, Vol. Two, Jewelry, Enamels and Art of the Migration Period, Washington DC, 1965, 4851, pl. xxxix, nos 502. 65 N. Adams, Hanging basins and the wine-coloured sea: the wider context of early Medieval hanging bowls, in A. Reynolds and L. Webster (eds), Early Medieval Art and Archaeology in the Northern World: Studies in Honour of James Graham Campbell, Leiden, in press. 66 G.T. Dennis (trans.), Maurices Strategikon, Handbook of Byzantine Military Strategy, Philadelphia, 1984, D, 165. 67 Bruce-Mitford (n. 2), 523, 5267, fig. 392. The figure cited on 523 is correct. See also Bruce-Mitford (n. 1), 520, fig. 387. 68 Ibid. (n. 1), 519: sewn on to the thick cloth or leather garment as implied by the numerous strong and deep staples on their backs. The argument for stitching to a leather tunic or leather cuirass is repeated in G. Owen-Crocker, Dress in Anglo-Saxon England, Woodbridge, 2004, 113. Apparently Bruce-Mitford envisioned something like split pins inserted into each individual loop in the manner of the fastening of a cap badge. 69 P. Fjellstrm, Lapskt silver, 2 vols, Stockholm, 1962, 148 (Norwegian leather belt) and pl. 5,910 (Lapp belt); J. Fossberg, Draktslv, Oslo, 1991, 187 (Lapp leather belt). I am very grateful to Jane Perry for her discussion on this point at the conference and for these and the references in the following footnote. It is very clear that, at least in the modern period, ornaments which were sewn into place were pierced with stitching holes around the edges rather than having loops. 70 T. Balogh-Horvath, Hungarian Folk Jewelry, Budapest, 1983, 53; J. Perry, A collectors guide to peasant silver buttons, Lulu.com, 2007, 1.10.g and 1.8.c. 71 Bruce-Mitford (n. 2), 2947, figs 222b and 223 (scabbard mounts). 72 Integral pierced lugs appear on the majority of Byzantine buckle forms in the early 6th century: M. Schulze-Drrlamm, Byzantinische Grtelschnallen und Grtelbeschlge im Rmisch-
46 47
48
49 50
51 52
53
54
55
56 57
Adams
Germanischen Zentralmuseum. Teil 1, Mainz, 2002, 2405. In the West, the shift can be documented in the excavated sequence of Visigothic belt buckles. In Ripoll Lpezs chronological scheme, rivets were in use between c. 480560 (Level IIIII); from c. 580 600 (Level IV) both lugged and riveted systems were in use and from c. 640 onwards (Level V), pierced lug systems predominate: G. Ripoll Lpez, Materiales funerarios de la Hispania Visigoda: problemas de chronologa y tipologa, in P. Prin (ed.), GalloRomains, Wisigoths et Francs en Aquitaine, Septimanie et Espagne, A.F.A.M., Rouen, 1991, 11332. Sixth- and 5th-century bc Scythian examples: M.I. Artamanov, The Splendor of Scythian Art, New York and London, 1969, pls 62, 735, 2645. A 3rd-century bc Greek example: S. Knzl, Ein griechisches Goldmedaillon aus Makedonien, JbRGZM 47/1 (2000) (2002), 32935, taf. 27 and farbtaf. 1.1, and M. Fecht, S. Greiff and U. Herz, Untersuchungen zu antiken Herstellungstechniken am Beispiel eines griechischen Goldmedaillons, ibid., 33753, abb. 1. See also n. 96 below for 1st century ad examples on nomadic jewellery from Bactria. S. Bezuglov and I. Zacharov, Bogatoe pogrebenie pozdnerimskogo vremeni bliz Tanaisa, Isvestija Rostovskogo Oblastnogo Muzeja Kraevedenija 6 (1989), 4266, at 44, 569, figs 2.1 and 4.1; Adams (n. 19), 27, from a grave at Nedvigovka on the site of the cemetery of the ancient city of Tanas on the Don. . Garam, ber die Beziehung der byzantinischen Goldschnallen und der awarenzeitlichen Pseudoschnallen, in Blint (n. 19), 216 27, at 2217, fig. 3; J. Werner, Byzantinische Grtelschnallen des 6. und 7. Jahrhunderts aus der Sammlung Diergardt, Klner Jahrbuch fr Vor- und Frhgeschichte 1 (1955), 3648, at 41, taf. 6, 9ac and 37, taf. 4.8; A. Bank, Byzantine Art in the Hermitage Museum, Leningrad, 1960, 348, no. 105 (said to be from Mersin in Cilicia, late 6th century); Ross (n. 64), 46, no. 2C, pl. VII.2 (Latakia, Syria); 78, no. 4F pl. X.F (?Constantinople); 810, no. 5, pl. XI.A and B (Sicily) and 1012, no. 6H, pl. XIV (Constantinople or Syria); A. Garside (ed.), Jewelry. Ancient to Modern, Walters Art Gallery, New York, 1980, 153, nos 4312 (Hamah, Syria); A.I. Ababin, Chronologiya mogilnikov Krima pozdnerimskogo i rannesrednevekovogo vremeni, Materialy po archeologii, istorii i etnografii Tavrii 1 (1990), 42, fig. 43 (gold, Eski-kermen sklep 273, 7th century); Cs. Blint, Kontakte zwischen Iran, Byzanz und der Steppe, in F. Daim (ed.), Awarenforschungen I, Vienna, 1992, taf. 28.23; A. Gonosov and C. Kondoleon, Art of Late Rome and Byzantium in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, 1994, 1447, no. 53; Arena et al. (n. 63), 3734, no. II.4.586. See Entwistle, this volume, no. 2, dated stylistically to the 7th century. Garam (n. 75), fig. 1.2; Ababin (n. 75), 47, fig. 44.4 (Luistoe, sklep 10, 7th century). See also M.M.P. Abramova, Novye materialy rannesrednevekovyh mogilnikov Severnogo Kavkaza, Sovetskaja Archeologija 9 (1982/2), 13555, at 138, 146, fig. 3.24 and fig. 4 for an enamelled example excavated in a late 7th early 8th century grave at Direktorskaja Gorka in the northern Caucasus. . Garam, Die mnzdatierten Grber der Awarenzeit, in Daim (n. 75), 135307, at 1378, tafn 1 and 2. See Daim, this volume, Pl. 5. Schulze-Drrlamm (n. 72), 712, abb. 26. E.H. Tth and A. Horvth, Kunbbony. Das Grab eines Awarenkhagans, Kecskemt, 1992, 97108, 11011, cat. nos 16, 1112, tafn IIIV. See Blint, this volume, Pls. 28 and 33. I. Popovi, Zlatni avarski pojacs iz okolin Sirmijuma (Golden Avarian Belt from the Vicinity of Sirmium), Belgrade, 1997, figs 16, 8, 11, 14, 16, 24, 26, 27, 29, 35b. V. Zalesskaya, Z. Lvova, B. Marshak, Y. Molodkovets, The Treasures of Khan Kubrat, St Petersburg, 1997, 1057, nos 3848, fittings and pseudo-buckle-shaped belt mounts. N. Fettich, Die Metallkunst der landnehmenden Ungarn, Archaeologica Hungarica XXI (1937), pl. CXIX. Further examples in Fettich (ibid.), pl. CXXVIII,1; . Garam, Funde byzantinischer Herkunft in der Awarenzeit von Ende des 6. bis zum Ende des 7. Jahrhunderts, Monumenta Avarorum Archaeologica, vol. 5, Budapest, 2001, 8890, taf. 3. It is notable that other belt buckles of Byzantine type found in Avaric graves of lesser status were manufactured with pierced lugs rather than loops (ibid., 2001, taf. 54.2,4 and tafn 5574) while many ordinary copper-alloy belt mounts of the Avaric period continued to be attached by means of domed rivets (Fettich (ibid.), passim). R. Mengarelli, La necropoli barbarica di Castel Trosino, Monumenti antichi della Accademia dei Lincei 12 (1902), 145380, at 2378, figs 93, 95 (Tomb 37.5); 2623 and 266, figs 12931 and 134 (Tomb 90.11, 1516 and 21); 2867, figs 167, 1702 (Tomb 119.15 and 1820); 325, fig. 232 (Tomb 178.4); P. Pasqui and R. Paribeni, Necropoli barbarica di Nocera Umbra, Monumenti antichi della Accademia dei Lincei 25 (1918), 138352, at 163, fig. 7 (Tomb 1); 250 1, figs 100 and 101 (Tombs 534) and 283, fig. 143 (Tomb 85); O. von Hessen, Secondo contributo all archeologia longobarda in Toscana. Reperta isolate e di provenienza incerta, Accademia Toscana de Scienze e Lettere La Colombaria Studi XLI (1975), 1415, fig. 1.2 (Chiusi); Arena et al. (n. 63), 3745, no. II.4.586. Cs. Blint, Vestiges archologiques de lpoque tardive des Sassanides et leurs relations avec les peuples des steppes, Acta Archaeologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae XXX/12 (1978), 173212, figs 8.2, 4, 15, 20, 22 and 14.9a; Blint in Daim (n. 75), 309 507. Paulsen (n. 36), 623. O. von Hessen, Primo contributo all archeologia longobarda in Toscana. Le necropoli, Accademia Toscana de Scienze e Lettere La Colombaria Studi XVIII (1971), 31, tav. 10 (Arcisa Tomb 5); and possibly 745, tavv. 389 (Gracia Tombs 50, 60). See also the discussion by Cs. Blint on Preblech in this volume. Compare the range of mounts illustrated by Paulsen (n. 36), abb. 30.2 and see n. 84 above. M. Fleury and A. France-Lanord, Les trsors mrovingiens de la Basilique de Saint-Denis, Luxembourg, 1998, 262, II268, 31; the square belt plaque was made with loops while the accompanying buckle and counterplate were made with pierced lugs concealed under separately made domes on the upper side. The locking mechanism of the Sutton Hoo great gold buckle was made in the same manner: Bruce-Mitford (n. 2), 5389, figs 3989. J. Stevens, On the remains found in an Anglo-Saxon tumulus at Taplow, Bucks, Journal of the British Archaeological Association XL (1884), 6171; L. Webster in Webster and Backhouse (n. 43), 556; L. Webster, Taplow, Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde Bd. 35 (2007), 6972. The grave goods included a sword, two shields, a barbed throwing spear and two further spears, a gold buckle with a cloisonn loop, drinking horns, four stemmed glasses, a footed bronze vessel, a lyre, gaming pieces, a cauldron and tubs as well as a large quantity of gold braid in two sizes from garments. They are flat, not curved, as Bruce-Mitfords photograph and text (n. 2, 534, pl. 22b) misleadingly suggest. Given the antiquarian nature of the Taplow excavation, there are no particularly satisfactory grave plans. The 1843 plan preserved in the notebooks kept by Dr John Stevens, who was present at the excavation, is more accurate than the later 1882 plan with a corpse inserted amongst the grave goods, which have been adjusted to correspond to the body (cf. Bruce-Mitford (n. 40), 704, figs 509 and 716, fig. 523b). A third grave plan also exists. I am grateful to Leslie Webster, who is preparing a monograph on the grave, for her opinion regarding the validity of these plans and for information regarding the textile and leather associated with the clasps. Webster 2007 (n. 90), 70. Stevens (n. 90), 656. The corpse was not buried in a coffin, but was on a bier. It is possible that this was also the situation in Mound 1 at Sutton Hoo. The latter, a device typical of riveted attachment systems, is also found on the buckle from Grave 11 at Saint-Denis: Fleury and France-Lanord (n. 89), 262, II267. V. Sarianidi, The Golden Hoard of Bactria from the Tillya-tepe. Excavations in Northern Afghanistan, New York, 1985, 2034, 4653, ill. on 12. These outer garments were spangled with small gold and inlaid garment plaques, pierced and stitched into place. V. Schlitz, Tillya Tepe, the Hill of Gold: A Nomad Necropolis, in F. Hiebert and P. Cambon (eds), Afghanistan, Hidden Treasures from the National Museum Kabul, Washington DC, 2008, 21993, at 234, 244, 2546 and 286, nos 37, 39, 7980, 136; see also 266, no. 106, shoe or trouser ankle discs with loops found in Tomb IV, the male grave in the complex. A.M. Apakidze et al., Mcheta. Itogi archeologieskix issledovanii. Archeologieskie pamyatniki Armazis-chevi po raskopkam 193746 g.g., Tbilisi, 1958, 103, fig. 52, no. 18ab, col. pl. X.1, pl. lxxx.1; A. Javakhishvili and G. Abramishvili, Jewellery and Metalwork in the Museums of Georgia, Leningrad, 1986, 50. As at Tillya Tepe, 111 rosette-shaped garment plaques set with garnets and over 5,000
73
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87
74
88 89
75
90
91 92
76 77
78 79 80 81 82 83 84
93 94 95 96
97
85

