A small steel object found by a detectorist on the Danish island of Tåsinge could rewrite the historical past of the famed Sutton Hoo helmet. The piece is a stamp often called a “patrice,” used to hammer a design into a skinny sheet of steel, and it bears the picture of a mounted warrior that’s similar to a design on the Sutton Hoo helmet. So comparable, in truth, that it’s doubtless that the helmet was produced in Denmark, not in Sweden as has lengthy been believed.
The Sutton Hoo helmet was fabricated from iron and lined with sheets of tinned bronze accented with gilt iron and gilt bronze. The sheets had been stamped with patterns generated from 5 completely different dies, two for the zoomorphic interlaced motifs, three for the figural scenes often called the “Dancing Warrior” and the “Rider and Fallen Warrior.” The latter is the design discovered on the Tåsinge patrice.
The helmet was produced within the late sixth or early seventh century, and was believed to have been made within the Uppland province of Sweden, the place different helmets embellished with each warrior motifs have been discovered (helmets 7 and eight from the Valsgärde ship burials, helmet 1 from Vendel). An virtually similar (albeit mirror-image) design can be discovered on the Pliezhausen bracteate, a gold medallion mounted onto a disc brooch discovered within the seventh century grave of a girl in Reutlingen, southern Germany.
The helmet was present in tons of of fragments within the 1939 excavation of the Sutton Hoo ship burial. They had been puzzled collectively for the primary time in 1945-6, however archaeologists went again to the drafting board for a second reconstruction in 1970-1, and that one has caught. The 5 designs had been recognized within the authentic reconstruction.
Evaluating the motif on the newly found patrice from Tåsinge to the mounted warrior on the Sutton Hoo helmet and people from Sweden, it’s clear that the Tåsinge patrice is far nearer to the one on the helmet than the Swedish motifs.
Similarities will be seen within the particulars, such because the cuff on the warrior’s wrist, the warrior’s hair, the almond-shaped harness becoming on the horse’s head, its reins, the sword protruding beneath the warrior’s protect, and the ‘bunions’ or circles on the toes of the person mendacity down. The Swedish equivalents have a wild boar or fowl of prey on the helmet, one thing not seen within the Sutton Hoo helmet or the brand new discover from Tåsinge.
There are fragments from a second mounted warrior motif on the Sutton Hoo helmet, however so few of them that it hasn’t been doable to reconstruct it. Components of this second design are a powerful for match the Tåsinge patrice: the traces subsequent to the rider’s foot and the sting of the protect of the fallen warrior. Not one of the different motifs on the Swedish and German artifacts have these traces subsequent to the foot and the Tåsinge stamp matches these two parts from the Sutton Hoo fragment precisely.
If the Sutton Hoo helmet was truly made in or round Tåsinge this is able to change former understandings of the function Denmark performed within the energy steadiness in Northern Europe across the yr 600.
No traces of the magnificent burial websites found in England and Sweden from this era have been present in Denmark, which has led some to conclude that the Danish area performed no important function.
In response to Peter Pentz, nevertheless, the brand new discover establishes a a lot stronger foundation for pondering Denmark was comparatively highly effective throughout this era, possibly even one in all Northern Europe’s main powers.
