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The Sutton Hoo Helm of Suffolk

Owners Note: After received my copy of Dominic Tweddle's "The Anglian Helm from Coppergate," I've gained allot of information on Pre-Viking helms and a whole new insight on some issue's dealing with them. I highly recommend obtaining a copy of the book if you are interested in any of the helms listed below. Some of the information below comes from said book. Better pictures of the originals and their line drawings are on the way! Contact me with any questions you may have regarding any of the info below!

Sutton Hoo is an estate near Woodbridge, Suffolk, England, that is the site of an early grave of an Anglo-Saxon king. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, "The burial, one of the richest Germanic burials found in Europe, contained a ship fully equipped for the afterlife (but with no body) and threw light on the wealth and contacts of early Anglo-Saxon kings; its discovery, in 1939, was unusual because ship burial was rare in England" (Britannica). It is believed that this grave or cenotaph belonged to the East Anglian King Rædwald, who died in AD 624/5. But it has been suggested by the person that is associated with most of the work on the dig, R. Bruce-Mitford, that the helm was of some age when buried and may even date to the first part of the 6th century.

The cap of the Sutton Hoo is of a single piece of metal with a face mask that is rigidly connected and loosely hinged metal plates for check/neck protection.  The helm appears to be of Swedish origin but is definitely highly influenced by the late roman ridge helmets. The crest of the helm is half round, decorated with hatch marks and ends at both ends with decorative boars heads. The eyebrows are triangular and  hatched. This is probably because it lack the deep concavities that other helms have that help outline the eyeholes. The rest of the eyeholes are formed by the face mask.  The eyebrows appear to be an upward facing winged animal that is viewed from above so that it appears that its body is covering the nose, the eyebrows are wings, and the tail is the upper lip, ie it not only forms a mans face but a bird in flight! (see the pics above)

The cap of the helm is subdivided into decorative "fields".  These "fields" are framed by applied moldings. Many of these "fields" are filled with decorative appliqués of several differing motifs, some examples of the various appliqués are shown below. They are of course cast and made by Sir Raymond of Raymond's Quite Press as foil art or appliqués art wouldn't last long in SCA combat*.  Just the amount of decoration that went into the helm itself is amazing. It has gilding, inlaid garnets, inlaid silver wires and tinning that all gave the helm a rich polychromatic look. It is considered a Group B1 by Arwidsson's classifications.

 

Over the years there has been some speculation as to the origins of the helmet. Although it is influenced by the Roman cavalry helms there are also some remarkable superficial similarities to many of the Valsgarde/Vendel helmets. In fact there is some data that suggests they may have came from the same workshops but there are at least two significant differences that suggest the helmet in Saxon rather than Swedish, such as:

1. The most important difference is that the cap of the Sutton Hoo is forged from a single piece of iron rather that sectional or made of strips (as are the Valsgarde/Vendel helms)
2. The Valsgarde/Vendel helmets DO NOT  have solid iron face masks, side flaps or neck guards, instead they employ a bronze visors and systems of mail curtains and/or narrow irons strips for ear/check/neck protection

It is only in surface decoration that the Sutton Hoo clearly displays its Swedish ancestry and it is entirely possible that the craftsmen were Swedes working for the East Angle's or that the dies used to stamp the foils were Scandinavian. Subsequently, the shield boss of from Sutton Hoo is also remarkably similar to some of those found in Valsgarde/Vendel graves, particularly shield 1 of the Vendel X11 grave. If the Sutton Hoo boss wasn't actually made in Sweden then it was most certainly made by Swedish Armourers.

*Some of the pics on this page are from Sir Raymond's, from  Raymond's Quite Press, website. I highly recommend Raymond as Ive done business with him MANY times and am extremely pleased with his work ethic, his craftsmanship, his devotion to reasonably priced reproductions and he's just really pleasant to deal with! I must also let thank him for letting me use some of his pics on this page as examples. --Halvgrímr

 

1. Tweddle, Dominic. The Anglian Helmet from Coppergate. Council for British Archaeology 1992

2. Evans, Angela Care, The Sutton Hoo Ship Burial