smaller gold plaques studded the clothing. A large circular agate in a gold mount was also attached by rows of loops (ibid., 1958, fig. 52, nos 19ac). This is considered to be the burial place of the regional families (the eristhavi or pitiaxes) ruling when Iberia was under the political and cultural sway of the Parthians. 98 B. Musche, Vorderasiatischer Schmuck zur Zeit der Arsakiden und der Sasaniden, Leiden, 1988, 271, no. 14, taf. xcviii. She classed the piece with belt buckles, but in form and function it is closer to her class of symmetrical male cloak clasps, known only from sculptural representations at Nemrd Da and Hatra (ibid., 269 70, nos 1.2.4.2.111, taf. xcvii). 99 State Museum of Georgia, Tbilisi, inv. no. 4164:5. I am grateful to the late O.M. Lordkipanidze and A. Jakashishvili for allowing me to examine and photograph these pieces during my study visit to Georgia financed by a British Academy Small Research Fund Grant in 1997. 100 E. Errington and J. Cribb (eds), The Crossroads of Asia. Transformation in Image and Symbol in the Art of Ancient Afghanistan and Pakistan, Cambridge, 1992, 1489. The entry notes that paired clasps of similar shape are depicted as cape and cloak closures on Sasanian sculptures in Iran. 101 Abb Cochet, Le tombeau de Childric I.er roi des Francs, Paris, 1859, 1956, fig. 7; J. Werner, Neue Analyse des Childerichgrabes von Tournai (Kurzfassung), Rheinische Vierteljahrsbltter 35 (1971), 436, at 45. 102 Arrhenius (n. 17), 100, 10613; Kazanski and Prin (n. 20), 22; Adams (n. 19), 378. 103 Current scholarship (Kazanski and Prin [n. 20], 17) tends to follow the hypothesis advanced by K. Bhner (summarised in Childerich von Tournai (Childerichgrab), Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde 3/4 [1981], 44160) that the bees or cicadas served as horse harness ornaments; M. Schulze-Drrlamm has recently suggested that the ox mount was a plume holder for a bridle (Beigaben aus dem Grab des Frankenknigs Childerich in Tournai, Belgien, Jahresbericht des RGZM 47/2 (2000, Mainz 2002), 7578). Given the evidence assembled in this paper, the possibility that some of the small ornaments with loops were personal ornaments as Werner (n. 101) suggested, attached to belts, garments, headgear or even armour, which we cannot now easily reconstruct, should not be completely rejected. 104 B. Krti and E. Wicker, Bemerkungen zur Agraffenfrage der Awarenzeit, Zalai Mzeum 3 (1991), 1935; Cs. Balogh, Az Avar kori prselt, lemezes boglrok (Die Awarenzuitlichen gepreten blechernen Agraffen), A Mra Ferenc Mzeum vknyve Studia Archaeologica VI (2000), 21935. Taking the form of paired discs, ovals or squares, they were manufactured in gold, silver and copper-alloy, and sometimes inlaid with glass. High-status examples in gold are decorated with granulation, filigree wire and set with precious stones (Garam (n. 84), 517, fig. 5, tafn 34, 36.5, 37; farbtafn XIX.3 and XX.12). 105 Balogh (n. 104), 229. The 8th-century Avaric clasps from Dunapataj in Hungary and the late 7th early 8th-century clasps from Romanovskaja stanica (Rostov-on-Don) are decorated with classicising ornament which is certainly Byzantine in origin: Krti and Wicker (n. 104), taf. 37 and XX.2; . Garam, ber das awarenzeitliche goldene Agraffenpaar von Dunapataj, Folia Archaeologia 40 (1989), 13753. 106 Tth and Horvth (n. 80), abb. 48.12, abb. 50.2. 107 Balogh (n. 104), 2246; Krti and Wicker (n. 104), 21, suggest this may have been a shoulder cape, citing a Sogdian painting showing such a garment with ends tapering to disc shapes. 108 Owen-Crocker (n. 68), 1956 and Walton-Rogers (n. 16), 21213, fig. 5.64, based on the 1882 grave plan (see n. 90) and following the identification (belt clasps) and grave reconstruction by E. Crowfoot and S. Chadwick Hawkes, Early Anglo-Saxon Gold Braids, Medieval Archeology 11 (1967), 4286, at 4450, pl. IX, fig. 12. 109 D. Bnazeth and P. Dal-Pr, Quelques remarques propos dun ensemble de vtement de cavaliers dcouverts dans des tombes gyptiennes, in Vallet and Kazanski (n. 47), 36782, at 3689; C. Fluck and G. Vogelsang-Eastwood (eds), Riding Costume in Egypt, Leiden, 2004. Variations of these garments appear in Sasanian Persian (G. Vogelsang-Eastwood, Sasanian Riding-Coats: the Iranian Evidence, in Fluck and Vogelsang-Eastwood (ibid.), 209 31) and Central Asian art (A.M. Belenizki, Mittelasien Kunst der Sogden, Leipzig, 1980, no. 15). 110 Bnazeth and Dal-Pr (n. 109), 370. The well-studied fragments from Antinoplis were made in wool carded to give a soft furry surface, dyed in solid red or blue-green and finished with bands of coloured wool or applied silk. As they were made with non-native cashmere wool and silk, they were either imports or assembled from imported fabrics, following Persian fashion. As so few examples survived in the many thousands of tombs, they have been interpreted as representing the presence of foreigners, perhaps in the service of the emperor. Recent carbon dating places two coats in Berlin between 529602 and 438558 (with 68.2% confidence) or 443637 and 428600 (with 95.4% confidence)(A. de Moor, M. van Strydonck and C. Verhecken-Lammens, Radiocarbon Dating of two Sasanian Coats and three PostSasanian Tapestries, in Fluck and Vogelsang-Eastwood (n. 109), 1818, at 184). 111 A. Jeroussalimskaja, Le caftan aux simourghs de Mochtechevaja Balka (Caucase Septentrional), Studia Iranica 7/2 (1978), 183211. 112 A. Gayet, Compte rendu des fouilles effectues Antino au cours de lhiver 189697, Annales du muse Guimet 26/3 (1897), 5562 at 612. 113 Arrhenius (n. 17), figs 200 and 202, 163 (published as a pendant as she was unaware of the loops on the reverse); Adams (n. 19), 27, pl. VI.7. Arrhenius (n. 17), 1678, figs 201 and 204, pointed out the resemblance of the shape to the Childeric ox mount and to similar stylised garnets and garnet cloisonn on other Merovingian objects. 114 L. Trmpelmann, Die Sasaniden, in H. Roth (ed.) Kunst der Vlkerwanderungszeit, Propylen Kunstgeschichte IV, Berlin, 1979, 10720, at 117. Quasts (D. Quast, Das Pektorale von Wolfsheim, Kr. Mainz-Bingen, Germania 77 (1999), 70518) recent reconstruction of this piece as a bracelet segment is not entirely convincing as the fixed hinge elements on the sides of the central portion of such bracelets are always symmetrical: cf. C. Lepage, Les bracelets de luxe romains et byzantins du IIe au Ve sicle. tude de la forme et de la structure, Cahiers Archologiques XXI (1971), 123, at 7, figs 1314; Musche (n. 98), 210, 8.1.14, taf. LXXXV; R. Wrth and D. Planck (eds), Die Schraube zwischen Macht und Pracht, Das Gewinde in der Antike, Sigmaringen, 1995, 1201, 168 9, nos E 2.3 and E 2.4, abb. 845. 115 Adams (n. 19), 22, pl. IV.2, for modern readings of the script. 116 An Yingxin, Xinjiang yili zhaosuxian gumuzang chutu jinyinqi deng zhengui wenwu (The gold and silver unearthed from Zhaosu county, Yili, Xinjiang), Wenwu 9 (1999), 9, no. 13; A. Koch and B. Anke (eds), Attila und die Hunnen: Begleitband zur Ausstellung im Historischen Museum der Pfalz, Speyer, Stuttgart, 2007, 137. 117 Adams (n. 19), 16, Class III, fig. 2 and 3940, pls IXX. 118 Disc-shaped clasps: V. Kuznecov, Deux tombes Alaines des Ve-VIe s. Klin-Yar (Caucase du Nord), in M. Kazanski and V. Soupault (eds), Les sites archologiques en Crime et au Caucase durant lAntiquit tardive et le haut Moyen-Age, Colloquia Pontica 5, Leiden, 2000, 15392, at 166, fig. 12 (Kislovdosk); Htel Drouot, Paris, Bijoux-Cames-Intailles, vendredi 26 Mars 2004, 223, no. 140, ex-collection Feuardent, mis-identified as Egyptian. Rectangular clasps: T.M. Minaeva, Rasjkopki svjatilia iz mogilnika vozle gorodia, Gilja v 1965 g., in A.K. Ambroz and I. Erdeli (eds), Drevnosti epohi velikogo pereselenija narodov VVIII vv, Moscow, 1982, 22234, at 2303, figs 6.7 and 7; A.P. Runi, Zahoronenie vodja pohi rannego Srednevekovja iz Kislovodskoi kotloviny, Sovetskaja Archeologija 3 (1976), 25666, at 264, fig. 5.89; Adams forthcoming 2011. 119 Minaeva (n. 118). Accompanying grave goods included glass beads, pottery vessels, a glass cup with blue dots, a Sarmatianstyle mirror, and a pair of gold earrings. 120 Runi (n. 118). The extensive grave goods included numerous small buckles and fittings with garnet inlays (one in gold and garnet cloisonn with an eagle-head plate), two fibulae, a sword with a glass cloisonn guard, a Sarmatian-style mirror, beads, a horse bridle, a Hunnic-style hard saddle mount and imported glass vessels with blue dots. 121 M. Kazanski and A. Mastykova, Les lments germaniques dans la civilisation de la population du Caucases du Nord lpoque des grandes migrations, in C. von Carnap-Bornheim (ed.), KontaktKooperation-Konflikt. Germanen und Sarmaten zwischen dem 1. und dem 4. Jahrhundert nach Christus, Neumnster, 2003, 13576, at 146, fig. 9. 122 N. Fettich, A Szeged-Nagyszkssi hun fejedelmi srlelet (La
Adams
trouvaille de tombe princire hunnique Szeged-Nagyszkss), Archaeologica Hungarica XXXII (1953), 14850, 185, pl. xxxviii.21. The reverse of this has never been published and the piece is mounted in a way so that it cannot now be examined. I am grateful to Dr Anna Jerusalimskaja at the State Hermitage Museum for conveying the latter information to me. Adams (n. 19), 3840, pls VIII.12, IX.1b1e, XI.13; M. Kazanski and A. Mastykova, Le Caucase du Nord et la rgion mditerranenne aux 5e 6e sicles, Eurasia Antiqua 5 (1999), 523 73, at 5257, 529. Kazanski and Mastykova (n. 123), 5656. In Anglo-Saxon England alone a little-known group of small hinged clasps with plates in the shape of triangular buckle plates have been found which deserve further study (cf. R.A. Smith, A Guide to the Anglo-Saxon and Foreign Teutonic Antiquities in the Department of British and Medieval Antiquities, British Museum, London, 1923, 76, fig. 89). L. Tarassuk and C. Blair (eds), The Complete Encyclopedia of Arms and Weapons, New York, 1982, 148. C.C. Vermeule, Hellenistic and Roman Cuirassed Statues, Berytus XIII (1959), 182; H.R. Robinson, The Armour of Imperial Rome, Arms and Armour Press, London, 1975, 14752. A. Hagemann, Griechische Panzerung, I Teil: Der Metallharnisch, Leipzig and Berlin, 1919, 3371, frontispiece, abb. 39, 469, 61, 76. Armour in the form of a male torso was developed in the late 6th and early 5th centuries bc; most complete examples come from grave contexts in Magna Graecia, although metal cuirasses and cuirass sections have also been found in Etruscan contexts, at Olympia in Greece and in Scythian territories on the northern shores of the Black Sea. Vermeule (n. 127), 13, n.14, draws attention to a Hellenistic relief in the Louvre depicting satyrs making armour at the forge of Hephaistos which includes a finished metal cuirass. Hagemann (n. 128), 49, 65, frontispiece and abb. 61. As Cameron (n. 16), 26, rightly surmised. Vermeule (n. 127), 5, 1718, 34, no. 13, pl. 3. The straps were perhaps reduced to accommodate the elaborate decorative reliefs on such breastplates. On the Prima Porta statue the straps are represented as riveted at the front; the back is, in common with most cuirassed statuary, left uncarved: cf. H. Khler, Die Augustusstatue von Prima Porta, Cologne, 1959, taf. 10. Vermeule (n. 127), passim. Short shoulder straps or clasps appear on a few other western statues of Augustan and Julio-Claudian date, but sculptures from the Flavian, Trajanic and Hadrianic periods onwards consistently depict long rectangular straps closer to the older Greek cuirass type. Some representations show a strap at the back of the armour where as Robinson (n. 127), 149 notes: it must have been permanently fastened and provided the other half of the hinge. S.F. Pfahl, Das rmische Bronzetropaeum von Lorch und verwandete Stcke, Fundberichte aus Baden-Wrttemberg 18 (1993), 126, no. 6, abb. 5, 1st century. The other functional riveted hinges known on Roman metal armour are located just below the shoulders at the front on lorica segmentata, composed of flat and hooped sections of plate. M.C. Bishop (Lorica Segmentata, Vol. 1, A Handbook of Articulated Roman Plate Armour, JRMES Monograph No. 1, Armatura Press, Duns, Berwickshire, 2002, 1) notes that this is a Renaissance term; the Romans may have referred to these as lorica lamminata. Vermeule (n. 127), pl. xxvi, 79. The term is often cited as deriving from lorum (leather straps), based upon a passage in Varro (116 27 bc; De Lingua Latina, VL.L.5.116): lorica quod e loris de corio crudo pectoralia faciebant, but the etymology is unusual: cf. A. Ernout and A. Meillet, Dictionnaire tymologique de la Langue Latine, Paris, 1967. Cuirass derives from Old French (cuir) from the Latin (corius, hide or leather) and is first recorded in 12th- century medieval texts: P. Bastien, Le buste montaire des empereurs romains, Wetteren, 1992, 259. Vermeule (n. 127), 45; Robinson (n. 127), 147. The lack of preservation of Roman period metal cuirasses may be ascribed to different inhumation practices to those of the Greeks and Etruscans and the fact that full muscle cuirasses may never have been produced in quantity. In addition muscle cuirasses worn by officers and the praetorian guard may not have been privately owned. 139 P. Couissin, Les armes romains, Paris, 1926, 3378, 439; J. Alfs, Der bewegliche Metallpanzer in rmischen Heer, Zeitschrift fr Historische Waffen- und Kostmkunde, nf 7/34, 16 (1941), 69126; A. Gansser-Burckhardt, Das Leder und seine Verarbeitung im rmischen Legionslager Vindonissa, Verffentlichungen der Gesellschaft pro Vindonissa, Band 1, Basel, 1942, 449. 140 H.R. Robinson, Roman Body Armour in the First Century ad, in E. Birley, B. Dobson and M. Jarrett (eds), Roman Frontier Studies 1969, Cardiff, 1974, 512, at 56; Robinson (n. 127), 1478; Tarassuk and Blair (n. 126), 148; Bastien (n. 137), 261; M.C. Bishop and J.C.N. Coulston, Roman Military Equipment from the Punic Wars to the Fall of Rome, London, 1993, 1924. Richardson offers a cogent assessment in M. Beaby and T. Richardson, Hardened leather armour, Royal Armouries Yearbook 2 (1997), 6871, observing that medieval leather armour was used in tournaments with weapons of silvered whalebone, not metal. 141 One type consists of paired metal sheets of rectangular outline cutaway at the neck and secured at the front with turning pins: Robinson (n. 127), 16061, pls 4545, figs 16370; J. Garbsch, Rmische Paraderstungen, Munich, 1978, 78, 7680, abb. 5, tafn 346; S. James, The Excavations at Dura-Europos conducted by Yale University and the French Academy of Inscriptions and Letters 1928 to 1937, Final Report VII, The Arms and Armour and other Military Equipment, London, 2004, 12022, fig. 62. Another type was made of chest-size copper-alloy sheets with high-relief busts: Garbsch, ibid., taf. 37, no. P28; I. Popovi, La cuirasse romaine dapparat de Ritopek, Belgrade, 1993. 142 W. Groenman van Waateringe, Rmische Lederfunde aus Vindonissa und Valkenburg Z.H.: ein Vergleich, Jahresbericht Gesellschaft Pro Vindonissa (1974), 6284. 143 Ennodius (473/4521) in Panegyricus VIII.5 describes Theodoric as: munimentis chalybis pectus includeres, closing his steel breast defence. The description contrasts with the ieiunas pectorum crates (frail ribbed breast [plates]), described a few passages earlier as worn by the Goths fighting the Gepids on their way into Italy. 144 Agathias (writing c. 5529) Histories I,9,4 reports that Palladius, one of Narses high-ranking generals, was armoured in an iron breastplate ( ) when fighting the Goths in Italy; the likelihood of this being solid is diminished by the fact that an arrow ran straight through his shield, breastplate and body (proof of the incredible strength of the bow arms of his adversary, according to Agathias). Procopius (De Bello Gothico VIII.xxxi.18), describes the Gothic king Totila, exhorting his army prior to his final battle with the Byzantine governor Narses, as wearing armour abundantly plated with gold. Intriguingly, in order to trick the enemy: Immediately before battle, however, he changed his entire equipment and armed himself with all care with the private soldiers equipment (De Bello Gothico VIII. xxxii.2). 145 Bruce-Mitford (n. 1), 4725, figs 354, 35961; Bruce-Mitford (n. 2), 23240. On the Anastasius dish: E. Cruikshank Dodd, Byzantine Silver Stamps. With an excursus on the Comes Sacrarum Largitionum by J. P. C. Kent (Dumbarton Oaks Studies VII), Washington DC, 1961, 57, 589, no. 2. 146 B. Gilmour, Iron Age mail in Britain, Royal Armouries Yearbook 2 (1997), 2635. 147 Frankish: O. Doppelfeld, Das frnkische Knabengrab unter dem Chor des Klner Doms, Germania 42 (1964), 15688, at 1706, abb. 11E, taf. 39, deposited c. 53040; Pirling (n. 25), Krefeld-Gellep grave 1782, 199200, taf. 53, preserved only on the inside of the earflaps of the spangenhelm; K. Bhner, Die frhmittelalterliche Spangenhelme und die nordischen Helme der Vendelzeit, JbRGZM 41/2 (1994), 471549, abb. 4 (Morken). Alamannic: Paulsen (n. 36), 136, taf. 245, 60, 645. Lombardic: Mengarelli (n. 85), 2678, fig. 147 (Tomb 90); G.C. Menis (ed.), I Longobardi, Milan, 1990, 1847, nos IV.58as, 58.at and 58bc. 148 G. Ardwidsson, Die Grberfunde von Valsgrde I, Valsgrde 6, Uppsala, 1942, 2635, abb. 23, 278, taf. 3; eadem, Die Grberfunde von Valsgrde III, Valsgrde 7, Uppsala, 1977, 23, 27, abb. 14, 22; eadem, Armour of the Vendel Period, Acta Archaeologica 10 (1939), 3159, at 228, tafn 1, 6, abb. 10, 12 (Valsgrde 8). 149 H. Stolpe and T.J. Arne, La ncropole de Vendel, Stockholm, 1927, 18 (Grave I ); 33 (Grave VIII); 39, pl. xxvii.16 (Grave X); 43, pl. xxxii.2 (Grave XI); 49, pl. xl.10 (Grave XII). The grave associations are not always clear in the original publication, but according to
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124 125
126 127 128
129 130 131 132
133
134 135
136 137
138

Ardwidsson 1942 (n. 148), 33, in graves I and XII, the mail fragments were associated with helmets; in Graves X and XI, they were probably with helmets; and in Graves I and XI she felt that there were also mail shirts. Arrhenius (B. Arrhenius, The chronology of the Vendel graves, in J.P. Lamm and H-. Nordstrm (eds), Vendel Period Studies, Stockholm, 1983, abb. 6) proposed the following dates for the Swedish burials: Vendel I (600630/40); Vendel X, XI, XII and XIV (560/70600); Valsgrde 5, 6, 7 (600670); Valsgrde 8 (560600). A seriation study by Nrgrd Jrgensen (n. 26), 140, abb. 12021, suggested the following deposition dates: Vendel I and XII (600630/40); Vendel XI and XIV (560/70610/20), Vendel XII (600630/40); Valsgrde 6, 7 (670/80); Valsgrde 8 (600630). Ardwidsson 1939 (n. 148), tafn 1, 6, abb. 12; O. Cederlf, The Sutton Hoo Ship-Burial and Armour during the Vendel Period, Journal of the Arms and Armour Society I/9 (1955), 15364; L. Paroli (ed.), La necropoli altomedievale di Castel Trosino, Bizantini e Longobardi nelle Marche, Milan, 1995, 21718, no. 168. Planig: A. Wieczorek, P. Prin, K. von Welck and W. Menghin (eds), Die Franken, Wegbereiter Europas 5. bis 8. Jahrhundert, Mainz, 1996, 8945; Gammertingen: I.W. Grbbels, Der Reihengrberfund von Gammertingen, Munich, 1905, 2, 345, taf. VII. Paulsens suggestion (n. 36), 130, that the extensive rusted iron remains at Nordendorf Grave 4 must have represented mail rather than lamellar armour must also be correct. Bhner (n. 103), 472507. Wieczorek et al. (n. 151). F. Stein, Alamannische Siedlung und Kultur, Das Reihengrberfeld in Gammertingen, Sigmaringen, 1991, 58. In the Strategikon, however, the hood is not integral with the coat but a separate coif called a skaplion. In a later passage it is recommended that soldiers lacking mail (zaba) wear the hoods of others to deceive the enemy into thinking more men were armed (Strategikon X.1). For the term zaba, see below, ns 17980. The literature on this topic is extensive; early surveys appear in Paulsen (n. 36), 12533 and J. Werner, Adelsgrber von Niederstotzingen bei Ulm und von Bokchondong in Sdkorea, Munich, 1988, 13. Most recently see I. Bugarski, A Contribution to the Study of Lamellar Armours, Starinar LV (2005), 16179, with particularly interesting finds from the Early Byzantine site at Svetinja at Viminacium in modern Serbia. To his bibliography may be added Mengarelli (n. 85), 289, fig. 180 (Tomb 119,29); the lamellae in the Crypta Balba workshops in Rome (Arena et al. (n. 63), 4001, II.4.76479); and G.V. Kubarev, Die Schutzwaffen mit figrlichen Lamellen als Indikator der Nomadenmigration in Eurasiens Steppenzone im 6.8. Jh, in M. Mode and J. Tubach (eds), Arms and Armour as Indicators of Cultural Transfer, Wiesbaden, 2006, 45384. Pace G. Halsall, Warfare and Society in the Barbarian West, London, 2003, 168, who dismisses the passage as a reflection of the fact that Agathias was a prisoner of the traditions of Greek ethnography. Cf. Camerons (A. Cameron, Agathias, Oxford, 1970, 11617, 20) more nuanced reading about Agathias attitude towards nonGreek cultures and the political motivations behind his presentation of how (relatively) civilised the Christian Franks were (Histories, I.2). As Bachrach (B. S. Bachrach, Merovingian Military Organization 481751, Minneapolis, 1972, 1318) has demonstrated, Agathias understanding of Frankish warfare was hardly perfect (at least in terms of cavalry), yet the fact that he was completely au fait with their unusual weapons, the francisca and the angon, suggests his sources on arms and armour may have been quite good. Elsewhere Gregory simply uses the late Latin diminutive, lurica, in contexts which have different implications. Some are purely descriptive of metal armour, for instance deception by exchange of a lurica for gold coins in a chest (IV.46) or a near-drowning due to heavy armour worn by a former supporter of Gundovald (VI.38). One is royal, a reference to the breastplate worn by Clovis in his victory over Alaric II in the battle near Poitiers in 507 (II.37), and another refers specifically to a Lombardic warrior, using the trope of helmet and breastplate (X.3). A further reference reports the scandalous adoption of arms by two bishops who were brothers (IV.43). Finally, V.48 refers to the excessive arms and armour worn by Count Leudast of Tours, discussed further at pp. 1045 above. On Gundovald, see Bachrach (n. 157), 545. Isidorus (Orig. XVIII.viii.13): Lorica vocata eo quod loris careat; solis enim circulis ferreis contexta est. The translation above by S.A. Barney, W.J. Lewis, J.A. Beach, O. Berghof, The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, Cambridge, 2006, 364. 160 F.L. Attenborough, The Laws of the Earliest English Kings, Cambridge, 1922, 55, 191. The law specifies that the wergeld for the life of a man is 100 shillings which the slayer, if necessary, can pay with a slave and/or a coat of mail and/or a sword. The text is not clear whether these alternative payments count individually or as a group. 161 Strategikon (n. 66), 1214 (Book I.23), 106 (Book X.1), 114, (Book XI.1). On Persian mail: Ammianus Marcellinus (Rerum XVI.10.8) and A.D.H. Bivar, Cavalry Equipment and Tactics on the Euphrates Frontier, DOP 26 (1972), 27391, at 2759. 162 The Notitia Dignitatum at the end of the 4th century lists loricaria only in the western lists (at Mantua and Augustodunum [Autun]); the latter fabrica also produced Klibanaria, as did the eastern factories at Antiochia, Caesaria and Nicomedia. Loricaria could refer to either breastplates of unknown materials or mail; klibanaria referred to the metal armour appropriate to heavy cavalry troops, but it is not clear whether these always incorporated mail with the composite scale and lamellar armour. 163 Kipek: R.Z. Betrosov, Kurgany gunnskogo vremeni u selenija Kipek, Archeologieskie issledovanija na novostrojkah KabardinoBalkarii v 19721979 gg, Naltchik, 1987, vol. 3, 1139. It has recently been argued that the lamellar helmet in the grave is Roman (M. Kazanski, Les tombes des chefs alano-sarmates au IVe sicle dans les steppes pontiques, in Vallet and Kazanski (n. 23), 193). The mail was found above a wooden saddle and bridle in this large chamber grave under a mound. Federovka: I. Bna, Das Hunnenreich, Stuttgart, 1991, 257, no. 46. 164 Ju. N. Voronov, O.K. Bgaba, N.K. enkao and V.A. Loginov, Raboty Cebeldinskoi kspedicii, Polevye archeologieskie issledovanija v 1981 godu, Tbilisi, 1984, 747, pl. CIV.4. The Emperor Heraclius (r. 61041) was of Armenian descent and his administration drew heavily on the peoples of the Caucasus Lazi, Abasgians, Iberians as well as on the Khazars: see P. Charanis, Ethnic changes in Byzantium, DOP 13 (1959), 2544, at 324. 165 M. Gorelik, Arms and Armour in South-Eastern Europe in the Second Half of the First Millennium ad, in D. Nicolle (ed.), A Companion to Medieval Arms and Armour, Woodbridge, 2002, 127 48, XI5.13 (Kazazovo, tumulus 106, Adygea, Krasnodar) and XI5.1112 (sections of mail from Verhniy Chiryurt, tumulus 5). The Khazars in the region of northern Daghestan, the westernmost vassals of the Turcs, consolidated their power around the middle of the 6th century and established alliances with the Alans in the northern Caucasus. It is possible that their mail, such as that preserved at ir-jurt in Daghestan, came from Persian sources (Cs. Blint, Die Archologie der Steppe, Vienna, 1989, 67, abb. 32.5). 166 J. Voronov, La civilisation matrielle de laristocracie apsile (la cte est de la mer Noire) du IVe au VIe sicle, in Vallet and Kazanski (n. 23), 21725, at 21920. 167 Ardwidsson 1939 (n. 148), 346, argued that the Germanic Iron Age mail armour was imported but that the later Vendel period mail and lamellar armour might have been of domestic manufacture (ibid., 446). The long mail shirt (98.5cm) fashioned with a hood and short sleeves at Gammertingen was made with riveted and solid rings in the same fashion as the Sutton Hoo Mound 1 shirt, and with rings of approximately the same size (0.85cm). These ring sizes are some 23mm larger than the best Iron Age shirts, but finer than some of the helmet mail (the Cologne princes grave aventail rings were 1.5cm, those at Niederstotzingen 1.0cm). 168 Stolpe and Arne (n. 149), pl. xlii, fig. 1; Ardwidsson 1977 (n. 148), abb. 115, 120; see also Bruce-Mitford (n. 2), 21420. The Valsgrde Grave 7 helmet remains the closest parallel for the Mound 1 helmet. 169 As, for instance, the mail shirt found on the body of the so-called Persian warrior in the siege mines at Dura-Europos (c. 256) (James (n. 141), 111, 116, fig. 52). 170 F. Stenton (ed.), The Bayeux Tapesty, London, 1957, fig. 40; cf. also the split-legged mail suits shown at 21, 24, 467, 5473. Unlike the Late Roman coats, these seem to have no front closures as they are shown being pulled off the slain warriors inside out in one piece (ibid., figs 712). 171 Bruce-Mitford (n. 1), 4659 and 44550, figs 35961; E. Crowfoot, The Textiles, in Bruce-Mitford (n. 40), 44950, 457, 460, 462, fig.
150
151
152 153 154 155
156
157
158
159
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319, SH13 (tape), wool twill (SH 1) and wool tabby weave tape (SH 23). 172 Ardwiddson 1939 (n. 148), 47. 173 T. Bateman, Ten Years Diggings in Celtic and Saxon Grave Hills, London, 1861, 312. Perhaps he was familiar with 16th-century jacks made of small pieces of iron sewn in a lattice pattern within two layers of canvas. 174 A leather greave liner was found at Vindonissa (Bishop and Coulston [n. 140], 87); the mail at Castel Trosino survived as rectangular fragments backed by leather (Paroli [n. 150]). 175 Such as the subarmalis or thoracomachus referred to in the De Rebus Bellicis (J.P. Wild, Fourth-Century Underwear with Special Reference to the Thoracomachus, in M.W.C. Hassall (ed.), De Rebus Bellicis, BAR International Series 63, Oxford, 1979, 10510). Archaeological evidence of these vital organic components is scanty, but a linen greave liner (or actual greave) fastened with leather ties was excavated at Dura-Europos (mid- 3rd century) and the scaled horse armour from the site was also backed with linen and finished with leather (James [n. 141], 111, 12832, nos 4489; he assumes that they were 5mm thick). Mail coats from a Sarmatian site (late 1st2nd century) in the middle Kuban also showed traces of leather or linen undergarments or backing (V.A. Goroncharovski, Some Notes on Defensive Armament of the Bosphoran Cavalry, in Mode and Tubach [n. 156], 44551, at 446, fig. 3.2) and a scale armour from a Severan fortress at Carpow (Perthshire) was backed by linen (J.P. Wild, A Find of Roman Scale Armour from Carpow, Britannia XII (1981), 3056). GrangerTaylor has recently suggested that the thick weft-twined linen fragments found at the 1st-century site of Masada on the Dead Sea in association with burnt scales from armour might be identified as pteryges (H. Granger-Taylor, Military Textiles at Masada: fragments of linen armour and fragments of Roman legionary cloaks, Clothing and Identities. New Perspectives on Textiles in the Roman Empire (DressID), Copenhagen, 1820 May 2008, abstract of conference proceedings available on the net at http://ctr.hum. ku.dk). 176 Dennis (n. 66); F. Aussaresses, Larme byzantine la fin de VIme sicle daprs le Strategicon de lEmpereur Maurice, Bordeaux, 1909; G.T. Dennis and E. Gamillscheg, Das Strategikon des Maurikios, Vienna, 1981. 177 T.G. Kolias, Byzantinische Waffen, Byzantina Vindobonensia Bd XVII, Vienna, 1988, 51. 178 A. Jouttijrvi, The manufacture of chain-mail, in H. Lyngstrm (ed.), Early Iron, Netvaerk for Tidlig Jernteknologi 1, Copenhagen, 1996, 5360, at 53. See also the estimated weights of Roman period mail shirts in Alfs (n. 139), 79, ranging from 7.5 to 10.5 kgs. 179 T. Kolias, , , , Jahrbuch der sterreichischen Byzantinistik 29 (1980), 2735, at 2930, suggests it found its way into the Byzantine lexicon in the Late Roman or Early Byzantine period along with k (klibanion); Kolias (n. 177), 3741. In the 10th century the term meant not just mail but also armour with plates or rows of iron rings for supplementary protection, presumably on a textile backing. 180 M. Parani, Reconstructing the Reality of Images, Byzantine Material Culture and Religious Iconography (11th15th Centuries), Leiden, 2003, 1201, believes the term occurs first in the first half of the 13th century; in the early 14th century the term occurs on a list amongst armata. Zaba may also be the etymology and origin of the protective garments (probably of textile alone), called the aba, kab, qab or kabadion in later Byzantine sources: cf. Kolias (n. 177), 547; T. Dawson, Kremasmata, kabadion, klibanion: some aspects of Middle Byzantine military equipment reconsidered, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies xxii (1998), 3850, at 3942. 181 Dennis translation (n. 66), 756, reads: If the ground is open and the air is clear, then the men should be trained not to wear their helmets but to carry them in their hands until very close to the enemy. If their shields are small, they should be carried on the chest to cover their mail coats, and their cloak should be thrown back over the shoulder pieces of the mail coat until the proper timeIn this way, then, from a distance our army will not shine at all. 182 This probably should not be confused with the term skaplia used in the text to mean a mail coif, although it often is, e.g. Kolias (n. 177), 43 and Bivar (n. 161), 291 (=aventail). The German translator of the Strategikon (Dennis and Gamillscheg [n. 176], 259) gives Schulterplatten (shoulder plates). In his translation of the Emperor Leo VIs (r. 886912) reprise of the Strategikon, Dain (A. Dain (ed.), Leonis VI Sapientis Problemata, Paris, 1935, index) translated skaplidas as petits boucliers ports sur les paules, perhaps thinking of something like medieval spaulders. The skaplidas thus seem to be between the shoulder straps of a muscle cuirass (which were of course hinged at the shoulder blades) and the metal shoulder protectors shown in Middle Byzantine art. 183 See Kolias comments (n. 177). In later Middle Byzantine texts the term refers to a waist-length shirt either of mail (lorikion alysudoton) or scale (lorikion folidoton) (cf. Sylloge Tacticorum 30.2, 31.1, 37, 38.7, 39.1). The 10th-century Book of Ceremonies (De caerimoniis of Constantine VII, 74950) also refers to the imation epilrikon ( ), perhaps a richly decorated silk garment worn by the emperor over his mail. 184 Dennis (n. 66), 114, I believe correctly, translates lorikion as body armour and zaba as mail. Cf. Vegetius (Epitoma rei militaris, late 4th or first half of the 5th century), 2.16: lorica minores, an ancilliary cuirass. 185 Bivar (n. 161), figs 67 (Ardashr defeating the last Parthian king Ardavn V c. 226) and fig. 10 (Crown Prince Shpr), both at Frzbd in Fars. 186 Ibid., 278: During the European Middle Ages, at least from the early fourteenth century, both mail and breastplate were needed to give the wearer reasonable securityThe representation of Ardashr at Frzbd shows beyond doubt that the elite cavalry of the Sasanians were already wearing both mail and a breastplate. 187 Cf. Agathias, Histories, II.5, V.15; Procopius, De Bello Persico I.i.12 15 and De Bello Gothico V.xxiii.912. See also n. 144 above. 188 Gregory may have come across the term thorax either from his biblical readings: cf. Ephesians 6.14 (the breastplate of righteousness ( ), echoed in Vita Gangulfi Martyris Varennensis 3.510: iusticiae torax inexpugnabilis,) or classical Roman sources: Livy, Ab Urba Condita, 42.61.2 (loricae thoracesque). 189 Cameron (n. 16), 38, 536; knife sheaths in Mound 1 at Sutton Hoo were twice as thick (2.53mm) as ordinary examples. The leather sheaths and scabbards preserved in later Anglo-Scandinavian contexts at York were remarkably similar in thickness, ranging from 1 to 2mm but most averaging 1.5, suggesting great continuity in this conservative craft (Cameron in Q. Mould, I. Carlisle and E. Cameron, Craft, Industry and Everyday Life: Leather and Leatherworking in Anglo-Scandinavian and Medieval York, York, 2004, 34943500; a few thicker straps, up to 3mm5mm, were found (ibid., 35003504). 190 Richardson in Beaby and Richardson (n. 140), fig. 7. 191 As recreated by the English National Trust at the Sutton Hoo site. 192 Two large torso-sized panels of leather found at Vindonissa may have been some sort of collared gambeson (the later medieval term for a padded jacket, often worn with mail or plate armour) (Gansser-Burckhardt (n. 139), 3743). 193 Horn or bone lamellar could be suspended by straps or thongs over the shoulders (cf. B. Thordemann, Armour from the Battle of Visby, Stockholm, 1934, figs 23941, 252, 254), similar to the N. Zhou and Sui Dynasty leather (or lacquer) defensive plates: A. Koch, Frhmittelalterlich Blankwaffen im Spiegel chinesischer Bilddenkmler des 5.10. Jahrhunderts n. Chr, in Mode and Tubach (n. 156), 143229, at 1469, abb. 13, 1617. James (n. 141), 11213, notes that, despite the excellent evidence at Dura, a reconstruction of a complete lamellar shirt remains impossible, so that the structure of the critical shoulder and arm areas remains unknown, as does the presence or absence of sleeves. Surviving Inner Asian suits of leather lamellae are fashioned as long open coats with separate cape-like sections over the arms and so would not require shoulder fastenings. 194 The only functional piece of leather armour from this period known to this author was found in a later Anglo-Scandinavian context in York; this was an archers brace cut down from a shoe which was 3.2mm thick (Cameron (n. 189), 3504). 195 Robinson (n. 140). A. Williams, The Knight and the Blast Furnace, A History of the Metallurgy of Armour in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period, Leiden and Boston, 2003, 9434. A cuir-bouilli poleyn (knee guard) of about 5mm thickness was defeated by a blade at 90J and a lance at 30J (joules = units of energy expressing the kinetic energy of missiles). Other specimens of hardened leather armour of 5mm thickness were defeated at 50J (blade) and 20J (lance); buff (oiled) leather was defeated at 70J (blade) and

30J (arrowhead). In comparison, horn was defeated at 120 J by the blade and 50J by the arrowhead. Linen padding alone (at 80J by the blade and 50 J by the lance) was actually more effective than leather. Fifteenth-century mail was defeated at by the blade at 170J, by the lance at 140J and by the arrow at 120J. For further linen results see below at n. 207. I am grateful to Paul Mortimer for this reference. The relative inefficiency of cuir bouilli as actual armour may explain why surviving Late Medieval and Renaissance examples are often confined to parade shields, helmets or helmet crests (cf. G. Gall, Leder im europischen Kunsthandwerk, Braunschweig, 1965, 12335, abb. 10, 12335, also abb. 100 (chamfron) and abb. 99 (a crupper/tail defence). The great majority of moulded cuir bouilli objects are decorative chests, containers, sheaths, bottles, etc. and the late 14th century references to cuir bouilli armour refer to either flat breast plates or to moulded limb and joint protectors (sources summarised in Cameron (n. 16), 267). 196 Homer (Iliad II.529); Xenophon (Anabasis IV.vii); Nepos (10024 bc) in Excellentium Imperatorum Vitae, XI.1.4, writing of Iphicrates of Athens (early 4th century bc) notes: He likewise changed the character of their cuirasses, and gave them linen ones instead of those of chain-mail and brass; a change by which he rendered the soldiers more active; for, diminishing the weight, he provided what would equally protect the body, and be light. 197 Cf. Dio Cassius (Historia Romana LXXVIII.7.2) reference to the Emperor Antoninus (in 212) fascination with early armour and the recreation of a Greek-style three-ply linen breastplate ( ). 198 Kolias (n. 177), 578. 199 Mosaic: F. Deichmann, Ravenna. Hauptstadt des sptantiken Abendlandes, Band III: Frhchristliche Bauten und Mosaiken von Ravenna, Wiesbaden, 1969, Band III, tafn 2167. Wall paintings (of 7th8th century date in Egypt): M. Rassart-Debergh, Quelques saints militaires dans la peinture copte et leurs antcdents, in Vallet and Kazanski (n. 47), pl. II, figs 23 (Qouor el-Izelia 14 at Kellia); pl. II, fig.4 and pl. III, fig. 1 (Baouit, c. 800). See also O. Grabar, The Paintings, in R.W. Hamilton, Khirbat al Mafjar, An Arabian Mansion in the Jordan Valley, Oxford, 1959, room E12, eastern wing of the palace, pl. xcviia (not described in the text). It is unlikely at this date that the depiction is of Roman-style metal lamellar, as described by I.P. Stephenson, Romano-Byzantine Infantry Equipment, Tempus, 2005, fig. 52. 200 Cf. K. Weitzmann, The Joshua Roll, Princeton, 1948, figs 457. 201 Cf. Parani (n. 180), pl. 144; Thordemann (n. 193), fig. 293 (Greek Octateuch from Smyrna, 12th 13th century). 202 M.V. epkina, Miniatiury Khludoskoy psaltyri, Moscow, 1977, nos 26, 45, 58, 60, 67, 148. In some cases separate mail hoods and/or neck protectors are shown, resembling those described in the Strategikon (I,2, 20) as a (usually translated as a gorget). This was a particular form of neck protection worn by the Avars constructed of strips of linen on the outside with wool on the inside. 203 J.F. Haldon, Constantine Porphyrogenitus, Three Treatises on Imperial Military Expeditions, Vienna, 1990, 277. 204 N. Franken, Aequipondia. Figrliche Laufgewichte rmischer und frhbyzantinischer Schnellwaagen, Alfter, 1994, 18187, CB1, CB8, CB21, CB26, CB31. I am grateful to Chris Entwistle for drawing my attention to these. 205 Bastien (n. 137), 34165. 206 M. Schmauder, Die Onyxfibel aus Szilgysomly und die Gruppe der sogenannten Kaiserfibeln, in W. Seipel (ed.), Barbarenschmuck und Rmergold, Der Schatz von Szilgysomly, Vienna, 1999, 12037, at 1256, abb. 7. These are not dissimilar to Hellenistic Greek attachment loops, see n. 73. 207 Williams (n. 195), 9345. It took 200J of energy with a blade to defeat a heavy quilted linen jack (consisting of 26 layers of 171g weight linen). But only 5 layers of linen could also fend off a sword blade at 100J, i.e. more effectively than the 80 or 90J required to defeat the leather. Lightweight linen remains today the most desirable material for fencing armour, effective against puncturing at only a few layers. 208 Bruce-Mitford (n. 1), 44551, 45865. 209 Linen tabbies account for a quarter of the surviving Anglo-Saxon textiles in Anglian and north Saxon areas, rising to a third of the textiles in south-west Saxon territories and literally half the textiles in Kent: L. Bender Jrgensen, The textiles of the Saxons, Anglo-Saxons and Franks, Studien zur Sachsenforschung 7 (1991), 1123, at 13, fig. 2; Owen-Crocker (n. 68), 1334, 171, 2923. The former has argued this reflects an affinity with Frankish as opposed to Scandinavian textile traditions. 210 Bender Jrgensens studies (ibid., fig. 2) indicate that wool textiles (at 36.3%) were more prevalent in East Anglia than linen (26.6%). 211 An experiment by the author conducted with replica clasps attached to tightly woven woollen fabric showed this to be wholly feasible. The movement could have been effected by collapse of the body (if lying on its side or seated), by human means, i.e. folding a garment alongside a body, or by disturbance within the grave (collapse of a bier or subsequent animal disturbance). 212 Kolias (n. 177), 11821; Dawson (n. 180); Parani (n. 180), 107, n. 25 and 11214. 213 P. Post, Ein Panzerfragment aus der Frhzeit der Brigantine, Zeitschrift fr Historische Waffen- und Kostmkunde, n.f. 8/9 (1943), 22539, abb. 7. 214 Cassius Dios (Historia Romana, LXXIX.3.2) remarks concerning Caracalla are of interest here: He could no longer bear great heat or the weight of armour, and therefore wore sleeved tunics fashioned more or less like a breastplate (), so that, by creating the impression of armour without its weight, he could be safe from plots and at the same time rouse admiration. Indeed, he often wore this dress when not in battle. 215 C. Brady, The Weapons in Beowulf, Anglo-Saxon England 8 (1979), 79142, at 11021. It is also intriguing that the Anglo-Saxon term searo (another word for a mail byrnie) in the plural meant arms; the Byzantine term zaba evolved into the term for collective arms and, eventually, the royal armoury (Kolias, n. 179). 216 U. von Freeden, Das Ende engzelligen Cloisonns und die Eroberung Sdarabiens durch die Sasaniden, Germania 78/1 (2000), 97124. 217 N. Adams, Reading the Sutton Hoo Purse Lid, Saxon 41 (2004), 13; Adams, The Sutton Hoo Purse Lid, forthcoming. The closest stylistic parallel, for example, for the wolf figures on the purse lid appear on a buckle found in a Germanic female grave at KlkedFeketekapu B in a Lombardic region of Hungary (Grave 85). The shield-on-tongue buckle type was in production from the mid-6th century and the grave contains other late 6th-century material (Kiss (n. 54), 2937, 2937, abb. 130). 218 E.g. in Frisia: the 6th-century belt mount and sword buckle from Rijnsberg in a male grave dated 63040 (Webster and Brown (n. 5), 190, no. 36) and the 6th-century disc on bow brooch with cloisonn comparable to that at Sutton Hoo found at Wijnaldum in a terp mound c. 630 (ibid., 188, no. 20); in England: the Wilton cross mounted with a solidus of Heraclius (Webster and Backhouse (n. 43), 278, no. 12). 219 M. Ryan in S. Youngs (ed.), The Work of Angels, Masterpieces of Celtic Metalwork, 6th9th centuries ad, London, 1989, 589. The piece also incorporates millefiori inlays and imitation cloisonn studs. 220 F. Glaser, Grberfeld der Ostgotenzeit (493536) in Iuenna/ Globasnitz, Fundberichte aus sterreich 41 (2002), 4318, at 4345, tafn 3, 5. 221 Bruce-Mitford (n. 2), 22025; Bhner (n. 147), 53349. Recently a officers helmet with crest, ear and neck flaps has been excavated at a Late Roman/Early Byzantine fort on the limes in northern Bulgaria; this dates to the first quarter of the 5th century (G. Gomolka-Fuchs, Zur Militrbesatzung im sptrmischen Limeskastell Iatrus von 4. bis zum zweiten viertel des 5. Jahrhunderts, Eurasia Antiqua 5 (1999), 50922, at 5145, abb. 4). 222 Evans in Webster and Backhouse (n. 43), 29. 223 M. Whitby, The Emperor Maurice and his Historian: Theophylact Simocatta on Persian and Balkan Warfare, Oxford, 1988, 147; one famous personality was Droctulft, a Lombard duke, Swabian by birth, whom Theophylact and Paul the Deacon record as fighting for the Byzantines against the Avars in the Balkans in 587, presumably together with other Germanic mercenaries. 224 Bruce-Mitford (n. 2), 919, 20520. 225 The grave has not been fully published, but it contained undecorated Latin crosses in sheet gold, an eastern Mediterranean jug and a folding military camp stool which find parallels in this milieu (S. Hirst, The Prittlewell Prince, The discovery of a rich Anglo-Saxon burial in Essex, London, 2004, 10, 30 and 32; L. Blackmore, Schtze eines angelschsischen Knigs von Essex, Die Funde aus einem Prunkgrab con Prittelwell und ihr Kontext,
Adams
Zwischen Sptantike und Frhmittelalter, RGA-E 57, Berlin, 2008, 32340, abb. 6, 11). Crosses: Menis (n. 147), 404, no. X70 (Cividale); Mengarelli (n. 85), Castel Trosino Tomb 119; Pasqui and Paribeni (n. 85), 1726, figs 2122. Byzantine jug: Paulsen (n. 36), 289, tafn 5, 29 (Niederstotzingen grave 9). Stool: A. Kiss, Das frhawarenzeitliche gepidische Grberfeld von Klked-Feketekapu A, Studien zur Archologie der Awaren 5, Innsbruck, 1996, 425, taf. 36 and Kiss (n. 54), 5660, 334, abb. 1722. Oexle (J. Oexle, Studien zu merowingerzeitlichem Pferdegeschirr am Beispiel der Trensen, Monographien RGZM, Mainz, 1992, 102) suggested that the men buried at Niederstotzingen had participated in the Lombardic campaigns in northern Italy. 226 The Notitia Dignitatum illustrates arms and armour as insignia of the magister officiorum; buckles appear under the insignia of the comes sacrarum largitionum and comes rerum privatarum (O. Seeck, Notitia Dignitatum, Berlin, 1876, Or. XIII, Or. XIV, Oc. IX, Oc. XI, Oc. XII). The barbaricarii and argentarii in the imperial workshops mentioned in the Codex Theodosianus decorated parade armour with gold and silver and also produced textiles ornamented with precious metals and gems; they were answerable to the comes sacrarum largitionum, presumably because their work involved precious materials that needed to be controlled. The classic sources on imperial donatives remain J.P.C. Kent in Dodd (n. 145), 3545 and R. MacMullen, The Emperors Largesses, Latomus 21 (1962), 15966; see also clarifications in W.G. Sinnigen, Barbaricarii, Barbari, and the Notitia Dignitatum, Latomus 22 (1963), 80615. 227 I. Baldini Lippolis, LOreficeria nellimpero di Costantinopoli tra IV e VII secolo, Bari, 1999, 5266, with older literature. 228 Aussaresses (n. 176), 1316; J.F. Haldon, Byzantine Praetorians, , Byzantina 3, Bonn, 1984, 95102, 12930. The palatine regiments included the emperors bodyguards, scholares, their successors, the excubitores, as well as the protectores domestici. 229 Haldon (n. 228), 31920. 230 Aussaresses (n. 176), 1415. 231 A. Greifenhagen, Schmuckarbeiten in Edelmetall, Band II Einzelstcke, Staatliche Museen Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Antikenabteilung, Berlin, 1975, Bd. II, 1012, tafn. 6970. These were composite constructions with repouss silver reliefs of frontal heads attached to a thin copper-alloy base fitted with small loops; they were found at Rittergut Lauersforter (Nordrhein-Westfalen) and can be dated to the 1st or 2nd century. 232 G. Webster, The Roman Imperial Army of the First and Second Centuries ad, Norman, Oklahoma, 1998, 132. One proposed reconstruction of the Lauersforter set inserts each loop through a piercing on a leather strap; each loop was then held in place by a twist of metal (V.A. Maxwell, The Military Decorations of the Roman Army, London, 1981, 54, 945, fig. 12). No metal twists survived and the loops are very small so it is possible that the fastenings were splints of organic material as reviewed above, p. 93, and that the straps were made of textile. 233 inhient iacentis splendori, quos non contigerit videre pugnantem, translated by T. Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, 476535, vol. III, Oxford, 1896, 194.

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What is the archaeological context of the Sutton Hoo shoulder clasps?

What is the archaeological context of the Sutton Hoo shoulder clasps?

How were the Sutton Hoo shoulder clasps created?

How were the Sutton Hoo shoulder clasps created?

Rethinking the Sutton Hoo Shoulder Clasps and Armour

Plate 1 Shoulder clasps, Mound 1, Sutton Hoo (PE 1939,1010.4-5), W: 5.4cm

Plate 2:1 View of shoulder clasps in the ground

Plate 2:2 Detail of shoulder clasps as excavated

Plate 3 Details of shoulder clasps

Plate 4:3 Pommel, Stora Sandviken, Sweden; L: 7.3cm

Plate 4:4 Buckle, Ostrogothic period; L: (buckle-plate) 5.9cm

Plate 5:2 Belt mount, Grave 7, Rdingen, Germany; L: 5.2cm

Plate 6 Buckle counterplate, Ker, Crimea; H: 4.2cm

Plate 7 Vessel mount, Grave 119, Klked-Feketekapu B, Hungary; H: 8.7cm

Plate 9 Shoulder clasps, reverse and side views; W. 5.4cm

Plate 10:1 Belt mount, Kungota, Hungary; H: 4.2cm

Plate 10:2 Buckle, Sirmium (Sremska Mitrovica), Republic of Serbia; L: 8.1cm

Rethinking the Sutton Hoo Shoulder Clasps and Armour

Plate 15 Hinged gold fitting, Boma, Xinjiang, north-west China; L. 7.4cm

Plate 19 Post-Constantinian torso, Turin, Italy

Plate 20 Sketch of the Mound 1 mail in situ in the grave

Rethinking the Sutton Hoo Shoulder Clasps and Armour

Plate 24 Chludov psalter, folio 58r, State Historical Museum, Moscow

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